Arlington ISD Board of Trustees Meeting - February 20, 2025

001oh [Music] he [Music] he [Music] a [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] hey [Music] w m [Music] for [Music] w [Music] for [Music] n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n oh [Music] a [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] a [Music] he a [Music] oh oh oh [Music] oh oh oh oh oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] n [Music] e [Music] it is 6:57 and I will Rec reconvene into Open Session this meeting of the AR lton ISD Board of Trustees on February 20th 2025 thank you all for joining us tonight our board meetings are open to the public and we welcome everyone and thank you for participating in public education while our meetings are open to the public this is a meeting and

002we do have business to conduct disruptions will not be permitted and anyone who disrupts the meeting or speaks when others are speaking may be asked to leave or be escorted out by a security attending the meeting we welcome Civic input but insist that we remain respectful and civil at this time please join Mary Mar l seura in leading Us in the Pledge of Allegiance 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 with liberty and justice for all honor the text Texas flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one State under God one and [Applause] indivisible all right you may be seated and now we'll have a moment of silence thank you I'll turn it over to our chief

003Communications officer Anita Foster to introduce our student of the evening president Chapa members of the board Dr Smith another round of applause for the wonderful Lulu from Morton Elementary School Lulu is a phenomenal sixth grade student joined tonight by her family her mom and her brother um also Arlington ISD uh one employee and an early college high school attendee so welcome to you guys as well and proud principal Lee Adams from Morton Elementary School now let me tell you just a little bit about Lulu because she is a very very active student she is an excellent sixth grader at Morton she loves to learn and read all kinds of books her favorite foods duh or mac and cheese and mozzarella cheese sticks from chilies is that right Lulu I I share that with you she

004loves drawing and making jewelry at home but at school she's really busy because she's part of the M the Morton Mustang choir the scribblers Riding Club the art club and the soccer club so thank you again for coming tonight and doing our pledges for the Arlington ISD and thank you family and thank you Morton Elementary thank you all for coming out tonight and it's great to hear about all the things that you're doing at Morton at this time uh it is our open forum for agenda items Miss crosso do we have any requesters registered to address the board regarding agenda items tonight president Chapo we do not all right thank you miss crossno all right siga family you're welcome to stick around if you'd like but we'll start the meeting our regular meeting now and

005uh if you'd like to leave you're welcome to do so okay we'll move on to our committee and staff reports we have one report this evening Arlington ISD Staffing study report and I'll turn it over to Dr Smith as we invite Mr kale to come on up and introduce our guests tonight I want to um thank the board for allowing us this year to really dive in and examine some of our practices throughout our system this is one of the things that we uh have done and talked to you a little bit about so far wanted to report on out we had Mo Casey conduct a staffing study for us in two phases tonight we're really talking about the first phase and give us some um comparison District data for us to look at and

006how we're staff in Arlington ISD thank you good evening president Chapa members of the board and Dr Smith it's my pleasure to introduce Lloyd Graham from Mo Casey uh he's going to share with us a market-based staffing analysis they've done uh for us in Arlington ISD and this is information that we ultimately use uh to consider our internal recommendations regarding Staffing ratios for subsequent years so Mr Graham please come up president chappa ladies and gentlemen of the board Dr Smith thank you'all for having me I'm Lloyd Graham and if y'all will forgive me I brought this little bottle of water with me because I some years ago was blessed with stage three head neck and throat cancer and might get a little dry when I speak so if it sounds to y'all as if I've

007been day drinking I assure you I have not been okay it's just uh it it gets a little dry so uh I'm not here to tell you what to think but I am here to tell you what I think you ought to think about and it's not all at all it's never been important to me as a superintendent it was my privilege to be a superintendent in this state for 25 years and it was never important to me that my board thought alike it was always important to me that my board thought together and to be able to think together then you have to have accurate objective information and that's what we're attempting to provide this evening but before I move forward one of the things that I would like to make sure that everybody

008understands is that when we look at Arlington we see forethought if not preent thought in the manner in which you've handled your finances over the years and so we see no cause for alarm we do see a pending uh change on the horizon we do see constriction on the horizon for Arlington as we do for many school districts in the state but I don't see anything that is causation uh that the causation for the issue at hand is not Administration and the boards but the response is and we'd like to help you and we'd like to inform the response if we may I'm not technologically literate so I'm going to see if I can get this done once again I'm Lloyd Graham uh superintendent 25 years and I've been at moases since I've retired five

009years ago we've done a number of these Staffing studies uh this year probably in excess of districts significantly uh close to y'all's size probably 15 or 16 of them and we see lots of Trends all the way across the state our comparison group uh which we had one of our analysts take a look at who we thought your comparison group ought to be and then we work closely uh with Mr kale and Miss Floris uh superintendent's office to n to narrow it down to five comparison districts and I certainly would like to thank certainly like to thank Scott and Melody if I may for the attention and the response that they have given to us as we've done this study your comparison districts are Fort Worth Garland Grand Perry Irving and Mansfield here's the enrollment

010of your peer District so you can see the size of them and you can see the trends you can see you know Fort Worth on top Garland is slightly below y'all y'all are the the darker blue uh line with the the dots on it and you can see that really there's only one District Mansfield that's starting to slightly Trend up and that Trend it doesn't appear to be meaningful at this point in time but it is a slight Trend up Staffing profile your Staffing profile if you want to take a look uh you were 8,073 in 2019 2020 8,054 in 23 24 and I think 8170 in the fall of 25 and one of the things I'd like to draw your attention to is that little thin yellow slice in the middle which is your

011executive leadership of the district with the exception of the two covid years or the Esser years it's been relatively flat and that's one of the things that speaks to me when I look at Arlington ICD yall are extremely lean at that level of employment in this District forgive me students students per total staff ratio ladies and gentlemen the red Line's going to be the region the black line is going to be the the state and the blue line is going to be Arlington and this is students per total staff yall are below both the state and the region in t in students per to Total staff and you will see that you've now taken a downward trend of course you understand where your enrollment has been headed students per teacher ratio we took a noticeable

012dive uh from uh 2122 to 23 excuse me 22 23 to 23 24 uh you're at 14 to1 and that would be a district-wide average that's below both the region and the state number of students per campus Administration and Leadership when you look at the number of students per campus Administration and Leadership you can see that y'all are meaningfully above student load to campus Administration above the state and the region we've taken a a shift down for the year that's refle for the last two years reflected here I don't know if that is um is driven by student decline or the fact that we may have added an administrator on a campus somewhere but irrespective uh your student load per campus administrator per campus administrator is meaningfully above your region and your State Central Administration

013and Leadership ladies and gentlemen when we take a look there and you can see the state let's call the state 500 we can call uh for 2324 Arlington at 1761 we take five off that leaves 1250 so y'all got about 250% uh of the number of children per Central Administration as the region or the state back to my earlier comment about being extremely lean in executive leadership in this District number of students per educational Aid this is of interest to me because this reflects in my mind the load and the changing demography of your students in your District irrespective of whether or not students are declining our student per our student per Aid load is dropping and I think that has to do with the need our children bring to school when they come to

014us now if we take a look at your demography and the way things uh the way that stratifies out I think you'll find that that bears up bears up that observation students for auxiliary Personnel y'all are kind of in The Sweet Spot there I would say that small decline from 22 23 to 23 24 is that th th000 student decline in enrollment teaching experience I did some math on this earlier and of course I have forgotten it uh but if we look at beginning teachers y'all are right at the mean average for your peer group the state and uh the region one to five I would make the same comment you may be slightly below the average for everyone um but so your front-end teachers if you take 25% 10% you're about 35% of your

015staff is on the front end of 5 years when we come 6 to 10 and 11 to 20 I didn't bring my notes up forgive me but when I take a look at 22 A2 and 27 A2 that sounds to me like 50% of your faculty is in The Sweet Spot all right from 6 to 20 years bless you uh 21 to 30 y'all are right at the right at the mean for the group to include the state and the region and over 30 y'all are right at the mean and so I think you'll have a nice stratification of experience in your District but we all know with all due respect to my mother who taught third grade until she was 71 that the um the the older the average tenure of the faculty becomes

016the more that that cost and then that's not a discriminatory comment on my part it's just an observation youall have a very nice stratification of teaching experience high schools student enrollment on a five-year Trend these are your Arlington High Schools you can see your average you can see that your average enrollment has declined over the years and with the exception of sigin almost everybody is on a Down downward a slight downward decline in students we look at one high school from each of the five peer districts you can see the size of them you can see some decline you can see one that's relatively flat but we don't really see anybody uh in the high schools that we felt in the peer districts most closely uh resembled your districts that are on an upward Trend

017so it's not a phenomena that's just uh belong to Arlington alone middle schools and we're going to talk about students per teacher ratio for just a little bit my belief and please disavow me if I'm wrong is that we staff our middle schools at 24 to1 and even Staffing at 24 to1 when we look we don't really have any pupil teacher ratios above 14 and a half for the current year some more meaningfully below that you can see the the dotted line and the average uh being at 13.2 or 13.3 but to me with the exception of one Middle School in there uh and I that may in my mind and I don't mean to misspeak that may be the middle school for which picked up the sixth grade but I could be incorrect about

018that Mr kale will correct me later but you only have one that has increased in enrollment over this period of time student for Teacher ratio at the element Elementary School ladies not knowing ladies and gentlemen not knowing a better way uh to break up your elementary schools Mo Casey did this by geography because if we'd put all 53 of them up on one slide we'd never been able to see anything every slide here reflects the U average of the elementary school pupil teacher ratio which is a dotted line but also the district average which is a solid black line and we we are staff uh at 22:1 through third grade 24:1 excuse me 22:1 through 4th grade as I recall and 24 to1 at fifth and sixth and you can see that we don't have

019anybody in this chart that is meaningfully above 16 in these five elementary schools I would make the same comment about the next El group of elementary schools and once again our average is about slightly less than 14 to1 for the district and 14 to1 for students at elementary schools we have two elementary schools in this in this group the red school and the green well excuse me the green school and the blue school which have tendered up slightly in the red school a little bit but when we take a look our pupil teacher ratios are meaningfully low so I think we have a tendency to think it we staff at 22 to1 or we staff at 24 to1 that that's what we're going to see when we look at averages because of the way things

020work we get to 45 or 46 and we split classes it just doesn't it just doesn't work out that way student for teer ratio on these five I'd make the same comments on the next and here although we see two with upward Trend I see two maybe three here with an upward Trend in these schools but everybody is tightening toward the mean here these schools in this neighborhood of the not neighborhood but in this corner of the geography that we garnered are are the tightest I think to the main here we go again one with a sharp increase y'all will know your schools I will not know geographically uh how they work together we have some schools here who pupil teacher ratios are above the main and who one is trending slightly upward the other's

021trending slightly one above the mean trending slightly up one below the mean trending slightly up but it's interesting to me that this neighborhood of schools this trunch of schools that we have um a three of the five if not four of the five I guess four of the five if I look at the colors above the main average key findings ladies and gentlemen yall have prepared well there are no there is I need to say once again there's no need for panic or overreaction or anything else but change is going to have to come to Arlington because the smallest hole will eventually drain the largest container youall have a large container and y'all managed well uh but um if we take a look at if we kind of Define the problem overall employment levels have

022not meaningly decreased from 1920 until October 2024 they've not and then October 2025 you're actually up I don't know 130 40 kids over 23 24 but I'm back to my change in demography and the change in the needs of the children enrollment decreased by 6,194 Peri uh students during the same period and that's a 4-year period if you look at 20 through 24 it's five Benchmark here but a 4-year period now this is not exactly how it works this is just to demonstrate the scale at 100% enrollment and assuming every one of them had no weights whatsoever 100% attendance and assuming there were no weights whatsoever on a child you take your basic allotment from 2019 of 6160 times 6100 60 children that's 38 million if you were to adjust that number for inflation it

023would be sign significantly higher even after you adjust for attendance that inflation adjusted number even adjusted for attendance will eventually take your breath away AISD Central Administration student per Personnel ratios is that said incorrectly AISD Central student per Personnel ratios are the highest in the selected comparison group number of students you have the lowest number of central administrators but you have the highest student per forgive me that is on me in the way that that is said and that is incorrect and I will say this to you and I say this anecdotally and it's not on this slide but the op Temple of the executive leadership in this District I think has the opportunity to occasion inefficiency because of the pace that I've seen everybody run at around here and I mean that just sincere

024and I've been in schools for a long time uh and so you need to be proud out of the work that those Folks at the executive level are doing and at some juncture they may actually need some relief as noted the total employees increased by 97 it Bears knowing it Bears noting that the categories of employees within the total are noticeably shifting gened to sped Ed those kind of things noticeable shift in demography our low SCS numbers those kind of things that are beyond the control of the local Board of Trustees and often beyond the control of our our parents we believe that the cator categorical shifting of employees may be responsive to the shift I just talked about a student demographies and and the needs and challenges they represent we can't know that for

025certain I think additional study is required but I do believe that that's causation opportunities for Meaningful staff decreases exist in consideration of instructional schedules at the comprehensive high schools and may well exist in the middle schools as well we did study the delivery schedules the instructional schedules at the high school we will not speak to you about efficiency because efficiency assumes you can measure the outcome and I don't have a way and I would argue that many of us don't have a way to measure the educational outcomes of the Investments you're making in schools to to use the word efficiency but we can talk about the we can talk about the dollars and Investments That You Use and we can talk about the efficient use of the schedule and so this is this would be

026an efficient use of the schedule or suggested change in the schedules at the high school there would be meaningful staff decreases there our preliminary findings regarding elementary schools lead us to see value and detailed schedule and programmatic Analysis there as well this study did not go deep enough to know that and I'm not trying to upsell you I just think that there's some opportunity there we believe a needs-based instructional in instructional support Personnel allocation model is appropriate for AISD the shifting demography of your children and and I don't mean that in a pejorative sense but we have to see it we have to feel it we have to look at the burdens that children come to us with that are beyond their control beyond the control of their family should the 89th legislative session not

027yield significant direct Financial relief there could be no doubt much more meaningful significant changes await not just AISD but most of your peers in 2627 we say that all the time if there's no relief coming this session changes will come I believe this work uh that you need incremental changes for 2526 it's on the horizon incremental changes to attrition to schedule balancing to things like that I think your superintendent is uh very um insightful and foresightful to say what we're doing now as I would understand is working on thinking about 2627 and some of this work so once again there's no cause for alarm no cause for panic or anything else but we do need to stop and think about where we are and I would say to you that everything needs to be on

028the table because it doesn't do you any good if the hole's on the other side of the boat okay as we think about it um ladies and gentlemen I'm Lloyd Graham I'd be glad to answer any questions you have thank you Mr Graham trustees comments questions Mr willbanks we good thank you Lloyd um if you could go back to slide 27 and this I can sir this question might be more appropriate for our CFO yes sir 27 so in here to talk about the possible U loss in Revenue yes sir you multiplied the decrease in enrollment by the basic allotment but if you look at um Arlington ice and our total revenue divided by from the state divided by um our enrollment our enrollment it's more like uh 10,400 given all the other allotments that

029we get given our population B so would it be fair to say that it's not really 38 million in loss but more like 65 million I what I would say to you sir that no weights were considered here you know from that standpoint most assuredly this is not reflective of all funds to your point not reflective of federal funds and title money and all those other types of things although if you look at the percentages of your budget that you spend on certain areas we did do all funds there to your point what I can say to you sir that if you take this number and you add it the 6160 today is5 is $754 adjusted for inflation and so if you do that and if you use a 90% attend uh average daily attendance

030you can see that that comes down and if you were to add all other funds to it I would not argue with your your number at all uh Mr willbanks I would not so and that would I I could probably prove it up but I would rather uh I'd rather M Ms do that but we're talking about almost 10% of our um actual budget yes sir so yes sir Mr Mike you start talking sorry Mr Graham will'll have to forgive us we're we're um implementing board book tonight as well you know I love that thank you for your patience no I I am technologically challenged I work for the best administrative assistant in in Texas for 10 years she was an enabler uh I don't snap face I don't do Twitter I don't do any

031of that stuff and so I'm I'm very patient with technology snap face thank you sir for the presentation I just want to refer to um page eight of your report regarding the number of students per the central admin and Leadership yes sir um so here's the thing I've you know you hear around town from people who aren't active in school issues but they always say that we have too many Central admin versus students but this data shows that we are not operating the same as the state or in the district are we an anomaly or is this a common occurrence that you see with school districts Well here here's what I would say to you is that it's and forgive me because this may be an egocentric comment given I was superintendent for 25 years

032it's an easy thing to say that that we're too heavy at the top and at 315 lbs talking about me that could be true but but that that's an an easy thing to say this is your executive leadership level this is not to include everybody that works in this building and we're in the process of taking a look at that and Mr kale and Miss Flores and and Miss Moss are helping us with those things but no sir you are you are an anomaly I think that you are this is Lloyd's opinion iion uh I think you're too lean and I think when you get too lean I believe what happens is that out of self-defense people end up in silos and you end up with Silo departments that are acting out of self-defense doing

033the best they can do and you and maybe and I don't know this but may have uh Mr Mike uh practices that were appropriate 15 years ago that aren't appropriate today that technology may have helped with but if you don't have executive leadership by that I mean cabinet level leadership ship that has the ability to go talk look I didn't see anybody that didn't already have a full-time job so I'm not trying to add to the superintendent or his executive leadership's plate but I think y'all are anomalous because these are the pe's codes that line up for the region and the P's codes that line up for the state and this is public data so then that brings me to my second question which I think you've kind of answered is this sustainable this type

034of leanness that we're doing you know often I get asked what time it is and I tell how to build a watch and so you've asked for a succinct answer and no sir I think that the thread bearness I see across this building from interviews and from walking and looking we had a team of four of us in here uh for a couple of days I don't think it's sustainable now uh I I really don't I don't think it's I don't think it's sustainable from the standpoint to give you the the Roi on your stewardship you know there there if you don't how do you deal with the anomaly when it comes up if if you're already booked for 10 hours that day you know or how do we go back and take a look

035and and just visit and look at the data and present things I mean I think it's systemic alignment is required uh I do that across all departments not all excuse me not across all departments across many departments but across this this facility so my argument would be is that the thread baress of un unsustainability is already apparent it's all that thank you for your question sir thank you Mr Mike are there other trustees with comments or questions Miss Richardson Mr Graham I want to tell you thank you for your presentation um and mine isn't a question but more to say thank you because it aligns with something that um the lady on the board and Dr Smith got to hear in Austin this week um one of the representatives James too was speaking and one

036of the things he said was and it remind me of what a comment you just said we have to have everything on the table and he implored us that we have to go home look at the facts and tell the hard truth no matter what it is we have to tell the community the truth I don't think we ever don't tell our community the truth but I do think even for myself I tend to have on the Ros sunglasses and think it's going to be okay it's going to well the truth is we need to look at what's going on with uh what's going on down in Austin and what our future looks like so I appreciate that you congratulate us and tell us your quote was we are um exceptionally lean and we have

037prepared well but change will have to happen but we don't have to panic and panic is what we see a lot of the districts around us doing right now and they're scraping to to figure out what to do and so I'm thankful that we don't have have to figure that out but you you again remind me we have got to we've got to take a big look and we have to be willing to share what we learn so thank you you you do uh ladies and gentlemen not to make things anecdotal but it it you know everything's about me but uh anyway it's uh was my privilege to study with Barbara Jordan at the LBJ School of public policy in seminar only but y'all are faced with ethical decisions and she defined an ethical decision

038this way she said an ethical decision is deciding the harm you must do that if there's no harm in the decision then it's just a managerial decision for which there's a matrix to make a decision by now I don't want you to say well that man said you're going to make decisions that harm people I don't mean that I don't that's probably what the Fort Worth Star Telegram is going to say tomorrow but that's not what I intend but this is not just Matrix and not just numbers There's real humans here and yall have the opportunity because the preent manner in which your executive leadership is engaging this to get to the size that is sustainable through normal attrition but you've got to start now and then you've got to look across to your point

039you got to look across all departments and and get every mosaics are beautiful things but they're individual tiles ju deposed together and if you drop one it shatters and what you need and where your superintendent is taking you is to a tapestry of uh that is woven that will stretch that will cover and that will protect and by my estimation the common threat of which is love because I haven't met anybody in Arlington that doesn't love kids one last and this is a question for you yes ma'am what were you pleasantly surprised about Arlington Isa when you did our report was there something you were pleasantly surprised about yes ma'am nobody had a negative thing to say about the district nobody had a negative thing to say about their Department nobody had a negative thing

040to say about the board or about leadership and everybody loved this place and everybody understood that their job was to focus on children and serve children and and that when we talk about the pupil Administration being anomaly that's anomalous you know it's never the kids it's always adults and we we did not I didn't interview everybody we had a retired building principal with us a retired special ed director with us we had a retired uh high ranking uh business official with us and then we had meet and uh and as we interviewed and looked and as we looked for emerging themes with our qualitative research the Common Thread we found was love for this place and that's a very pleasant surprise thank you other trustees that comments or questions tonight miss Valor is joining us

041virtually Miss Valor do you have anything this evening all right no questions or comments from Miss fer I'll turn it back over to Dr Smith I just want to thank Mr Graham and mo Casey um you can see I'll tell a fast story for the board as a uh young District administrator long long time ago no just kidding as a young District administrator I got to hear Mr Graham in an aspiring superintendent uh cohort that I was involved in and the way he led as a superintendent and the way he leads this work now you can tell what he's passionate about and it's the same thing that we're passionate about alignment for the best interest of each and every student that we serve so thank you for your work and thank you for helping us

042study and um try and get ahead of some of the tough challenges that we have facing us so we appreciate your thank you for your kind words D thank you for your time thank you for having me in your school where you understand every head is a world of of its own every child is a genius that would be the pleasant surprise I found here and I close that way by saying that often we're saying the right things and in the wrong language and we don't understand each other so we have to find common language I think the Staffing report I hope uh leads you toward a common language in this discussion uh president shaa ladies and gentlemen of the board Dr Smith it's our privilege to be here and thank you again for your

043kind words thank you Mr gr all right we'll move on to our action items this evening we have four action item a is consider approval of Staffing ratios for the 2025 2026 budget I'll turn it over to Dr Smith trustees um I'm going to invite Mr kale up and Miss Melody Lopez up this is uh and I apologize this is rather new to me I don't know that I've ever brought Staffing ratios to a board before uh I don't know that it's outlined in policy but I do know it's practice here in Arlington ISD and so I invited Scott and Melody to give you an overview of our staffing ratios and some recommendations that we have at this time thank you Dr Smith good evening again introducing Mellie Lopez she's our director of HR customer

044service one of her primary responsibilities is to manage our staffing processes um throughout the year including both the Staffing process now in the spring and then uh the leveling process that we go through once the school year started so I'm going to turn it over to Melody good evening thank you president choa Board of Trustees and Dr Smith for having me today to speak about our staffing and our proposed ratios for the 2526 school year so the purpose of this presentation is to provide the Board of Trustees with an internal analysis of Staffing related data and recommend to changes to District Staffing ratios for the 2526 school year and that would be based on Market information and we also aim to present the administration's recommendation for approval of District Staffing ratios for the 2526 school

045year so this first slide is intended just to give an overview of how the Staffing process works so our practice is we assign the number of teachers based on our projected student enrollment and we assign those teachers and how many teachers that campus gets based on our Board of D ratios for that grade level or area so as an example if we're operating on a 24 students per one teacher ratio and we have a projected student population for first grade as an example of 48 students then we would assign two FTE for that grade level more often than not the number of students does not equally divide into that ratio itself and so the student to teer Ratio or the class size will be below what the board approved ratio guidelines are so using another

046example for still sticking with that ratio of 24 to1 if you have a projected student population of 54 students that would actually aot three FTE because if we're looking at an average Stu student class size of 27 at two FTE um that would put us above that 24:1 ratio so by allotting three FTE that gives us to an average student class size of 18 yes that's below the 24:1 um but it's just how the math works out so this chart here is to provide a historical background of how our student to teer ratio has changed over an 11-year period starting with the 2014 2015 school year you can see in the second column the student enrollment has gradually declined you can also see the total teacher FTE um in the count of those FTE has

047also gradually declined however you can see in the fourth column the student to teer ratio that ratio is calculated by taking the total student enrollment dividing for that year divided by the total teacher FTE for that year that's how you get to that average student teacher ratio for that year so you can see that that actual ratio itself has declined during this time period and with that compared to the 20145 school year we were at 15.6 now this year in 2425 we're at an average of 13.8 which essentially just means that we have more total teachers compared to our student enrollment than we did um in the 2014 2015 school year the state average student to teacher ratio for reference is approximately 14.8 so we're currently at 13.8 we also calculated what the average student

048to teacher ratio has been over this uh the course of these years that came out to about 14 and a half and what we did was if we we took a comparison if we took our current teacher ratio of 13.8 compared that to the 14 1 12 11-year average ratio uh that essentially means that we are including an additional 182 teacher FTE for the 2425 year based on the teacher midpoint cost that would include an additional 12,996 2,418 uh we did a similar calculation for the state average at 14.8 um so in the same method the 14.8 State average ratio versus our current ratio of 13.8 means that we have included an additional 305 teacher FTE and again based on that midpoint cost that means an additional 21, 67,68 so again enrollment during this period

049has declined approximately 20% um teacher FTE have declined just not at the same rate they've declined approximately 6% and so that is why you see that student to teer ratio has gradually declined to that 13.8 for this year this was a visual that we wanted to provide to show how the trend is looking as far as the special ed student enrollment so you can see the the large bar here is the total student enrollment over this 10-year period beginning with the 15 16 school year um the our total students uh for that qualify for special ed services are that smaller gray bar and you can see that there is a gradual increase in number and then you can see that yellow line shows that there has been an increasing Trend in percentage or proportion of

050our students that um are enrolled in special ed services so you can see there's a a gradual increase over this time period similarly we have uh the same visual for specifically our special ed teacher FTE and so you can see that Although our special ed teacher sorry our total teacher count uh has declined over the same time period our special ed teacher count has increased over time and so you see a similar Trend uh the sped teacher FTE trend is also mirroring our special ed student enrollment so that goes back to Lloyd's Graham's reference that there has we're seeing a a bit of a demographic shift in this way so again just getting more uh into the specifics specifically for our special ed students uh in this 10-year period uh that enrollment has increased by

05132% we are slightly higher than the state average at approximately 11.6% the state average is 10 10.3% our special ed programs do offer off operate on a lower student to teacher and ta ratio compared to our non-sp specialed programs and those ratios depending on the program those can range anywhere from 6 to 20 students per one teacher and then with every teacher that could be between one and one or two um additional Tas um to pair with that teacher and so again because of the increasing trend of students that qualify for these special Services the district has seen a notable increase in the number of our special education FTE compared to our total um teacher count um that has increased our as far as our special ed teachers um that trend has increased by approximately

05226% during this same time period so just some additional special ed Staffing information uh currently our Gap pair professionals um those act as classroom assistance to support campuses with social emotional strategies to work with our students with behavioral needs so a lot of times you have a student that's in a specialized program like all curriculum or ispd these par professionals are there in the classroom to help um with with students that have those behavioral concerns um we have seen an increased number of student referrals the majority of those referrals have been related to those behavioral concerns and so with that the demand for this support um for the support has increased and in the same way with our C's classrooms uh the district has seen an increase in the number of students with intense behaviors

053in the Seas program and so with that again the demand for that support um in that classroom uh to support those students has increased so to provide a few takeaways from the mo casc Staffing analysis uh that Lloyd Graham uh very generously provided uh the district did experience a student enrollment decline of approximately 11% during a 5-year period so that's comparing the 201920 school year with this current school year and despite the declining enrollment the district has increased by approximately 97 employees since that time our current student to teacher ratio is lower than State average as we've mentioned um currently we are at at 13.8 last year we were at 14 State average is anywhere between 14.8 15 so why are the student class sizes often below the district Staffing ratio guidelines so for elementary

054you know prek through 4 we operate on a 22:1 ratio we see class sizes with you know 15 kiddos or 18 kiddos um you know why is that as an example so these are just some contributing factors as to why um why that average teacher ratio is impacted and that does fall below what the guidelines are so as we've mentioned our sped teacher ratios are lower than our non-sp specialed teacher ratios uh we also have teachers that are funded out of stank comp Ed or title funds and so those funds are allotted outside of the normal ratio um to provide that additional support that the students need and then we also have additional teachers that are granted for programmatic reasons um this is not an exhaustive list this is just some common factors that can

055contribute to that we have some examp of programs listed here again this is not comprehensive um but at least gives you an idea of um some of the impacts that go into programming and providing the services um that the district is offering to students and the additional teachers that are allotted for that so when we're looking at peer comparisons for our junior high level um looking specifically uh for Arlington compared to some neighboring districts currently Arlington ISD operates on a junior high ratio of 24 students per one teacher so when we're looking at some peer districts you can see that Arlington is notably the lowest Grand Prairie ISD is the second lowest at 25 the other thing that we wanted to point out is when we're looking at our own internal ratios these are the

056current teacher ratios that we're working with as of today so our pre through fourth grade ratios operate on 22 students per one teacher then you can see for fifth and sixth grade it jumps up to 26 students per one teacher uh then you see a decrease for junior high which is grade seven and 8 to 24 students per one teacher and then it jumps back up for high school at 29 to1 so you can see that it does a dip after fifth and sixth and then it jumps back up for high school so our recommendation is to adjust the district's Junior High ratio from 24:1 to 26:1 as far as the rationale um as we've said fifth and sixth grade ratio that's already at a 26:1 um however the junior high ratio is current operating

057currently lower than that uh last year the junior high ratio was increased from 23 to 24 when we're looking in peer districts Arlington I has a very comparable ratio for Elementary and high school uh however it is clear that Arlington n does have a lower ratio currently for junior high compared to these neighboring districts if there was a change in ratio and it was modified to be at that 26 to1 then that would essentially yield an estimated reduction of approximately 27 teachers FTE and that would result in a savings of approximately 1,920 400 102 and that's essentially based on our teacher midpoint cost um it's really important to note that any potential Staffing changes from this ratio would be addressed through attrition so in addition to the junior high ratio proposal uh we also have

058a proposal to modify some of our special education Staffing ratios so the first proposal would be to modify our C's teacher ratio from eight students per one teacher teach to six students per one teacher um in implementing that that would result in approximately two additional teachers we also propos to modify the special ad C's en able classroom assistant ratios from two Tas per one teacher to three Tas once the class size reaches five students so it would be if we were to make that change um and that was approved then at that point it would be about the class size and not necessarily how many teachers are in that classroom If This Were to be implemented it was result in approximately 12 additional uh ta positions we also propos to add one Gap Seas classroom

059assistant for each Learning Community currently there's a total of four learning communities and so by adding one at each that would result in approximately four additional Tas so both of those recommendations that I just mentioned specifically for junior high in special ed ratios um those are actually embedded in our staffing ratios grid for your consideration this evening so we'll go ahead and move on to that grid so the way we have this formatted is um it is a grid on the left hand side is the are the ratios that were uh that were proposed to the board and approved last year on the right hand side shows any proposed changes if there are no proposed changes for that area we've just IND ated it as unchanged and if it doesn't apply for that area we

060have it marked as na so for ease of visibility we have highlighted the proposed modification to the junior high Target ratio to go from 24:1 to 26 to1 and that summarizes uh the changes for this slide so looking specifically at our special education ratios uh you can see that there's already some established ratios here based on what was approved from prior uh from the prior year uh we do have uh what was mentioned as far as the modifications for our sped teacher and season aable ta ratios listed here uh so the elementary te teacher C's teacher ratio is proposed to go to Six students per one teacher our elementary C's Tas are proposed to go to uh three Tas once a class reaches five or more students uh same with able classroom assistant and then

061adding an additional Gap C support so that would be a total of two Tas per Learning Community all of the other special ed ratios listed on the Le hand side um are proposed to be unchanged okay for our campus Administration principals Academic Deans assistant principls um and also counselors uh we have no proposed changes to those ratios for our campus support uh we also have no proposed changes on this slide I will note that there is just a there's merely a correction for the athletic coordinators the district has been operating with two athletic coordinators uh at each at each high school and so you can you can notice there that's just been adjusted corrected to two instead of one as far as our additional campus support uh we have no proposed changes uh to this

062slide so to conclude the Administration has developed Staffing ratios that ensure Equity among all campuses and programs based on projected student enrollment and program offerings these ratios maximize the district's allocation of resources to most effectively meet students needs and so with that the administration recommends that the board approve the Staffing ratios for the 2526 budget cycle and school year as presented all right I'd be happy to entertain any questions thank thank you do I have any comments or questions from trustees I have a few coming in we'll start with Miss mcmo thank you president Choppa and thank you for the presentation oh man both of my screens just went black um can you go back to the slide with um the third and fourth fifth and sixth and then Junior High breakdown I'm so sorry

063I can't see yes um so just for clarify ification these are ratios and I I noticed that in fourth or sorry after fourth grade it goes up to 26 then it comes back down a 24 yes and this might be a better question for you Dr Smith I'm not sure but is this due to the fact that we have a different class cap once students reach fifth grade or is it the nature of being seven eight campuses it's going to bring it back down or is it both coming into play excuse me and uh I'll invite Scott and to come up and and help answer too these are not class sizes these are Staffing ratios right this is the uh what the administration has presented to the board in the past and the board has

064approved over a number of years I guess that I mentioned earlier I'll just be frank with everyone I in the past districts I have not brought these to the board for approval we had a baseline understanding of what we staffed at in the district and we adjusted appropriately to meet the needs of our school district this is what you've had in the past and this does not mean your average class size and I think Melody went through in the slide earlier and talked specifically about all of the things that are considered in average class size and when you compare that with the mo Casey report and you noticed our average class size at the junior high level is actually lower than at the elementary level in most cases as well so this is based on

065what you all have approved in the past this is is the way we've allocated staff but you see the result of the class sizes in the mo Casey Staffing report that was given to you I'm so sorry I think my question was unclear I'm trying to figure out the root cause um I I understand what we've approved but I'm I'm trying to figure out how it goes up and then back down again I understand it it's a it's a product of the evolution of consideration of the ratios over time and different decisions that have been made at different levels so for example the uh pre K through four is a state mandated mandated ratio so short of doing something different with depart uh District of innovation that's why that's there and then fifth and sixth

066was something that was elevated um in the last few years uh but we did when we elevated that we only elevated Junior High by one additional student in that ratio well at the same time in previous uh modifications it was approved to raise High School up so it just it lost its continuity of the slope in just the evolution of changes that have been made over the years so when you say we elevated at 56 do you mean we elevated the class cap I mean we elevated the ratio okay mathematical ratio we used to do Staffing and figure out how many teachers are afforded based on projected students okay um I I had and you don't have to go all the way to this slide I just had another question I love the idea of

067additional um or additional support for for our students who receive services from C's and able I think that that's been I think that's been an Ask of teachers and I think that that would provide additional supports to a growing population of students we serve um that one's a no-brainer for me as a board I don't want to speak for everyone but I think that we can share a common understanding that we we're not always crazy about just increasing class sizes so what other context can you guys give us what insurances can you give us um AISD specific that the junior high ratio adjustment would be appropriate and I I never I'm never crazy about increasing class sizes so I want to know all the context I can I understand and I also recognize that there's

068a whole lot of information that's been put up there in the last 30 minutes or so so the junior high and I'll I'll let Melody pipe in if she feels I'm missing something but there's a few things in terms of of consideration when you combine the information that Mr Graham provided through Mo Casey and the market data and the comparatives of how are junior high ratios compared to other local districts were at the very low end when you look at our particular um internal slope and I I think you you notice that right away you can see it's more of a roller coaster than it is a linear Trend and so it's it's about trying to be Market competitive to manage the allocation of cost without doing something undo uh comparatively to other schools in

069our region um we think that there's also something to be considered which is you're taking students who are getting accustom to a 26:1 ratio in fifth and sixth grade in our current system you're dropping them down by two only two years later to bring them up by another five so there's not really a natural progression in terms of the student experience it's I'm not saying that's the end all in terms of the justification but it is a contributing factor in addition to the comparatives with other districts so there's nothing unique about like the junior high master schedule or courses that would be additional context like I I'm just trying to figure out I I know we have 78 that's own facility and I know that the the class ratio what we're doing is is keeping

070with Trends I understand that but is there any other context we as trustees can have in an assuring us that this would be appropriate for a seventh or eighth grader to have that class size and I I I'll jump in on a couple of things one and I'll invite Dr dala up because he can give you the you know exact Junior High experience um to be able to answer some of that about this but I I have to go back and remind that that is not this is not class siiz that you're adopting right and so you you saw what our average class sizes are right and you saw that they are out of alignment with even your elementary schools in the district and so to to answer your question I think if we talk

071about the student experience that we want at every grade level in our system we have to constantly think about how we allocate resources in order to create those student experiences we believe we have some flexibility to do that at the junior high level and continue to use our resources wisely and that's what you ask us to do okay yeah you want to give any yes thank you um and trusty MCM thank you for actually bringing up this slide and I want to thank Dr Smith and Dr Collins and Mr kale for giving me the opportunity to solicit some feedback from our Junior High principles and we asked them you know I said hey we're at 26 to1 with our fifth and sixth graders we're at 29 to1 in our high school schools what's your recommendation

072and I just gave them the floor and some actually said 27 to1 some said 26 to1 some said 25 to1 I think this is a pain a pinch point right nobody really to your point nobody's excited about increasing class sizes but we also understand that there's a trend here that we kind of need to to assimilate into um we also understand there's some pressure points and to your to your point this is going to cause a little bit of pain at the junior high but there are a lot of things that we can do do to support our campuses our principles have asked that I'm going to be working on that to ensure that we make that adjustment um as smooth as possible so I don't know if that if that answer your question or

073if you had any other questions I think that answered my question thank you okay okay um next on the list is Miss Haynes thank you so I think in all the commentary maybe some of my questions have been answered but just to clarify for me um in Arlington I know that we are below the average with our class sizes for junior high can someone give me a number it may have been in your presentation I'm not sure on what our actual class sizes are in like just the a like a number is it 18 is it 14 is it I don't have that information off hand do you have a good estimate I can pull it up for you so if I missed it somewhere I'm sorry I just wanted that clarification and then um

074so it sounds like you spoke with principles about this that was my question and what what was I you kind of danced around their consensus so I I'm I'm curious what they thought I'm curious what this means for our lower performing Junior highs that you know this a really junior high is hard in general and it's a struggle bus and I think increasing class sizes might just you know amplify that struggle yes ma'am um so to to answer I think there's two questions mle questions right and so the one I hear about is our is our lower performing campuses um and our campuses with a high need and I think that there's different ways that we support them not just by the ratio I think that there's some asks there um you know you get

075to a certain point where the ratio doesn't work right enrollment and we talk about Junior High in seventh and eighth grade and the enrollment is low enough and and Melody and I have already had those conversations Miss Lopez and I have already had those conversations about what does that look like when you get to a certain threshold where you can't staff at ratio you've got to staff at a bare minimum you know I need two seventh grade math teachers I need two seventh grade rla teachers I need certain number of coaches and so those were some of the the pressure points that we talked about as far as the consensus I think you know um I think we had one that was at 27 to1 most everybody else was at 26 to1 and and we

076went very transparently as principles you have to own this piece because it affects your campus and what do you feel like is most appropriate and that's that's what they came to be was 26 to1 okay and as a district we're prepared to support all the campuses but especially those lower performing ones with increased ratios absolutely okay Miss Haynes I think I have an answer for you and and I very much appreciate the question because I think it is insightful U to see the comparative so whether you're thinking about today at 24 as a ratio or 26 and as we've been talking about that actually being different than the actual average number of students in the class today the average for our Junior highs um student is teacher ratio is 13.1 and there is no campus

077with an average of over 14.1 okay so even our low performing Junior highs have low class sizes is what I'm hearing the average is not higher than 14.1 in any of our Junior High campuses yeah okay thank you yes ma'am thank you Miss Haynes Mr Mike sorry this new technology um yeah I do have a few questions with this proposed change um do we have any idea of any potential negative impacts to learning that would be a great question for um you know I can talked about research from Hattie and talks about class sizes don't have that much of an impact but I think I would tell you more so that I think the change overall if you schedule correctly is negligible um when you talk about number of sections right so there's that first

078slide that um I think Mr kale presented out which talked about if you go from one section to two sections and the three sections but if you spread it out over a junior high with 40 to 50 sections you don't feel it as much that's why when you look at a ratio of 24 to1 and then the actual class average is 13 to1 that's probably why you see that whereas when we go to 26 to1 you're going to see that increase I don't want to I don't want to guess on the math but you're not going to see as as impactful if your master schedule's built correctly and so uh my other question following that up is um I can understand the benefit for the district but I'm still trying to figure out the benefit

079for the students if that makes sense I think it just goes back to you um Mr kale touched on this a little bit I think the rationale behind the recommendation was essentially looking at our peer districts and looking at Market um and so that's where a lot of that justification came from um when we're you know doing our internal comparisons and then also looking to seeing what our neighboring districts are doing if we're um significantly lower and um you know the impacts to you going from 24 to1 at Junior High all the way to you know 29 to when at high school um and you know it's again like Mr Kill said I I don't think it's a a be all end all but that was part of the rationale okay and then as far

080as good can I add on to that so I think in the presentation you also saw the slide about the increase or the uh Improvement in ratios in special education so there's offsetting of some of these things we have to be able to assign staff in the areas that we need it the most and so when we find efficiencies like this we have the ability to also look at other areas where we may need to increase Staffing like in special education okay so that's the benefit to students and all of that as well and and then um I've just got two more questions uh with regards to teachers this this increase do we have any idea whether that would impact their ability to teach the students effectively you want to speak to that I think

081the answer to that is no I don't I don't think that that is out of the bounds of asking a teacher what they can do in the classroom if we're talking about increasing 05 students basically in a class do we always want to keep class sizes as low as possible absolutely but we also need to manage our resources and be able to assign it where it's needed and we believe that we have other areas that we could assign specific spe ific staff and all of this and and then with these numbers um are these numbers going to be just hard numbers across the board or are we going to look at the needs of the particular campuses and those classrooms and then adjust accordingly so the the ratio uh metric is is a Formula however

082we've never taken the position that we ignore the student need when it when it presents itself so on the one hand we understandably don't go into Staffing as just an open and in negotiation because that usually doesn't go well in terms of the ratios and the and the formula but at the same time I'm hopeful that there's a collective understanding that when a case is to be made that we're doing the wrong thing by students that we take a moment to consider what we need to do differently in a campus by campus basis if it applies okay so that thank you Mr Mike Mr W Banks you're next thank you president Choppa and um going back to the offset uh I think Miss mcmo mentioned this but we know that the behavioral issues in some

083of our um sped programs uh have become greater in the needs for support have become much greater I hear about that a lot from our uh teachers and our parents of sped students that we need more resources there and so I think uh making the tradeoff from Junior High to those extra resources where there's a high need right now and also considering the fact that once you apply the ratios because you know what Melody said earlier when you do the division it 26 doesn't divide even evenly into 72 and you've got four sections and right or three sections um and so you're going to end up with maybe not 13 .1 but 14 so are we going to equival over one student per teacher additional when I think you know going across the country that

084what the uh what the actual Junior High teacher is dealing with is usually much higher than that so um that is a trade-off that I'm willing to make because we know the need is there and um we are out of the line com with our comparison districts and we've got to be tighter and more efficient with our taxpayer dollars without adding burden to our teachers and adding one more essentially one more student per class room for those teachers I don't think is asking is not adding a burden at all so I mean it' be different if the numbers came out and there was actually going from 13.1 to 26 in a classroom that um and that's not going to be the case no it's just all right thank you Mr will Banks Miss fower I

085see that you're wanting to speak I'm gonna I've got Miss Richardson here and then I'll go to you good evening guys good evening um couple of just questions um as you know we YouTube our meetings where people can watch and as we sit up here on the dis I don't know about my colleagues but my phone is going off and here is what I direct want to tell you there is no way this is a direct quote there is no way it's 13.1 to 14.1 in our Junior highs I have teachers sitting here advocating saying we absolutely have higher numbers than this what do we do as trustees when we come in a meeting and you're telling us oh no absolutely not it's under 14.1 it's between 13 14 we have Mr Graham showing us

086our numbers and our scales but then we have the people in the classroom saying we absolutely do have more numbers than this and if we raise it even more what's going to happen can you help me understand that so I'm going to try and answer that okay I don't think anybody's intentions and any of that Circle are ill I I think that the people who may be texting you or in the community or in the in the classroom see what they see when you're in the middle of of a particular portion of information a data set a subset the class you're in the class that's across the hall um and it's a little bit higher than that I'm sure that's real but what we're describing is the average and we know from pe's data that

087we track every student we know where students are we know what our numbers are we know what our data is we've come up with the same numbers that an outside Consulting company's come up with so it's important to understand first of all I don't believe anybody's misrepresenting anything and I don't think anybody's giving an account of anything other than what they believe they're actually experiencing but I think the difference is on average as is what we're talking about and on average across the entire school so on average across the entire school and I've got the data chart in front of me that comes from what I believe to be solid information the average of all of our Junior highs is 13.1 and there's not a campus with an average higher than 14.1 does that mean

088that there's not a classroom that has 10 in it and a classroom that has 20 21 it doesn't mean that but the average is the data that we're talking about so as we have these teachers listening tonight who they are not the average they are the teacher who does have the 20 in the classroom and all they're hearing is great now I may take on two or three more and when you trusty willbanks when you say like one student is that going to make a break for some teachers it might it could be that that is there a cap we are looking at so so there's been no cap introduced as part of this formula per se okay what there is is this this thing we've been talking about which is this for math formula

089which is ratios um we know that the average number of students because of the way the math works and we've been talking about it tonight is much lower than the ratio itself just based on how the number divides out okay one of the other things I know um Dr Dava dala you spoke to the fact of talking to principles and I love that you went and talked to them is there a way though we get to talk to the teachers in the classroom to hear what they are saying because at the end of the day they are the ones there is there a way to find out what their feedback is or is it are we too far past that I think I think that has to do a lot with our staffing calendar so

090here's what I I hear you and I understand his administrators and specifically the super intendent you assigned me the duty of allocating resources meaning staff members across the district to staff our schools what you're approving tonight is the ability to assign for each School a number of teachers per student that's what this is and then we build master schedules at a campus to meet the needs of the campus absolutely we're going to have some classes that are 22 25 some classes that are 78 it all depends on programs and offerings throughout our our school district on some of these we have had this conversation as a board and as a team of eight specifically about we have certain classes that we know are lower in class size in our system that makes the other classes

091be higher so you're your teachers will say that and they're absolutely right but when we look at allocating staff across the system and that's what you are ask that's what we are asking you to allow us to do tonight is to be able to allocate staff across our system based on this ratio and then we work individually with each campus to develop a master schedule that appropriately meets the needs of the students would I like to see every class at 10 students or less absolutely that is not the reality that we live in and the implications that you're asking about are uh absolutely a concern that we have but do we survey every teacher to ask about that class size the answer would be no and I don't know of any District in the state

092that does that no I I know that you have done really well Dr Smith since you came here about doing um and I'm going to misuse term it was cloud share Cloud think you did something and really getting feedback and so I just want to make sure that we hear from our teachers and our principles thank you for doing that um I want to remind people that they can sign up and speak to these issues and don't feel like they don't have a voice because we do have an open door policy you are wonderful and you lead by example we can do the same thing I love that you have included the SP teachers and seeing what we need there um Mr Graham I know you stood up and you're at Arms ready to come

093up is there anything you want to add based on the questions we've asked I mean if you have Clarity and wisdom that's we that's why you're here to help us thank you all for allowing me to come back up I appreciate that I try to listen critically without criticizing I have no doubt that Dr Smith's point point that if a teacher is contacting you now and he or she has 20 or 22 or 23 that's a result of a 24:1 ratio and I haven't heard anybody say I mean so you want to know if there's a cap is I would understand the Staffing ratios now the cap is at 24 to1 at the junior highs and you're being asked to increase it to 26 to1 and a 24 to1 cap at the junior high is

094currently yielding for 23 24 the last publicly available data we use publicly available data so it can be verified uh has a 13.1 average and a 14. whatever max if you forgive me I don't have the number in front of me and so that's not to say that a core English 7th grade class doesn't have 21 children in it that's not to say that a core math class or or eighth grade Algebra doesn't have 22 children in it but if you've got a cap today at 24 and you don't have classrooms with 24 in them then I think you have an artificial cap that could be raised that could help save some money now my belief is this is that it is absolutely the quality of the teacher and the quality of the lesson that

095matters it it truly is I'll take my chances with my grandchildren with a shade tree uh a Blackboard and a highly qualified teacher with an aligned curriculum with 25 kids before all the technology you can give me if I don't have the first the highly qualified teacher and so we're talking about averages and moving averages and by my estimation when we look at what I I frankly I consider the 24 to1 at your Junior highs to be artificially low I think 26 or 27:1 I don't want to speak in Industry standards but to me feels more like you know an an average size but I don't think that drives every size every class to 26 we're at 20 to 21 to 24 we've not studied your middle school calendar instructional schedules the way we did

096the high school schedules you can take a look at the I mean your leadership is taking a look at the study we did on the high school campuses you're not going to find those ratios uh you know you're not going to find anybody up against them I don't think if you do it will be few and far between so it would pain me for anyone to think that I was the least bit genu disingenuous about the 13.1 being average day 14.2 being the cap because all we have in the public data is average and so you know so we take your cap we look at it that's where we are and I would say if a teacher's got and I'm look I love teachers I I'm married to one my daughter's one my mother was

097one she thought I went to the dark side when I I got an administrative certificate but that having been said if if we're yielding 20 to 22:1 with a 24 to1 cap right now then fact of the matter is a 26 to1 Cap May yield 24 to1 which is where the board wanted to be 10 years ago I guess I've overt talk that questions comments concerns no I what I go back to is what would this do for us recommendation when we look at those numbers that would have a result in a Savings of over $1.9 million that is big and sadly our state has put us in a position where these are the type of choices we have to make yes ma'am and I don't want anyone to misunderstand that you are here recommending

098this because you just think class sizes should be bigger and that's what would serve them better we all know that is never what's going to serve them better again we are making hard choices and we are hearing hard data based on decisions made at a state level that right now we don't have control over that is correct once again y'all don't own causation but you do own the response to it absolutely you know I've never believed that boards would be judged by injustices that were visited upon them by means beyond their control but I do think you'll be judged by your response to them and so the questions that y'all are asking I take absolutely no issue to and I know Dr Smith doesn't okay they're they're they're wonderful question questions thank you thank you

099for allowing to ask questions and you know like we all do we're elected by our constituents that they ask us these questions and so that's why we ask them publicly as well as as they should ladies and gentlemen and Dr Smith I'm sorry you gave me the microphone president chaa so I I fently believe that that informed respectful disagreement is the oxygen of democracy but it has to be informed and it has to be respectful and it can't be informed if you don't have somebody from you know presenting you the data and it can't be informed if you don't ask the hard questions I don't think anybody here takes offense to that whatsoever thank you all very much thank you again Mr Graham thank you m Richardson Miss fower you've been waiting patiently it's your

100time thank you president thank you president Choppa I am thrilled to to finally hear that we're going to get our specialed teachers some additional um help in their classrooms I think we have needed to do that for many years and I'm so glad that that we're leaning in that direction um I I do realize that ratios can be a little misleading because I think as as I've heard people say there are some classes that are small smaller by nature and some classes that are just larger so I think it kind of skews the ratio just a little bit as a teacher and as a former junior high level teacher I never want to hear that class sizes are going to be increased even if it's two students per class if you're teaching eight classes a

101day that is 16 additional students per day that's almost like a whole new class of students and and especially for those poor English teachers because I am one trying to teach writing and you know 16 extra kids is a lot and I know that a lot of our discipline problems come from our junior high and I think part of that is number one their age that's why I don't teach Junior High anymore but number two if those classes get too crowded it just makes for for discipline problems and so I I hate to think about adding more kids into a class that could possibly EX esperate behavior issues and and that's a concern for me I never want to see us increase sizes I I would like to see us try to figure out something

102else I realize we could save a million dollars but at what cost teachers are already stressed enough students are already packed in classrooms I think that may be one of the reasons why parents and students are looking for other forms of education so I just want us to to be very very careful um in in increasing class sizes especially at that junior high level um but but on a positive note I'm thrilled to learn that we will be adding more uh teachers and teachers AIDS in the Special Ed I think that's very very necessary but I just want us to to kind of pause and look before we we jump on there and uh increase class sizes thank you thank you Mr fer Mr will Banks thank you president Chapa um and Mr Kell uh

103hopefully you have this number available um Melody provided the um cost savings for at the junior high what is the additional cost I don't recall seeing that um on the special ed resources yes we have that information so uh based on the proposed sped ratio adjustments we talked about that would be a total of uh for TAS um not yet teachers 522,000 64 estimated uh costs for the teachers um specifically the C's that we proposed um that would be an additional $142,400 that comes to a total of $664,000 thank you Mr wanks are you do you still have further questions no okay all right any other trustees with comments or questions all right I I do have a couple of of things um Mr kale when we I remember I've been on haven't been on

104the board I feel like that long um but we've been through this a couple times and one of the big changes we made early on when we were when I was on the board and we had very similar concerns raised was we start Ed for the first time granting class siiz waivers for the 1 to 22 ratio at K through 4 and at the time we were told as a board that when we did that that the teachers if they were ever out of ratio would get some sort of additional compensation I know it wasn't a lot but we were one of the only districts in the area to do do additional compensation for granting a class life waver do we still do that yes go ahead yes sir we do for uh for specifically

105in in accordance with that state mandated ratio specifically for prek through fourth grade um if a teacher is has over the 22 students in that class uh they would receive that additional pay right and and so and and we're also a district of innovation but and many of the districts around us who have exercised their District of innovation rights have done so to change the preek through grade four ratio from 1 to 22 to 1 to 24 even higher correct that is correct some of some local districts are using their DOI for the purposes of modifying the state man mandated K through four ratios yes for us to do it we'd actually have to go back through that process again but uh it is it is feasible should we choose and other districts are doing

106that and that's and I just want to I just want to flag that because I feel like we have been down this road before of looking at ratios making very difficult decisions and and we have I think been very selective about what we've done and when we've done it and how it is implemented in a way to minimize the impact on our staff I um recall Al when we increased the ratio for fifth and sixth grade and that was another difficult decision and many of the concerns that my colleagues are sharing here tonight were shared were shared then as I look at the data that's in front of us I I'm I'm really torn and I really struggle because I do think it's a mistake to um maybe say that this has no impact on

107teachers in the classroom because any time we're going to change a ratio and it's a higher ratio somewhere somebody is going to have more kids in their class it's just the fact the matter that's a real thing as a former teacher it was always harder when I had more kids in my class than when I didn't but I had classes that ranged from 12 students to 35 one year I had almost 40 right but so we have to look at averages across the board because there's lots of factors that might go into play on why one class might be lower than another for particular PE teacher on a particular campus in a particular subject dealing with things from that may have nothing to do with with this ratio at the end of the day it

108may be the number of Title One funds that it that the staff has it may be that the district's made a strategic decision to allocate more staff for a particular purpose on that campus and that brings that ratio down even more um I I I at the end of the day I will support this change and the reason for doing that is I feel like to miss Richardson's comment we are in a really difficult position here um we are no longer in the world where we can just um look at something think and say that that's a small enough change financially or it's not worth making or any number of things but at the end of the day I think what we're facing today is one on I think something that is very important to

109me is we have increased ratios in the past and the data that we've seen tonight is that despite those ratio increases our elementary campus especially our average class sizes are the class sizes that when I first got on um Financial Futures committee many years ago we were really pushing for smaller classes at the elementary level and our average class sizes understanding there are variations on campuses are still despite the ratio increases where we would generally like them to be they're low enough that we they are in the low range of where you can start seeing meaningful change for students who are like the students that we serve and that hasn't changed despite two ratio increases I mean effectively now for K through 4 we do Grant class siiz waivers pretty routinely at this point so

110I think effectively we're a little bit above one to 22 is a matter of practice um we certainly went up to 1 to 26 but still the numbers tonight give me a lot of hope that this implementation will be just as thoughtfully done as the ones that we've done before and that on the whole it will we will still have class sizes at a manageable level um despite I'm not going to minimize like there will be I'm glad that Dr dollar you got up here and said there will be some pain because that's the truth but counterveiling that pain is a situation I feel like we're in today found out this morning that the house bill the house education bill is that we're hoping will save us from the terrible Senate version of the bill

111is only allocating a proposed $220 increase in the basic allotment we need almost $1400 increase to go back to the purchasing power that we had just 5 years ago it doesn't look like we're going to get help from the state we're part of a Consortium called Council of great City Schools today they put out a buletin that the federal House of repres resentatives introduce their Appropriations bill for Education which proposes a dramatic cut to Title One funding and proposes to virtually eliminate title two and title three funding the state is also in the position of about to pass a voucher program that the governor finally admitted last week is probably going to like every other state that has a voucher program probably going to siphon money away from public schools I for one am starting

112to worry that there's no Cavalry coming when it comes to our finances and we we already know that staff has done a fantastic job this year to close the $25 million deficit that we adopted last June so we've taken care of this year but everyone up here knows that we've got a structural deficit due in large part to the fact that we've lost over 10,000 kids in the last 10 years that we have to address we at some point have to rightsize the footprint of our district both on a facilities eventually and Staffing side and we can't keep kicking the can down the road because like I said I'm not sure if there's help coming in a significant a significant enough substantial meaningful enough way to Forstall these decisions I think this is a responsible

113proposal from the district district Administration has a history of thoughtfully implementing these in a way to minimize the pain not make it pain-free but to minimize the pain and I'm really excited about the special ed changes that we've been talking about for a long time so I think that given where we are now and all the variables at play I'd never want to be in the position of putting more kids in a teacher's class but that's this the Dilemma that we're facing today and in large part it's not of our own making and the folks that are going to be on the front end of implementing it have a long track record of trying to do this the right way so that's where I'm going to fall out tonight thank you president choa if I

114may I just wanted to add one quick comment to that it may be self-evident to all of us here in the room but myself included certainly no one for a moment thinks that teachers don't have exceptionally challenging jobs no one and certainly including me believes it's something that doesn't go without uh very deep consideration of adding even one student to a staffing ratio I think you've for what it's worth in my opinion characterized the reality of the situation that we're in exceptionally well it's a difficult situation and we're trying to figure out how to best allocate the resources that we are working with to best serve the collective needs of students across the district whether it be a junior high's element eles high schools sped or otherwise in special programs and it becomes very personal

115when you happen to be the teacher that that ratio goes up to and I completely understand it the challenge is looking at the bigger picture what is in the collective best interest of all of our students across the district and it's just some hard choices it's very hard choices and and we're only going to get I think more hard choices that are going to be bigger and harder than than this one unfortunately yes sir um but I think thank all of you for the work that you've done for the information you given us tonight um and unless there's more comments or question I I will go ahead and make a motion um I'll move to approve the proposed Staffing ratios for the 2025 2026 budget subject to approval of the final budget is there a

116second second I have a second from Miss mcmo trustees will move to vote Miss fer when we go to vote I'll call for your vote trustees please vote Miss fer can I have your vote I vote Yes all trustees present have voted in the affirmative Miss fer votes in the affirmative so all seven trustees vote in the affirmative the motion carries thank you thank you very much our next action item is Item B consider consider approval of a resolution authorizing participation in an interlocal agreement and delegation of parameter authority to the superintendent and Chief Financial Officer off for the procurement of electricity services Dr Smith I'm not sure if Miss Moss would like to say anything or Mr horn would like to say anything as you all recall we had this on the agenda back

117in I believe June and this is where we have the ability to um have the procurement of electricity services for the future to lock in low rates we go through a process to be able to get that low rate and um adopt that and basically have a if I remember right a strike price that we see I got a thumbs up a strike price that we agreed to and hopefully lock in low rates for the district for the foreseeable future to save us some significant money so this is uh in front of you for consideration again we did not find the savings that we wanted last time so we did not take action and again this would allow us to take action if needed but we are not forced to take action on this okay

118are there any comments or questions from trustees on this action item seeing none I seeing one I have Mr Mike and I don't know if this is um just speculation or if can even be answered I noticed that there was a drop of uh 1. 431 from June 2024 to July 2024 do we expect to see the same or similar drop after June of 2028 or do I'll have to rely on Mr horn on that one wish I knew that good evening so the the answer to that is we don't know exactly it's it's entirely possible so when we purchased uh when we purchased energy back in 2016 roughly 2016 uh the timing was good to buy further out we bought that that particular agreement almost four years in advance so when we can take

119a a demand that we a large demand like we have and push that out in the future it lets it lets the the the vendor that that Garners that contract it gives them the ability to go back to the the supplier really and say we have a large book of business and and just kind stability for them lets them know that that there's demand for that and it stabilizes production out into the future so uh we about a year later we realized that it was a good time to consider doing it again and pushing it out further because Energy prices were had dropped and so uh so we did that and then and we bought from 24 to 28 and we're in that contract now and so it's always advisable when you're a large District

120like ours to buy future to buy out in the future and so um we we will look at this spring if this goes through we'll look at this spring there's usually a time in the spring and then a time in the fall and so that's the reason for the the eight-month period out to December of 2025 and we hope that that's the spring uh it's been a I know it's cold right now but it's been a rather mild winter with with the grand scheme of things we've not had any huge storms that ice storms things like that and so uh so we would hope that that coming forward here in the in the in the spring ear the earlier part of the spring it might be a good time to buy again if not though

121we'll push it to fall and we'll look for that good window um if we felt like or our our energy consultant felt like it was good to consider coming back to you again and buying because Energy prices are favorable then we would bring that back to you for consideration but it's always about time timing and and uh and what that demand is for for our for our particular load all right thank you Mr Mike any other comments or questions from trustees seeing none do I have a motion I have a motion potentially coming from Miss Haynes yes thank you um I move to approve the resolution authorizing participation in interlocal agreement and delegation of parameter authority to superintendent and Chief Financial Officer for procurement of electricity all right I have a motion from Miss Haynes

122is there a second second I have a second for Miss Richardson we'll move on to vote now trustees please vote and Miss valer can I have your vote I vote Yes okay all trustees present vote in the affirmative Miss Fowler votes in the affirmative so the motion carries unanimously 7 to zero we'll now move on to action item C action item C is consider approval of acting on the sale of real property at 2424 Hedge Apple Drive Dr Smith I I actually let him sit down where I think I need him to come on up and make sure he explains this to you and why you have to take action on that I apologize Kelly but Mr horn will explain real quickly on this one for yall thank you is my pleasure so uh recently

123we brought to you uh for cons your consideration uh the Surplus and sale of the property that we call 2424 Hedge Apple uh we advertised that after that authorization to do so and put it out for bid we only had one bid at that time and uh and it was below market value significantly below market value and so we we as a staff do not feel like it's uh in your best interest as a board to take that offer and so uh we were recommending that you reject all offers and that we put it back out and advertise it further so that we can obtain bids that would be more uh suitable for a piece of property such as that all right thank you Mr horn are there comments or questions for Mr horn or

124Dr Smith okay I have Mr wanks just as a point of clarification I have a motion here uh but as a point of clarification we don't have to make a formal motion to reject the cell that's already occurred correct uh we have not rejected that yet because it's property matter so it would be the board Okay so so I assume the language I have would cover the need for both so um having heard that I move to authorize the superintendent to sell the aist property located at 2424 Hedge Apple Drive all right I have a motion from Mr willbanks is there a second I have a second from Mr Mike trustees will move to vote Miss fer can I have your vote vote Yes all trustees presid have voted in the affirmative Miss fer votes

125in the affirmative the motion carries unanimously 7 to zero thank you Mr horn thank you we have one more action item for our consideration tonight that's action item D action item D is it consider the approval of a notice for the May 3rd 2025 election Dr Smith trustees as you know every year when it comes to election season you have to approve the notice of election and tonight we bring to you the uh for your consideration the notice of election for uh in English Spanish and Vietnamese for the May uh 3rd 2025 general election all right thank you Dr Smith are there any comments or questions on action item D Miss Richardson if there are no questions then I move to approve the notice of election in English Spanish vietmanese and for the do it

126for the May 2nd general election I'm just clarifying is that the May 2nd or May 3rd election May 2nd is what I had written down is it May 3rd it's May 3rdd May 3rd okay thank you all right we have a motion for Miss Richardson do I have a second have a second from Miss Haynes trustees will move to vote Miss Fowler can I have your vote I vote yes thank you Miss fer all trustees present have voted in the affirmative Miss Fowler votes in the affirmative the motion carries unanimously 7 to Zer okay we will now move on to our consent agenda portion of the evening Dr Smith Mr Choppa uh in trustees I I want to make sure that the board is entirely clear on what you voted on on the sale of

127the Hedge Apple property and I'd like to have Dennis clarify for us uh the authority that you've given there I just don't want there to be any confusion amongst the board I saw some confusing looks and I think it'd be good to have some clarification there thank you uh superintendent Smith and uh president choa members of the Board of Trustees you've authorized the superintendent to sell it doesn't mean he has to sell to this buyer or any other specific buyer but when an appropriate buyer does Come Aboard then he has the authority at this time to make the sale if there are any questions any questions from trustees all right seeing none thank you Mr aob bom Dr Smith I'm okay we will move on to consent agenda are there any trustees who would like

128to withdraw items from the consent agenda this evening seeing none we will move on to vote on the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved I have a motion for Mr Wilbanks do I have a second second I have a second from Mr Mike trustees will move to vote on consa consent agenda cons Senda it's a new one Miss fer can I have your vote Yes Miss Fowler votes in the affirmative all trustees present voting in the affirmative the motion carries 7 to zero we'll move on now to our open form for non agenda items Miss crossno do we have any requesters registered to address the vard on non-agenda items president Choppa would do not all right having no speakers on on agenda we'll now move on to

129our superintendent's comments Dr Smith trustees thank you um it is a busy month in Arlington ISD and I wanted to make sure we kick off every one of these with a focus on the priorities that you adopted earlier this year as you know we have been in key discussions about how we maximize our resources in our system to create a thriving District while maintaining sound fiscal management as you know that balance is challenging sometimes but I appreciate your efforts tonight in the board Workshop to help us talk through some of those key parameters for budget development moving forward and as you also see that you've uh spent some time on in the last month as well that campus needs index uh is an important one for us to really start to talk about Strategic Staffing

130and resource allocation moving forward so we thank you for your continued focus on that and we uh applaud our our staff for continuing to focus on that as well Hal elementary students got a unique fun math and science lesson recently when they traveled to Arlington isc's food nutrition services kitchen and learned how to bake bread hail principal sis kazlowski came up with the idea for a Hands-On way to apply math skills and chemistry principles and executive director David Lewis and his food and nutrition services team made it happen February is CTE month but it's CTE month all year long here in Arlington ISD with 153 High School CTE courses and 52 different programs of study seniors like Jasmine Amaro and Alex Martinez are great examples of the thousands of students who are getting prepared for

131careers before they even finish High School Jasmine Amaro a senior from Sam Houston is in the culinary program at the CTC and has an internship at a high-end Italian restaurant at the Lowe's Hotel she was so good that within two weeks the restaurant had her working full-time producing top level dishes on the line she says the culinary program has to put her on a successful P has put her on a successful path and plans to be become a sous chef in the future Alexander Martinez a senior at Arlington High knows exactly what he wants to do when he graduates he's going to start his own electrical contracting company and he credits the construction program at Arlington High for preparing him not just with construction skills but also with leadership problem solving skills and communication skills

132that he'll need to own his own business in the future we're proud of Jasmine and Alex and all of the CTE students in Arlington ISD February is also Black History Month and schools all over the district are celebrating like at Goodman Elementary where they had a special program with their choir and step team to highlight black history and the impactful role African-Americans have had in our country don't forget one of the district's biggest black history month program says tomorrow night at Sam Houston Odell button Jr a top 14 contestant on the last season of American Idol is performing and speaking Odell is also a Sam graduate and now an Arlington is D parent Arlington isd's Special Olympics sorry I didn't click fast enough Arlington ISD Special Olympics volleyball teams got a special sendoff last week

133when they left for the state tournament in Austin teams from Arlington Buie Lamar Martin Sam Houston and sige got a pep rally dance party and clap out before leaving town to compete finally last week we honored our our District's National marit semi-finalists and college board recognition Scholars with a special ceremony at the cvpa we used to honor these students at our board meetings and you all remember this but now we actually have too many students to do that for the board meetings in fact we had a record 206 students honored for the fourth year in a row that's a new record I thought there was one more slide so I'll just say it I wanted to especially especially thank uh a and their support of amazing things in Arlington ISD we had the ability to

134uh participate in the lemonade party where we celebrated student artwork that were designed plates for our students and really celebrate those students so there it is right there how about that uh and so special thanks to a for not only doing great work for our kids on a regular basis through their grants that they um they provide for our school district but also for including student work in the process which is pretty unique for a school district we're very grateful for their work that concludes my superintendence report for the month all right thank you Dr smoth we'll move on to trustee comments this evening do I have trustees with comments or reports I have Miss mcaro thank you president choa um just two days ago I think it was um trusty Richardson trusty Haynes trusty

135Fowler superintendent Dr Smith and myself got to go down to Austin Texas um to attend the tasta tasby legislative conference immediately followed by nine legislative visits um with our local delegation we are advocating on behalf of the Arlington ISD formally adopted legislative priorities that is available on our website and you might you might have seen some um like Mr Choppa mentioned earlier in the meeting legislation is moving very quickly this session and the 89th State legislative session is a real fork in the road for public education including Arlington ISD so this is the first of several visits and our board is very um active in our advocacy efforts but just as it was mentioned earlier tonight the differences between a mosaic and a tapestry I really hope that our advocacy efforts can be more of

136a tapestry we really need our parents our teachers our staff members our community members um to join us in our advocacy efforts and reach out even if it's not physically traveling to the capital but through emails through calling um their representatives and Senators based on the issues that are important to them so that our Public Schools can continue to thrive um I really want to commend trusty Haynes trusty Fowler trusty Richardson and our superintendent I'm just so proud of you guys and you guys really um were wonderful in in your advocacy and it really took all of us and I feel like we were that tapestry we don't know what our ledge is going to do this session um but I I don't think that any action that we don't prefer will be for lack

137of trying on our end and we will continue those efforts I want to commend our whole board for adopting a legislative agenda that was both concise but very very um reflective of what our district needs so thank you all thank you Miss mcmo I have a joint request to give a report from Miss Richardson and Mr Mike good evening join report we've done a couple of things together I know I so a couple of things we've been busy um but wanted to go through some of the things that we have all been at together to let people know um one of the first things that we did it's been a busy two weeks was our town hall uh winter town hall with representative Chris Turner he hosted that at the municipal airport in Arlington and

138we were able to go hear him speak and inform and educate people about what is going on with a lot of issues anything uh from mental health going on but also the increase in public school funding and what we're needing uh president Justin choa you were able to step in and field some on the spot public education questions that people had and did a great job so we are thankful for him and that he invites us to come and participate in it next um Dr Smith and I were able to be at Shackleford Elementary the other day and got to meet their security officer she has just completed 26 years in the district which was amazing um thankful to Kelly Smith the principal there who gave us a tour it was on a testing day

139so we got to go sneak into a couple of the classrooms and one of the favorite things that I saw was a sign that a teacher had put up about you belong in advanced and all the reasons that kids belong in those classes next project search Project search is a program at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Ryan Ellie and keville Kevin all work there and they were given a really special sendoff by their entire department I was told that the department was not going to be the same without their students as they went to go compete in the Special Olympics so thankful to them you talked about Special Olympics Dr Smith but I got to go and watch Spence be there along with u our coordinator Wendy Harvey she said that every single one of her

140six teams that she took all six of them placed in the top three of their bracket and that is the first time that's ever happened in the entire District they loved being there they were so excited and they really led the sendoff that Martin students gave them they came in and made them feel like like the celebrity athletes that they really are also we were able to head over to archery yes so we had a chance to go to the archery building and meet coach villain NOA Alex villain NOA here's something that I I think the community should know out of 938 schools in the nation the number one archery program in the nation is Martin High School so that that says a lot and when we talk about how many titles that they have

141won 2016 and 2017 they were state champions 2019 through 24 they were state champions and then in 2024 they were national champions so he has a very great program oh we just skipped things no we're showing the tiles oh the tiles yes these are the tiles so the seniors get to put up these tiles the the little drop- down ceiling tiles and you can see how creative these students are not only are they really really good what are they called Archer Archer artist art yeah archers and artists Dr Smith why couldn't the pepper do archery because he didn't have habanero that that's a really good one right there I got to admit it is so we were blown away that these students are talented but their artwork all over the ceiling tiles that these senior

142kids did that DJ system right there I thought that was a real audio system up on the ceiling from a distance it looks so real so it's just neat to see that they're multi-talented and the fact that every High School gets to go there and participate and that we bust them there and back and they don't pay for any of their equipment it's an amazing program but getting to talk to the kids that are involved in it and the friendships that they've made he said that 90% of his students have never shot before ever and so for them to come in and be ranked this way we even got to meet his own daughter that he's coaching and outstanding we got a chance to shoot too so it was uh if you ever seen Robin

143Hood it was not like that but we had a good time we got to go to Ashworth Elementary and reading with the Stars earlier this week they invited different local leaders uh trusty willbanks was there as well with President Choppa thank you to principal Stacy librarian nwell and Rayborn Sprayberry the family engagement liaison who coordinated all of us I'm sorry gentlemen you will need to step up your game and bring your own bearded dragon or animal next time now we move on to Duff Elementary and we had a tour with principal Harbison we saw the and you can see the majority of this is the library from our 2019 Bond Improvement package schoolastic if you remember being a child with Scholastic how great and impactful it was I asked about the the Ferrari posters and

144they still have those after so many years so it was a good time to see the kids uh enjoy that and to see the great things that they are doing in that school you can see down to the bottom right corner the uh gymnasium is almost fully done and it has that retro uh Ocean Pacific Vibe so gives you something to to look at but great time at this school and they're doing wonderful things we are especially thankful to Arlington today and Judy rupe who featured our school board trustees in their latest issue and we were able to share what leadership means to each of us so a special thank you to Arlington today and how they let us share what was important to us with our community last but not least we have a

145really special birthday on our board guys we don't celebrate everyone's birthday every time but this one's a big one and so to our vice president Sarah mcrow we just want to tell you happy birthday we love you and welcome that you are uh you're still the baby of the board but welcome to the 40 over 40 club you're welcome all right thank you I'm done is that all well I can go so I also I also I don't have pictures but um went to a turning point and had lunch with principal mold and then the AP Lions um if you are trying to do the keto diet I would not suggest going to their luncheons because you're going to get carbs you're going to get some SE food and it's G to it's going to

146make you sleepy so good time over there all right good okay thank you Mr and Miss Richardson and I have a report tonight um in keeping with the tradition that that Miss May former trustee had uh for Black History Month and sharing uh black history facts I went and um have have been interested in a long time in the history of Arlington and how Arlington ISD um handled different things during the several right era Rights era and uh something that's interesting to me that I did not know until a few years ago is that Arlington isd's segregated campus is still um an actual structure in use in Arlington it has its own um historical marker um it is uh no longer part of Arlington ISD but um just uh just some things that I have

147found from different uh sources and some research I did on my own that I just put together uh over the last few days just wanted to share so Arlington had a segregated school as early as the 1880s um a report uh a historical report from the late 1890s noted that the bill building was of quote bad character it was made from wood made from discarded wooden boxes that was attached to wooden posts it had one room with five desks and a bench it supposedly could hold 35 students but only 18 were enrolled near the turn of the century out of 37 eligible children the school year for black students at the time only lasted 80 days when Arlington ISD formed in 1902 it took over management of the segregated campus a strong storm destroyed the

148building the next year and the district authorized construction of a new 20ft X 30t frame structure that cost $109 to build around the same time the district considered uh constructing a new campus for white students and ended up spending about $122,000 on that structure in 1953 the AISD board authorized construction of a new brick structure which you can see here uh to replace the 600t building and it opened in 1954 with eight classrooms an office and a cafetorium eventually the district would add a gym to the structure and it was known as Booker T Washington School the building still stands today at the intersection of Houston and Taylor streets just north of downtown and what historically was the segregated part of Arlington known as the hill the campus as you can see has a Texas

149historical marker the Booker T Washington School only offered classes through the 8th grade students who hoped to attend high school had to travel to Fort Worth to attend IM Terrell High School Arlington ISD did not provide transportation although the supreme court ordered the integration of American public schools in 1954 4 in Brown versus Board of Education Arlington ISD would not desegregate for another 11 years it did so only after first trying to dis segregate one grade at a time on a timetable that would have postponed full integration until the mid 1970s it initially integrated the first grade class at rowark elementary but after federal courts rejected legal challenges to desegregation from other DFW area schools including Mansfield istd the district officially integrated all grades and campuses in 1965 it was not until then that black

150students in Arlington could attend high school in Arlington the principal of the Booker T Washington school was a man named George Stevens and he was the principal of the district segregated schools for nearly 25 years until the Booker T Washington School closed as part of the district's desegregation plan during his tenure the school more than tripled in enrollment growing from 75 students and three teachers to 230 students and nine teachers Mr Stevens was known as a community leader he served on the United Community progress Association he was on the board of directors for the McDonald YMCA in Fort Worth and was a member of the legislative Council for prayview college in her Scholastic League among many other roles despite Mr Stevens's history of service and experience in Camp campus Administration he was not offer a

151job with the school district after the Booker T Washington School closed in the late 1950s the City of Arlington dedicated a park to Mr Stevens located just one block from the Booker T Washington School the park was expanded several times and occupies most of the block bounded by Sanford Eckles and Indiana streets you can visit it today and learn more about Mr Stevens the hill and the Booker T Washington school and that concludes my report all right Madam Secretary do we have any items to consider tonight we do not okay we do still have board business uh level four grievance hearing uh so at this time the board will proceed to close session in the board chamber pursuant to Texas government code section 55 1.02 0821 and 551.071 um to consider our grievance hearing the

152time is 9:03 [Music] n he [Music] he [Music] n [Music] a e [Music] a [Music] a [Music] n [Music] e [Music] n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] Soul so [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh oh oh [Music] oh oh oh oh [Music] oh [Music] hey [Music] he [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] d [Music] h [Music] he [Music] he [Music] n [Music] oh a [Music] n [Music] n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] okay the time is 9:43 the board has returned from closed um the board took no action during closed any board members with discussion okay seeing none I will make a motion to uphold the level three decision of the superintendent is there a second second I have a second for Miss fer that's a motion by me a second from Miss fer

153trustees please vote Miss fer let me get your vote I vote to uphold the decision thank you Miss fer all trustees present voting in the affirmative Miss fower voting in the affirmative the motion unanimously carries and the level three decision of the superintendent is appell the time is now 9:44 this meeting is adjourned lot closer [Music]