001Hope everyone is doing well this evening. Welcome to our April board meeting. It is 6 pm and we are located in the BCID administration building. This meeting has been posted according to law. Um we are going to open with our invocation from Mr. Keane. Hello Mr. Kee. How are you? Thank you for coming. Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you for the leadership that you have provided here. I pray that you would lead them in wisdom and guidance as they try to make good citizens and disciples out of our kids. Would you bless them for the time that they spend here? Would you bring peace and resolve to this group? We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. If y'all will remain standing, we have some students
002with us to say the pledge for us this evening. You can come in front of the podium. Thank you. How are y'all? Good. Thanks for joining us of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisibley andice. Thank you so much. I appreciate All right. Thank you. All right. Moving into good news. Does anybody have any good news since the last board meeting that they want to share that they've seen in the district? Hats off to the junior high junior production team. Um I post phenomenal. Was really fun. They released their next year's play and we have was it Mary Poppins and Snow White next year exciting and then Parks did a phenomenal job with the junior high school. Got to watch them play today. I think they won action.
003So they're doing well. That's right. I'll say I got to watch some track meets this year. Um, and it was it's always a fun sport to watch, but extra fun this year just being able to see us compete and be able to have so many students um continue their journey in the track season. I know it's not over for for quite a few of them. So congratulations to all our athletes um in King Ellis. Just want to say we're in uh district we're in what we refer to as the assessment season and I just want to thank the teachers uh for their Saturdays for their after school. Uh today I got to visit with some of you uh that are here and your efforts have been relentless and so thank you for that. And I
004know May will be here before we know it through May. But I appreciate your efforts and I look forward to celebrating your success. All right, moving straight into celebration of excellence. We get to honor our high school athletes this evening with their recognition. We had three three young people at state at St. Pat this year. We like to recognize those. On the ladies side, we have Cameron [Applause] Garcia. On the gentleman side, he also plays death. tremendous season. Actually finished second. We're gonna get a picture real quick. Oh, that's okay. [Music] for two. Oh, Miss uh Gina said she went here today. recognize we have for [Applause] We're gonna stand right next football players I mean state of Texas free all state post Texas sports writer Texas football.com uh all say uh we had a
005great season, unbelievable season. I told these guys I pre I mean I shout these guys at the end of the season to for we want people to stop talking about what we did back in the early 2000 late 90s and we want these guys to start talking about you guys now. They they stepped up to the challenge winning the first district championship in the last 20 years. Uh winning double digit wins. They ain't done that in 20 years. But they laid the foundation of the great about to come. I told them I tell them all the time that you guys get that state championship. These younger guys going to make it happen for but you know just that's just what we do. We like a big family though. Once a black you're always a black
006cat. But the one first guy, first second team all state receiver he's not here. We got a baseball game today. [Applause] First team punter all first team quarterback Alex. First team wide receiver Simon Williams. [Applause] not my biggest team as good as All right. One, two, three. And next is not athletics, but academics qualified for UIL state Congress did in January. He currently has five region qualifications. So we're hoping to add even more state qualifications. All All right. Thank you so much. I know that y'all put in countless hours into the academic side and the athletic side and it does not go unnoticed. You gentlemen that were honored tonight for football. Like coach said, y'all are paving the way for the next for the next talk about the people who said, "Do you remember those
007guys?" So, great job and great dedication and thank you for for all that you're doing and did for Bay City and all the work that you put in. And thanks coaches. It doesn't go unnoticed. and to the teachers the work that y'all put in. Truly truly appreciate it to build our our young people up to be the next generation. So, thank you. Oh, absolutely. No pressure. No pressure at all. All right. Thank y'all. Celebration of excellence. We are going to move on with our meeting. You are welcome to stay or you're welcome to depart at this time. Your choice. We're moving straight into audience with [Music] patron. All right, moving into our audience with patrons. You have one this evening. Rebecca Mcllet, if you will join us, you have three minutes. Kelly, you have to
008mam. Good evening. How are you this evening? I'm doing good. My name is Rebecca Meslet, a taxpayer, district employee, and the wife of the current superintendent. My family has deep roots in Bay City. My mother, her three brothers, and my cousins were born and raised here. When this position opened, it felt like a dream come true. We were excited to move near my relatives. We bought a home here and prepared to invest the rest of our careers in this community. At recent board meetings, I've witnessed a small group of teachers voicing concerns about resources, support, and class sizes. Yet, the board president stayed silent while these issues were unfairly blamed on the superintendent. The board is responsible for overseeing our finances. Poor past decisions have resulted in $24 million in combined loans, not bonds. We
009were spending We are spending more money than we were given. This debt impacts staffing salaries and resources. Most districts handle major expenditures through bond elections where taxpayers vote to approve. In Bay City, however, the board bypass taxpayers by funding millions in projects directly money taken from staff salary accounts. Why was this approved? When the district began receiving extra payments from the 313 agreements, the board approved new spending instead of using that money to pay off existing loan debts. I am publicly asking the board president to answer the following questions on social media and in the local newspapers. Number one, it appears loans over $6 million were approved during your tenure as board president. Why is the board these milligans against potential teacher races? Why were taxpayers allowed to vote on these expenditures like in other
010districts? Number three, how much money has the district received from the 13 313 agreements? And number four, why weren't those payments used to repay loans impacting staff salaries? When complaints were directed at the superintendent, the board president stayed silent. I expected the same silence in response to my questions tonight. Answers can be fact checked through recorded meetings and public records requests. The taxpayers, staff, and parents of Bay City deserve to know the truth. Thank you. All right, that is the only audience with patrons that we have this evening. Moving on into we have LSG next. Um I'm one I think we may take things a little out of order this evening and go into close executive session um because we do have someone here for advising the board. Um, and so we're going to move
011into executive session before we move forward with the agenda. So, we're going to take things out of order this evening. So, we're going to convene into close session pursuant of Texas Government Code 551.071, an attorney consultation regarding legal issues pertaining to superintendent evaluation, duties, and responsibilities in related matters. And then personnel matters, if necessary, may be taken into close session pursuant to Texas government 551.074 074 to deliberate the appointment employment evaluation resignation duties discipline resignation or dismissal of a public officer or employee including contract recommendations for campus and district level administrators and teachers. Consider and discuss a consider and discuss superintendent evaluation duties and responsibilities and related matters and b consider and discuss board member duties and respons responsibilities and related matters. So we will move into close session at 6:15. Hello, sir. How are
012you? Good. Good. So just begin with let's begin by class progress to track inside folder there and what you'll see is that you had a 47 minute 16 of those student outcomes for 34.04% 04%. He had six trustes present. One was he had 11 nothing got pulled one [Music] other two goals that were discussed. I calculated that two were on track. Six goals that we discussed six were also on track. So any questions about that? Okay. And looking at this month's what we are going to do is we're gonna cover goal number five. So if you look in your [Music] folder for this trying to prove the overall percent level or above that they would increase 57% to 58% by August 25 there and so Yes, we're going to begin with I was looking for
013Oh, there he is. So, we're going to start with gold 5.1 which deals with the high school. So just a little supplemental because our PLC meets um very regularly to kind of review the data and discuss and some notes specifically related to their conversations um that we've had. So there's a couple of different things on here and Tony when he collected data for me he had not done CPA 5 yet. So as you know when we're tracking curriculum based assessments basically those are the six weeks test unit test for the different topics and then we did share with you guys last time a semester exam benchmark that we did and we have since done another benchmark and both of those were full length exams. Um the new benchmark um actually comes after the CBA number
014four and I'm sorry that it just says February 25 right there. But at CBA number four we had increased from the benchmark at 48% to 52%. And that was again a new unit not a full length exam but giving us an idea of how students performed at that time which was new material. Even though we gave the full benchmark, we didn't count for a grade and everything, but we included all of the topics. So, some of this was new topics that they hadn't. Then we went back and did the April benchmark. That was the full exam. We shut down the school to do full benchmarks. We did not do that for semester exams. They only have a two-hour block. Whereas for the full benchmark, they have all day to take the test if they choose
015to. And they're in their normal testing rooms. We run normal school schedule for everybody else but for the testers it is unlimited amount of time. So at that time they were only at 44% and we had seen a decline. I'll come back to that one and share a little bit more information with you guys on that part. Of course we did however see an increase of some of the sub subops which included the students for the white students, the economically disadvantaged which was from the previous benchmark. Sorry and I skipped it. um Hispanic as well and then special education and a slight 1% decrease for African-American and our emergent bilingual had a significant increase which we will talk about here in just a minute. Then we did I was trying to include this to kind
016of give a a better measurement because in here we're only doing CBAs and looking at how these ninth graders are doing but we had a previous discussion about how they did when they were in the eighth grade. So the gray marks that are on here are tracking eighth grade performance. So eighth grade was at 43% for meets when they were ending last school year. At the semester exam, we brought those students up to 56% if it was at the same performance standard. So they changed the high school standard. It increases, but if we were measuring it back from when they were in eighth grade, then we use that. And then if we were measuring it for the benchmark in April, it would have been at 50%. Then CBA number five was up to 72% which
017was really exciting. And so contentwise it was great to see that the students who are actually now doing a crossover they're applying multiple genres and analyzing multiple genres. Um taking some of maybe the feedback and some of the targeted skills that they're being able to apply those things specifically related to writing. I wanted to give you guys a little bit more information. So you'll see the writing data review which we'll kind of go back to when we're looking at some of those other numbers of why we might have had a decline in April benchmark. So on the semester exam we spent about three and a half days in the class with students writing their reps. They went through the entire writing process, received feedback, able to turn it in um get another opportunity to to
018do it again with partners, use some of the strategies. And it wasn't until they sat down on the semester exam did they actually type in their final answer. So when we evaluated the semester exam pre-say, you'll see that the average for students was a 4.5 on a 10point scale. Initially I had shared in our last board meeting in January that our concern of writing came from the diagnostic essay. And at that time, second six weeksish, um, right at the end of the first six weeks, the diagnostic essay indicated that students were at a 2.7 out of 10. That was the average for all freshmen, that they were only scoring a 2.7 on the 10th grade scale. So, at the semester exam, that increased um 4.5. And then on the semester exam, when they actually were
019able to revise and type in just their final copy, it actually increased to 5.4, which we were really excited about. Um definitely looking at the the strategies and whether or not those were being successful. And one of the things that I shared with Mr. Townsen, we've had some conversations regarding our secondary grading guidelines is that in the past when we used benchmarks, we had a really hard time with student buyin because they don't count for a grade and that's part of our secondary grading guidelines. So in order to stay in align with that, we can count as part of their grade the writing process. And so the process over the course of an entire day, we used daily grades and we counted part of the process and we saw a lot of reward in that
020that students really took some ownership of following through with meeting those expectations following the writing process because they knew it was going to count as a grade same way their semester exam did and same way their CPAs do that they count as as grades in the grade book. Then of course we didn't have an essay on CB4 CPA4 um but on C on the benchmark when they did it all by themselves without any help basically it was here's your test try to remember your strategies work hard then they did on their own averaged on an essay a five and so we are still seeing significant growth from their beginning of the year when they started at a 2.7. Um the other thing to share is that the short constructive responses have significantly increased as well
021as a result of some strategic things. Uh definitely when we uh went to the lead your school training in um October, September, October, we came back with the idea of course working with Mr. Towns and we will look at some of the timing for when we give CBAs next year. That's kind of in align with making some of those changes, but we couldn't at that time. But we did change the grading process. And so the essay, the short constructed responses were counted for the grade and the multiple choice questions were counted as bonus points. And you'll see which assessments those were with the asterisks. CBAs two and three were graded that way so that we could really get students to take some ownership of the process and the time to put into the writing because
022then it would count as their grade. And then again, the multiple choice questions were only multiple choice. They were only extra credit points. So we saw the reward in that and continued improvement although there is some variation with the genres. So struggling still with poetry that's our lowest short constructive response but it tends to be for um freshman and sophomores and they are that was on the benchmark. It just so happens you never know what the short constructive response is going to be and it happened to be the poetry genre which is the one they struggle with the most. So it was previously the one they struggled with the most on CBA3. We had two short constructed responses on that CD8 and one was averaging a 1.4 a 1.24 out of two and a 1.20
023out of two. So it was two separate questions but both of them about poetry and then when they took the benchmark there was one question that was the short constructor response and it came up a little bit but it was 1.28 and it is still the lowest of our short constructive responses now that we have retested and and continued to repeat that process. Just some notes down there for improvements that we of course have seen the response um for short constructive responses improve. We've been really excited about the special education improvements. Um definitely more of the supports and and students utilizing those supports and then student growth overall. This is something to share. We've talked with Tony about maybe variations in what we report as LSG moving towards student growth because with the teacher incentive
024aotment we're targeting and trying to get our student population to make 55% growth for then the teacher to qualify for the teacher incentive aotment and right now overall the freshman class is at 54% overall. So it's really exciting. um within that there are some teachers that already would qualify for the teacher incentive a lotment because they exceed that but when we're doing the entire um freshman class and something to share in regards to that is it's kind of hard to make that next performance level. So, in order to go from meets to masters, you have to move significantly. And we just have some kids who've improved in meets but not quite gotten to the mast's level. And so, when you're at the meats level, you just have to be 55. But to get masters, it
025has to be 58% correct of the test, which means you have to really really score high on the short instructor response and the written composition. the written composition is going to encompass the most percentage of the points um for the text overall for one one factor. So we are going to be continuing to work though on some areas for growth. One poetry the more that we can do maybe um we did do that in our rockstar review a little bit differently. We did it with music as in you know kind of make the comparison that similarly you use the same kind of figurative language and things in music. Um we are also going to be working on some uh incentives to try to improve student uh in investment in in using the writing processes on
026their own. And then we are also going to be trying to have some incentives for them to attend the extra opportunities. So we offer after school tutorials. They've kind of been themed. We've been trying to promote that like popcorn theme that we spent time really trying to share more about that. than if we thought if we have some incentives for if you do come, what does that look like? And we're just trying to explore what are the options that we have for the spending that we can do because we have to be within our allowable expenses for those things. Um some targeted interventions that we already implemented, the Rockstar review, which I mentioned, I brought in a we we had a guy who's been kind of really motivating our staff. Um I don't know if
027anybody's ever checked him out, know who he is, but his name is Hal Bowman. He does teach like a rock star. And so we have been promoting teach like a rockstar with our staff. And then we have our rock the test just do your best shirts. We have all of our staff are kind of going along with the let's rock it theme. And we identified students that were really close to the next performance level to participate in that review. We had 50 students and it was you're almost at approaches, you're almost at meets, you're almost at masters just to try to really make um them feel like that we believed in them and their opportunity to to do better. He came in and shared a very impactful story on his personal life about how he
028went from being in circumstances that don't really allow you to believe in yourself and think that you can be successful. And so we pumped him up. Then we did rotations where we targeted the skills of poetry revising and editing because those are the free throws and if you don't know your grammar rules um you could mess up and miss something. But there's 22 questions on the test that are to us the free throws. And so we focused on that as well. And then of course a review of the writing process to help the kids remember the steps that they could do. We've also done some additional tweaking of our home room classes. So this semester it was targeted at students that again were close to some of those performance levels. Although we didn't leave anybody
029out that would have been a significant failure, especially if they would show growth because if we could help them show growth then we're still making progress. And when I shared that, the 54% is students that would get us a whole point. There are additional students that would get us a half point of growth, but we're not including that in TIP. Um, and then lastly, our next steps are to work um continue with Mr. towns in through our literacy framework for vertical teaming across the district. Some summer professional development for our teachers really looking at um the changes in the master schedule and who's going to be teaching uh the English one courses so that they could all maybe attend the same training together with the new inclusion teacher that is going to be assigned to
030English one and two specifically. So we're able to remap our master schedule where we actually have somebody with content expertise in English but has also gotten their special education certification and can serve the minutes and that is significantly our area for growth. And then uh definitely thinking about changing our CPA and benchmark schedule to really align with what we would be doing uh with some of those leader school strategies that we learned. really focusing more on not testing so much but testing at strategic times and spiraling things through. And then lastly, um again reviewing some of those grading policies so that we can have some some buy in from students at the right times because they, you know, feel like that it's worth their time to do those things. Any questions and also um the
031Yes, ma'am. Why would you Why would you at the beginning of the year that we don't get in this world, but you give me something and motivate me that it's now something going to do moving forward, right? Incentives, you know, why am I taking the test that's taking this long or a benchmark and I'm not. So really just the limitations are what we are allowed to spend through the federal funding that we have. There are just certain spending um parameters and you can't go buy kids snacks. You can't provide um you know things that are that that to me they're there. what kids think is um a value is different than what we think is a value, but we can't buy those things. We can't go buy gift cards. We can't give any of those
032things away with our money. So, instead, we may be looking at some other things that are like maybe we could have like an engagement day and maybe we we did it a few years ago where we had a gold day and that's something that we're kind of exploring again. So would there be an opportunity for me to participate in activities which I think are fun because we can't hand them other things and we just don't have the we have not had the resources for that. In the past we had like um you know there would be donations or there'd be an activity account that had you know extra money in it that you those kinds of things. What we found was really cool. Um, in this instance, we had some people on staff that were
033willing to donate some of their own money and we purchased uh, DECA store cards and man, the kids were competing in the Rockstar Review to win the individual challenges because they wanted that. But we had to do that with donations. We could not do it with our [Music] own you. We fund that through title through federal funding. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And the benchmarks are they doing during the summer and you pay teachers to come in for the extra work? The bench the benchmarks are released exams. So we don't have to create those. They're previous year start tests. When we did the one in December, we gave the 2023 release test. when we did the one in April, we did the 2024 release test and those are available to us in DMAC which is our assessment
034system. So the teachers don't have we even though I think the teachers have learned a lot about the test um there's a lot to to keep in mind certain passages have certain number of words and just the parameters that the test has developed. it's better for us to use a released exam so that it meets all of those parameters so it's more true to what they really doing things. Yes. And so on the CVAS to be honest there are some different the teachers will make some choices. We've written it into our curriculum maps where they'll use parts of other things and then some of the teachers will create their own and we did pay our teachers to write those curriculum maps and develop those tests. And last, uh, your master schedule, when do you have
035it in place? Is it, you know, exactly what time be? Do you already have one? I have a draft of the English master schedule only, but because of our staffing needs, they're evolving right now as we get resignations. Um, people add certifications. We check the student enrollment. So the number of students that are coming to us is changed our class sizes, the number of sections that we offer. What the reason I did English first is because it has been our lowest area of performance and we happened to come into a situation where a teacher was able to fill in for a teacher who left us probably in October. We started having a long-term sub for a period of time and then we had to have a switch in my staff. I asked somebody to move
036their teaching assignments. that person is now certified in special education and I have an additional staff member on staff who is experienced in English language arts and provided some supports this year. So we're moving those things around and I built English first. So English right now is set with who's going to teach, not necessarily which periods are going to be offered because we still have to do the conflict matrix to determine like can we offer this section at this time or is it going to conflict with another course that's offered. I would just for your uh feedback as well. You know, we talk about new programs at the uh when we brought in the innovative program for HVAC systems when when it comes to developing a master schedule that starts in November. And so the
037rule is uh in order to be organized and efficient in your staffing is by November you want any new program that would like to come in so that you can vet it, you can design it. CTE now that we have the pathways when we have those pathways you can't just add it for us because now it's two and you lose money you lose funding and so I just wanted to mention that part because although you don't have a master schedule yet I would imagine you're you know maybe you could say having your course selections in what does that mean to you right and what you're doing so with our course selections we know how many kids are going to be enrolled in English one how many kids are going to be enrolled in English one
038honors we can then determine the number of sections that we're going to put on the master schedule board and we're in the process of doing all of that and assigning the most appropriate staff. Again though with staffing changes, we do have some um staff that we may have some turnover for some retirements, things that will evolve over probably, I would say, the next two to three weeks as different staff are making choices about their future. And we want to make the best choices about our kids. So, we have not finalized our master schedule, but we definitely have a few drafts that are in the works and strategically looking at the content areas that need the most focus and and scheduling those things first and to build everything else around. I I love seeing growth. I'm
039going to keep back to what I did to the other. Why are we still behind the kids that look like why are we still black other than u change but um why are we still there? So I don't have an answer for you for that because I will be honest that I don't look at color. I will say that demographics wise we do have significant number of students in certain um dem in certain demographics that are also associated with discipline. I will tell you that we have a number of continued disciplinary placements for ISS, OSS, DAP. Um and we always look at that Miss Robinson when we are trying to think about what can we do for interventions. So when we did this rockstar review, our motivational speaker was actually he did spend some time
040with our 13 DAP students who would test because we wanted to really be strategic and make sure those opportunities are still being provided even if those students are in a disciplinary placement. The other of course when we think about why are some of them lower and I I also bring back reference to the emergent bilingual students and language is a barrier but not just a barrier for when you're learning a different language but language can also be cultural and so when I speak in a certain way I write in a certain way and in the instance of our emergent bilingual students they have to learn how to reverse you know nouns and verbs and those kinds of things. But the same thing is also true for what might be, you know, something that I would
041say is appropriate response um depending on the culture that I come from. And we had a really good conversation, I would say, with a couple of soccer kids. I know that's not the same demographic that you're talking about, but the soccer kids example that they were using was totally different than an example that the cheerleaders were using. And they just happened to be grouped that way when they were in the Rockstar Review. And the the young lady was like, "Well, you can't stereotype me just because I'm a cheerleader." And he said, "I'm not saying that. I just don't know what it's like to be a cheerleader." And I will say, Miss Robinson, to be very fair and honest, the STAR testing passages are not culturally sensitive. They are written for supposedly they're cookie cutter and
042they're written for anybody. I happened to be on the test development committee when we were vetting different passages and I said, "We have to kick out the bicycle one." High school kids are not looking at how to ride a bike. They're looking at what do they want to do to get a driver's license. Let's be more culturally relevant. And so our we I will say that we are very blessed to have a couple of our staff members who served on those committees as well to give feedback to the state. And maybe you know in the classroom we're choosing more culturally relevant text but we don't get to choose those on the assessments because the state does. But let me give you my uh my needs. that is 9 years old came home one day tell
043me about your dad she said oh I said you haven't told me in a while that you like she said I love my real teachers when I was in the other school teachers I was like what do you mean and she said because one day my teaching there somebody that's there for a long time somebody those were her fake teachers but she's at a school that I don't mind telling y'all to public school, put her in the holy cross. Those are real teachers. She said they those are real teachers in my other school. They were teachers. And I saw what she was saying because we do have a problem with teachers stepping out of we hire someone else. So through the eyes of the kids and that was a wave for me and I was
044like what? And our students really appreciate the teachers taking the time to think about what is of interest to them to help make them relate to the content. Um and I'll just use some examples. You know we we know that there's always times that we scrutinize what's being read and what's being put in the library. But some of those texts are the text our kids want to read. And if they're reading, I don't care what they're reading to be honest because they're just reading. And if it's something that is interest to them, we can we can teach any reading skill with whatever text is in front of you. So allowing the opportunity for some student choice but then also within the context of the curriculum maps choosing some variations of the titles that we can
045use so that then the teacher has the freedom to say okay this class period is maybe a more athletic class period versus this class period is the group of cheerleaders and maybe the top the prompt that we choose or the passage that we choose can be more appropriate for them when they're when they're teaching them so that they can retain the skill but then apply it on whatever passage message. Yeah. All right. Anybody else? Rosie, it's your turn. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Good evening. Okay. So tonight with the for the junior high for goal 5.2 it's the overall percent grade level or above on the bas. So the information that you have at the top again these are averages of all of our assessments up to date. So the baseline is this group of students
046last year's start scores. So I wanted to keep this what you're looking at is apple. So the baseline is how students did last year in seventh grade on the star. So November, January and April. These are the average for our CBAs. So for April the data is based on the average of both CPA one two our fall semester exam CPA4 and our benchmark and our benchmark was what they took mid mid March it was a release star and so that did count for an assessment at the junior high. So as you can see the averages that I stated last time that I spoke on this group that we did the average dip a little bit just because when they took the benchmark the benchmark it is a race star. It's the first time that they're
047taking an assessment at that length and with the writing components on it as well too with the CPAs are much shorter. Same thing with the fall semester exam as well. So it did take a little bit of a dip. So, our averages went down from when I reported back in January from 72 down to 67. Um, for all students, Hispanic 69 to 65, white 89 to 87, economically disadvantaged 66 to 58, special education 32 to 31, African-American 71 to 61, emerging violence from 48 to 44. So, there was a dip, but it's not a large dip on that. The bar graph that you see below that are each individual assessment. So you can see the breakdown of CPA 1, two, the fall semester exam, CPA unit 4 and our benchmark. And this I broke down
048in approaches, beats and masters because I know why LSG is doing beats and above. Just want to see also too what our kids did on the approach about did they actually pass it. So you can see in all the first four unit one two the semester exam and four meets in a month we did meet our goal and exceeded a 52% and we are just shy of that on the benchmark that benchmark was full release for manage expect um at the time when we took it in mid-March um what I did on the bottom part there because I would have this question if I were sitting where you're at the benchmark is that top row and this very bottom um spreadsheet information here. What you have below is what eighth grades did last year for
049startary data that we have. So you can see at the benchmark for my kiddos that comparing them to last year eighth graders for all the students for benchmark we're at 48% last year we're 41. So benchmark they're above what we did for last year. That means an above. Hispanic we're at 48. Last year's eighth graders were 42%. white this year 71 last year 45 economically disadvantaged we're at 36 last year 31 we're at 19 the benchmark over at zero the previous year African-American we're at 28 when we're at 29 last year so it's very close it's 1% 12 we're at 28 last year we're at 32 and then what I did off to the side is broke it down to the approaches in masters too so at benchmark time we're exceeding last year's eighth grade
050star except for African American but we're right there and this was about three weeks prior to star and we actually took our reading star last Wednesday so our sixth seventh and eighth graders when they took their star assessment tomorrow taking science Almost every student said that they were only doing this to get this and they're not performing. I I need to know exactly what it was last year. But if they're at this when they take their first CBA or start and they are rocking like stars then to you is a small dip but to me it's a dip. It's a dip in the overall average. Our CPAs are server assessments. They're anywhere can be about 12 15 questions. Um reading there's a reading passages along with it as well too. They're usually designed to be
051within a class period about 45 minutes. So that's why these this data up here at the top is an average. I wrote down the individual assessments below it. So you can see for CBA one it was this issa 2 CBA 3. So traditionally throughout the year you can see we've been meeting and exceeding it. I knew benchmark was going to be a little bit lower because that's the first time they're taking a full-blown STAR assessment and that was a benchmark. So just the endurance alone of reading all the different passages and the writing that's involved with it plus the benchmark is assessed by the teachers on that of course they have their um where it's graded on autom but the writing piece is done with the teachers through their rubrics on that. So by looking
052at benchmark compared to last year, we're ahead of the game for the most part going like three weeks prior to and getting to star and that three weeks prior to star is when we do their star quits. Focus on those areas where they can just push a little bit more to get them over that hump. Work with kiddos who are on the borderline. Some kids who are still have ways to go others social studies teachers we're working with. They're pulling them during pan time. We still have Saturday school. Last Saturday school was the Saturday before the first star assessment. So we were still running that up until our first star assessments. So individually it does pretty much mimic the average at the top of So, I'm going the overall percent or above will increase from
05353% in September. from 55% by August of 2025. So let me just reiterate that this is meets and above. So our very first column is the baseline that was um established back in August and that was approved. Um then we have our data for CDA1 which was presented in November of 24. Uh then we have our data for CA2 which was presented in Janford uh few months ago and I'm now presenting our CDA4 data and we will see a dip. Um I will say that from November to January you will see an increase um in all of the areas except for two areas. Um and the CDA assessment was in one genre. So there is one reading passage with 10 to 15 questions. That was a November and January. The data that I'm presenting today
054has to do with a cross genre. So it's a different test. Um it's a little bit more difficult. So we can see that the population under all is 44%. Hispanic is uh all went from 60 to 44%. Hispanic went from 62 to 41. White went from 69 to 66. ED went from 51 to 32. SE went from 28 to 15. African-American went from 42 to 38. And went from 31 to 37. But again the data that I'm presenting today is CBA4 which was across the genre there is a dip. So then uh things to just take into consideration um we had the reading benchmark the first week of February and then this CBA was the second week of February. At the beginning of the year, we did not have any we did not have a
055CBA 4 in our testing calendar because we have a benchmark. But when we established that we were going to track CBAs, then we had to go back to our testing calendar and put a CBA in our testing calendar whether it landed before the C the CBA or after the CBA. We were going to have to um so that's a huge factor right there. Um, we also had the math benchmark. So, it was either the reading benchmark before the CPA or the math benchmark after the CPA. So, it was three weeks that the kids were testing. Um, then we had a science benchmark three weeks after that. So, there was just a lot of testing. Originally, um, like I said, there was not a CBA because of benchmarking, but because we're tracking CBA, then the kids
056had to take that. 4 was the first time the students took the assumive assessment on a paired passage. Paired passages are one of the most difficult skills in reading. Students have 32 passages and compare and contrast details, authors, purpose, themes throughout each text making connections uh to overarching themes. Uh so then what we did was compare the data from this CBA number four and the data from our benchmark. we now had two sets of assessments that we could compare contrast and segregate. So then from there we uh started planning our interventions. So just interventions that came into place right after CBA and benchmark uh were small group instruction during prime time. So prime time is for everyone you know whether you can make it to school or not or if you can stay after school
057or not or you can make it to Saturdays or not. That's sometime we have class time because we are allowed to then service all our students. Uh targeted uh paired passage lessons extra practice through review the CBA and students mistakes low star list where we monitor the data as we're providing support Saturday on chartered after school tutorials spiraling and low performing teams. We hired four highly qualified tutors who have been providing teachers and students with intentional support in all three grade levels small groups of students to hit the most common miss throughout this time checks for understanding differentiated instruction and we monitor and adjust as we go. Twice a week we have PC meetings for data and instruction with Miss uh Rodriguez. A small group of school talking to provide immediate feedback aggressively monitoring academic
058behavior to redirect the learning while providing instructional support. So we saw the dip it was there. We were um aware of it but immediately after that we started our interventions. Um, our tutors have been in place for two months already. Uh, they were mentors before and then we just transitioned them over into tutors. So, they already knew the teacher, they already knew the students. It was not like, oh, we're going to get to know each other for the next two weeks. They've been since the beginning of the school year. Um, so, okay. Yes, ma'am. This is the Chris thing. Ah, your inclusion teachers and you started it when you said inclusion. How are your inclusion teachers working? Are they extra support in the classroom? Because what I'm hearing from teachers is not enough people. We
059need more help. We need you know with inclusion teaching if it was used and I can say this because I district inclusion didn't mean just throwing everybody at they were it was supposed to be set up that each teacher and a special ed person that was in inclusion play together and worked as co- teachers instead of just an aid that's in there. So when I look and say it's a small tip, then the people that we utilizing as content mastery teachers and inclusion teachers are being used correctly. inclusion means that you have special ed teacher in there and or an aid and you have the regulated teacher. So the days that I been a teacher, my aid may be able to come in. So it's not a day that the teacher is not having extra
060hands. Well, it depends on the number of minutes that's required for each student with the art committee. And so they're required a specific amount of minutes. So those staff members that are inclusion teachers, they may not be in that classroom every single day all the period. That's for their Okay. And I I get that because you do work on that. But when they are going into the classrooms, are they going into the classroom as a special ed teacher? Are they able to maneuver where the kids don't know the difference if just another teacher in there and teacher and inclusion teacher knows exactly what's going on? No, absolutely. I mean, the whole goal of having inclusion is not to be able to target see who the students are that are getting service. And so when they
061go through, they're helping all the students, but they also have a direct knowledge of what those individual goals are in the IEP for those students that they're there to service. So that's where your targeted instruction comes from. Miss Robinson, just to share from the high school, since you mentioned for the master schedule, um we don't always have the benefit of somebody that's an inclusion teacher that also has the content expertise. we're going to be able to take advantage of that for English for the first time next year. But we have had a an inclusion teacher who's an expert in math and so they're the special ed teacher work with the math teacher and they work in tandem. You can't tell who they are. Exactly. In the social studies department that has been the case and
062also in science, but we have never had the benefit of that in English. We are working really hard um to really create that because next year the person that we will put as the inclusion teacher will plan with and will be in all English one and English two sections that have special ed students in them. So I will say during campus spotlight at the high school, one of the classes that I was scheduled to go into was a history class and it was a beautiful thing. Yes. The teachers were bouncing off each other, the students. I mean, it was it was what it was a beautiful thing the way that they were working and from what just being in there, they were saying that that's the case with those two teachers and they the students
063don't know the difference and they one hand off the other. So, okay. And that same thing to you, same question. Are they being utilized in the same way? Same way. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Again, I I applaud y'all for the the growth, but you're not there. What What is it that we are not doing or you're doing that is not gaining? Because to me, I'm sending my kid to school every single day. He's sitting in a classroom every single day with the same kids. And and and you may want to throw in there But to me, whole month was not an excuse. It was what I did in front of them, what I taught them that I'm looking for. So, and you said, "I don't see color." I don't see color when I'm in the classroom,
064but do you not think I see color anywhere else with y'all? I do, but I I need Please help with that. Well, one of the big things is is early literacy and that's been one of the focuses of the district. Um, and and you know, each kid has different exposure before they, you know, and so I mean, whether it's a magazine on the table or zero void completely of any literacy in the home. Um, and so that's one of the things we've been trying to do is try to bridge that gap. And the start of that was with our community prek partnerships that we've done with Creative Care and then also with discovering minds and that's just the beginning of it. But then also a huge focus at Cherry and at Lenny Roberts on literacy
065and intentionality of it. Cherry um they they had uh they had experienced a couple of years of really there wasn't a lot of learning going on because of the program that the district had adopted the fueling brains um where the program said no don't begin to teach them content until they could sit still and there was a measure in place to where they couldn't begin almost to the semester and so when we arrived and the principal was telling us about that we got rid of it as soon as possible. but it takes time. And so there's a lot of things that weren't in place that are now and we're continuing to focus on that. And I think that that has a huge bearing on these students ability to be able to perform later because they're
066starting way back here and then we didn't have the things in place to bridge that gap. Well, and just to speak to that just a little bit, when you ask about the tests and the tests we give, Anna talked about CBAs and sort of did Rosie being shorter versus the full length assessment. At the high school, they have to read 6,000 words on a full benchmark. At the junior high, it's 3,800 words and in fifth grade, it's 3,200 words. And we encounter very few students who sustain those many words in a given week versus one sitdown assessment. And so where we've talked about with our students about building stamina for reading is really we do the you know silent sustained reading time but checking out library books that are of interest to them because like
067I said I don't care what they read but I need them to read 6,000 words at one given time and we as Mr. Mr. Towns had shared they have not built up that stamina for literacy because they just haven't been exposed to a lot of literacy at all. But then when they come to high school, what do they read? They're reading social media. And those are short fragmented things that have no punctuation. There is absolutely no relevance. Uh when thinking about like how do you prove your point? You just put it out there. You got a personal opinion versus supporting it with evidence from the text. And so they're having to craft and use things that are not part of their typical language that they learn whether it's at home or with their peers or
068just in social settings versus what they're getting in the academic classroom. And talking about I have a little niece that is struggling at she does not she don't know any sounds. She don't I mean can't begin to read. So that bothers me that she's gone through prek where we've been told, "Oh, she's doing excellent. She's doing this." But then she gets over here to prophets and they're like, "Miss Robert, she doesn't know what's and I'm like, Camille, sorry, baby, why you don't know yourself?" But she didn't. So that's making the teachers over at Roberts work harder to try to bridge that gap. So with the party with us partying with whoever this is, I'm hoping that we can fix that. And and that's one of the things that was identified early on too was the
069phonics piece. um and all of the schools immediately uh and started implementing what's called really great reading as a supplement for the phonics piece because it it really wasn't happening. Um and so you will start to see and unfortunately she may have been in that where she wasn't getting the proper phonics instruction. Now you're seeing the results of that. But what I will say is that phonics instruction in that program is being filtered through all the campus clear up all the way through 10 homes. Um so even in the fifth grade that is implemented appropriately for what that level is. Um so that was something that was immediately recognized and the staff has done a tremendous job but that is a result what you're seeing as a result of that deficiency that we identified. Quick
070question referring back to a task meeting that is qualified instructional materials. Yes. How will the phonics program play into that? Is that something that we're going to have to figure out how to leave or is there in that when the state says you have to teach this paper and there's nothing on there is there deviation that can happen to still ensure that we're getting that phonics work? So that's a really great question and that's one of the things when we were looking at it going to the other schools that we were asking because we really just had shorn up right our phonics right um and so with the HQIM it's a tier one and it includes the phonics piece and it's all inclusive but it's based on the science of teaching reading the same training
071that our teachers have to go through in order to teach reading and our principles have to go through um so that's there but what I will tell you is is that although we can't fear in the tier one instructional setting um with what is prescribed. Um all of the interventions, tier 2, tier three, we could still use those programs and the campuses have done a great job of already identifying the programs that we will maintain going into next year for tier two and three. And really great reading is one of those the phonics programs that we will use for that. But it will not be used in conjunction with the tier one during that time but outside of that time because we have to make sure we maintain the grant asurances and the fidelity of
072that program. Okay. And when you talk about tier one, tier two and tier three, tier one's your basic classroom instruction. Yeah. I'm in the classroom. This is what I'm doing. That's the that's the first line of instruction that I'm receiving. If things aren't working great, I need a little extra. Now I'm going to tier two. I need more intervention, more intensive. I'm going to tier three. Okay. Just wanted to make sure I was tracking what you're Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Clarify. You said we didn't have a CDA4. Now we do. When the year started in our testing calendar, we did not have a CDA4 because we have a benchmark in place. But then when we established that we were going to track CDA data for LSG purposes, then we had to go back into our
073testing calendar. So it's it's an extra test what we had before was a replacement of the benchmark. It's a because the benchmark is that would have been a reflection of what CDA right the CDA is just a short yes in this specific period. So, so last year team homes had mixed assessments that we were tracking and so we wanted one aligned test and at team homes we established CBS but then it became I was going to work or didn't work but I think our movement is for less testing can we just visit this for next year I mean well that's that's a topic I mean really I mean we do want to have a discussion about how how you guys are measuring or tracking um and if it it makes sense to have a conversation
074around growth since that's what the teachers are focusing on for TIA and so that would look much different um because then it's not necessarily specific CDASU bum bum it's from this point to this point in an assessment that makes sense at this point in time what was the experience for you know what I mean I think at the last meeting we talked about the breachness of the LSG tool and this is another example of an extra test of tracking and measuring the tool is not rigid. The tool you can you can use any assessment you want to use. Yeah. Like you can't review more than two and so if you need to just go through and see what every grade's doing the progression but it kind of rotates it but we can we can visit
075it. I mean we're at the end of the year and I think we got some great progress. I look forward to seeing what the 25 is. We got some high CPAs on here. lower. So it doesn't really doesn't really show the growth to your point. It shows what I did here and then I did really good here and then I did okay here. So what is the average? I think we'll see that in June. CPA right now. So you have four CPA benchmarks and six test in reading six in science and Mr. rest. I can't speak for the other campuses, but at the high school, you know, we follow the grading guidelines. So, we're still kind of in line with having six weeks tests. Um, but we have tests that grade basically what a student
076performs within the grading period. And because we do have two required assessments that we have to give every six weeks, one of those CBAs becomes one of that. So, there might be something that the teacher gives that's more project based and then there might be something that's more of a traditional test. So, I appreciate what Mr. Carter said because what we're doing is those six that are normal part of the six weeks but then in addition to that we're doing benchmarks that truthfully the semester exam was a really good reflection of how we were doing cumulatively from the first semester. We don't give an endofear exam though because students took the EOC and so at the end of the year we don't really have a way to determine where they were at that point. However,
077we could do what we've done for y'all in the past, which is average CBA 45, five, and six, and it would give us a good idea. But with tracking TIA, as we've been working with Mr. Townson and our consultant that's been giving us feedback for that, we've truly seen that there might be some other variations because this year we looked at at using the the um star performance standards. And what we do on our normal CDAS is we use quintiles. And so we look at the student data. was my student in quintile five and I want them to move to quentile four. Oh, they were in quintile four. I want them to move up to quintile three. So, they're pro progressively getting better and that's just what it's common for teachers at least at the
078high school level that we're using because it really is a test of the curriculum I taught and eventually that is going to come together as a full assessment because we are aligning our curriculum to the assessment that is the end of course at least of the high school and the courses that are EOCC and others. Very good. So I think you can see from what the principles of the articulation of the instruction and the way they examine the results is amazing and the people here are doing a great job. And I'll just say this too, uh, James, to your point, the tool itself is set up so that whatever the district chooses to use as an assessment can as long as it works for you. Yeah. And so I think what's happened over the last
079few years, there's been some changes in the assessments that we use here to try to deliver to the board as you guys want. And I'll just tell you if you looked at all the eight districts we're working right now, they all do it a little different. They use the same tool, the same monitor is important as a jump off place. But then like what we saw tonight from Junior M, you know what Ben shows you and I'm going to tell you the articulation that your your principles I work with a lot of and this is top administration high school and and all the campuses. That's what I see. And uh I'm really I'm really proud of the work that they're doing and I hope that when they walk away from here tonight they feel built
080up and you know encouraged by the the results that they so it's outstanding and the results that you get on the end of the process from the high school. Oh my goodness. It shows, you know, the kids and I think the recognition of the administration that kids come in to school not as prepared as they need to be. So that's a whole thing Mr. Johnson and Dr. been explaining to get down into the even the day schools and work with them and bring them so that when the kids get there there's they're more school ready and that's a that to me is a big gap that's been here for a while but you can see the progress that's made by the time they get out out of school so Tony quick question if there was
081to be a conversation of okay administration how do we shift from CBA keep hearing student growth to kind of align with the TI. When is that appropriate in the planning process in your I would say let's wait till the star scores come in the rough data that comes in June and then in late June to start planning for next year. We always do that in the summer. We look we look at where we are and do we want to change the assessment so giving us the results that we want? Do we want to make a change? And and that that's when we do that. Okay. And hey, we hear you. We hear that you guys want something different. So definitely try to encourage that. And have you ever had a conversation in that mayor at
082that meeting where where it's more of a workshop where the board is involved in that conversation? So it's it's an easier not necessarily saying what exactly needs to happen, but so it's a two-way street. So there's a conversation and we're not having a meeting here and then coming here and the board saying, "I don't know. We're going back here." I don't know what that would look like. And when you're talking about the goals, that's setting the bar. You're talking about the goal progress measures and how to get it done. That's administrative. Okay? And so that's the job of the superintendent, his team to determine how he set the bar. It's their job to teach you. So I like Priscilla's asking some pretty good questions tonight. And I was listening carefully. I don't think she did
083the strategy too much. Just a little, but you know, mostly she was asking, you know, why? How can we do better? And hey, high expectations is what we want. We these people are are they love that they love high expectations and they they they want they want Dr. Mac I wanted to ask you for your interpretation of the report. Um overall I see they're coming together. So what I would equate it to is if you want to be healthy on a crash diet for wedding change your eating habits and your overall wellness habits. One is a crash course of drill and kill and make make the teachers and the students suffer. And why aren't we getting results now? Results now. Today, today you start from the ground up. Really build a system that is special.
084Start with early childhood literacy. One of the greatest indicators on success period regardless of age is where you are in first grade. Are you on reading? Are you on reading level or not? Not did you grow. I'm just saying this to current literature with current literature a lot of this is where are you when you exit first grade you exit first on and I think staff has done a phenomenal job we reported the kinder readiness as they come in the door and it is different and it is not an excuse it's different and so the data says maybe students in this community start at a lower level than others but you quickly uh pointed out look at the end result at the high school level when we make up this ground and teachers are working
085relentlessly to get that uh it does take it it's like any other system it it takes a minute but the work I'm seeing and the hustle that I've seen I'm seeing thematic development for instance as superintendent I can just tell you full disclosure you know I'm not a baseball bat I've never believed it however when I come into a district I want to value the things that the current culture is and what you're hearing versus a top down. It's the experience of saying it's bigger. It looks a little different maybe versus just like with the HQ line and the blue water. Uh it's very forced and the perception is it's very forced. Uh but uh but nonetheless building capacity, building buy in is critical and uh you know we came in and and the curriculum
086maps were huge for us. That was a big ask for teachers. However, we knew long-term health that was going to be a quality resource they could go to and you could match up hyperlinks with HQMI insert at all. uh so you know we have a framework and uh it is taking some time but definitely proud of the work uh proud of the uh proud of the patterns I'm seeing here things principal mo is talking about the value of spiral and when you look at CPAs when I said you could say insert there's all sorts of terminology for assessments right the main thing is by schooling my experience is we test them on timeline testing in real time when they're experiencing checks for understanding, informal uh evaluation, checks for understanding in and out the door. So,
087you're constantly evaluating. What you want to get away from is lengthy tests that become you're treating a cold with a thermometer. You're never going to get to the problem. And so, these informal checks for understanding combined with yes, six weeks test, most schools who run on a six weeks calendar, not necessarily elementary, but certainly secondary start to look at that. How are we measuring effectiveness and how can we do it consistently? That's that's one way. And I'm not saying it's the way, but I want you all to know that I respect your processes and that was a big part of it for me was to sit back uh and say, "All right, we're using the benchmark. Let's let's see how that goes." But what I'm hearing right now is exactly what I would hope for
088is a metamorphosis, an organic process where buying is built over time. And so, uh, as far as any other, uh, uh, look fors that I that I have in there, uh, as I took notes through here, you know, again, like we've said here, averaging the CPAs and having that look at, you know, the whole content, you know, you have those, you know, last year, I think, uh, you know, we talked about fractions, you know, and those those are going to be dips. However, if you analyze it over time and you combine that data, not necessarily a benchmark, but that data in real time so you're not over testing, you start to improve your program saying as we heard tonight, how did they last year? You start with program analysis versus uh apples to oranges. But
089I just I see tremendous value in building capacity and buy in versus just simply coming in. And I've learned so much as you said. I've learned so much from this team uh because I I don't come in with, you know, may have worked for me at one time doesn't mean it's going to work here. And so I've learned a lot and and many of our administrators are are from different areas and for them to come together and to share those ideas. And then we talked about uh um my wrong acronym there. Uh, as far as that program, you know, that was a program that was very successful in my former district. And I think I sat down with Principal Cummings the first time and saw how she used it. And we have a principal's meeting
090and we're just talking, hey, listen, I heard great things back home. I'm not saying to use it, but Rosie saying great things, too. Principal Cummings. Uh, and as it spread, it was a natural body versus prescribed. So I think that's the beauty of this over time staying the course and watching being built over time something that is can be reciprocated preserve and retain versus constant change of programs curriculum and all that and HQIM and blue is a big that's the point there's a lot of and I'm not just saying that I'm just saying it's a big one and there are perceptions out there and there's data out there you know our teachers talk to other teachers And there's no better experts when when a teacher in another district let's say has a concern our teachers
091value that as did I. Uh so uh having those options of tier instruction uh and avoiding I might say also going back to special ed it's so important so important to use RTI and avoid the special education special education label when you can because once you start like if you have this a great point if you're providing services let's say an inclusion teacher all day in this class we have to we And I'm not against your point anyway. I'm just saying to clarify, if we're accommodating for someone who doesn't need an accommodation, we're doing them a disservice. And so, uh, Dr. Pronto's over here, Dr. Pronto, when you came on, you know, the first thing I wanted I sat with you, I said, you know, a lot of these IEPs are a bit cookie cutter
092for me. Uh, they're individualized education programs. And so, took a deep dive into the number, as Mr. account and said the number of uh instructional support minutes, you know, if if you look at all your special needs students and every single one of them has 45 minutes, was that an individual education program or not? And I Dr. Bronco, thank you for your work on that. And uh like I said, it's it's not an isolation, it's special education. Thank you very much. So, does anybody have a question? Excellent consideration of this gold file. Quite a quite a discussion. Hey, I missed the good news item. Uh I missed a good news item and it's not my turn in LSG. Uh but as we're in the in the late stages of the school year, I'm proud to
093report that every single campus in the most critical time improve your attendance and that is every single campus And let me tell you what about intervention. Let me tell you what about growth. You got to have a school. Our population is almost 80% economically disadvantaged with uh with concerns for early childhood literacy and the way you help those children is more instruction. Giving them that exposure. They haven't had a magazine on the table. Well, let's let's work on that and let's add the enrichment pieces. So, it's all coming together nicely. But I just wanted to say that because you're getting them there and that many times is more than half the value. So congratulations to everybody on that. I share that with you individually but all together those first all of you as we go
094into the final stretch off. Everyone showed growth. You're already showing the best year you've had in recent memory and every campus show growth. Keep up the great work and the results will take care of itself. So great work. Thank you. Thank you Tony. I forgot about the program. I think a couple of times the program uh you can tell that our teachers, our administrators are working hard to close that I when I camp I see that and just a little bit of story teach. I remember being in a classroom and I told them to write story but it was I said write a story write a story and I said I said what is it? I didn't write it but I did tell a story. I said, "You told us what?" Yeah. I went to
095the corner store to buy something and I didn't have the money and I told him that that story because in my culture that's what we couldn't say. You weren't allowed to use the word lie. It was that did you tell a story and that thing looks you be like oh wait but I'm I'm hearing and what I'd like to hear that you recognizing that is a divide and that you're working toward closing that and I hope that you take away from all of my talk to know that I think you're wonderful. I think that everybody that gets up in the morning and head to school not expecting you wonder because you can't determine what your day is going to be like in a classroom. You don't know what the job is going to be like.
096You don't know what pretty soon is going to be like, but you learn to adjust and modify. So, we do appreciate that. I want you to know that I appreciate that. But I have to ask my question all the time. So don't take it as a slap on the head because I do see it and I understand that go I just want more you know those high expectations there are certain things that Dr. Mac is asking you to do in your advisor today you you're there. So I want y'all to continue to do what you're doing because you are making a difference you are and we couldn't be where we are today without you. Thank you, M. That means a lot. It does. Appreciate that. And so the next thing we're going to do is
097board evaluation. So we'll go through this. I got last last time. I think that was in February. Looking at vision goals one, where do you think you score this? Yes. How are we doing it distinguishing between inputs, outputs and outputs? In other words, what's input is super output is is measured in term and outcome. How do we do distinguishing the difference between able to do that pretty regularly? Would you say we're staying late as far as like understanding Dr. Max is getting done? Your yours is set. You feel like okay because last time we scored 12 and I think the only thing that would keep us from being masters would be what? Knowing the current status and committing it to commit all of them to memory and stat all exactly and then two the last
098three months the ownership of the vision goals that's probably I don't know that there's anything that's really happened I don't think we really focused on that in the last three months I know in December we did but that's not the last time so uh James suggested that you're focus that's where I'm just [Music] ask okay what about vision goals Everybody else, what keeps us from being okay to the next period and This [Music] is vision goals three. The board is adopting constraints. Don't ask me. Everything is never just I appreciate your zeal for it, but there's probably some things. Yeah. As we're going through this, you guys have been doing this for a few years and you know the you have the systems and processes that research shows can deliver results. So there's there's probably
099time to time a whole lot of change unless we change the things that we've been talking about tonight. So looking at vision goals for construct progress measures agree to progress and accountability. Now last time you were masters for the last three months your average is 48.84% I ask a question about that because I always get confused because I feel like we do a good job of focusing the main part of the meeting on what counts against us. Close session doesn't count at all. So now you had some you had a couple of meetings where there was a lot of additional things that happened during the meeting. Let me go through agenda today minutes here. Okay. Oh, you're already you're already up. Okay. Invocation. Does it count towards the meeting minutes? And where does it count?
100It it counts. It would not be something that's going to count for you. But I think that's important enough to leave. Oh, absolutely. pledge of allegiance. It's not going to help. Good news. Yeah, unless it's all about but it's random. So that wouldn't celebration. Yes. Normally your celebration counts. Now tonight it's about athletics. So there were several gen. It's just it's not it's let's put it this way. It's not counting for you. It's not really against you and you're not really count. No, it counts. If I go get the tracker and I look at it, it goes into other category that isn't related to student can only count for well you just you're very close to 50%. I can't feel like we focus our portions that we can control. what we're doing now. I can't
101control if the public wants to come in here and 20 of them want to talk to us. I encourage that. That's a good thing. Most taking part in the meetings. Sure. But why would they? I think we should appeal that to the board. So again, if I go back and average your your minutes over the last year and a half, it's going to be well 50%. There has been a transformation in Bay City as to what you focus for agree this last three months. The entire LSG section counts for us. Yeah. Okay. Oh yeah. Items of business may or may not depending on the topics. Right. Consent agenda takes a minute go through that. And then executive session no matter what's in it doesn't seem to count as a minute. Correct. Yeah. And this is
102just three months at a time. Okay. You had a kind of an anomaly. Normally you're over 50% and this time even with the meetings you had you're very close but again you would be okay so you may be fertilizing my agenda clear understanding it now I know are you still I have pause whatever but okay so where do we score on this We're not% And then going to the next area which is progress accountability to Yes. Because you don't evaluate superintendent solely on student outcomes. I think that's the one thing I can say. Also, you uh Kelly has done the U reported the average cost of staff time spent. So you're now getting credit for that. She she took a lot of time out of her schedule built that for you. So that's good. So
103that's a systems and processes. The board operates in a way that allows the super to accomplish. So your average uh meeting is lasting 1.72 hours and your average other topics are that's incredible. I mean, from what we were doing, you know, several years ago to now, that's that's really where do you think you scored? I think there may have been one meeting where he didn't get it. I [Music] The next one is advocacy engagement boards. Okay. Let me ask you, have you led or co-led at least one train for his community during the past six months? Is that is that leading or totally a train? It's awareness question answer. Yeah. Two communication for sure training would be something process. Okay. So we go over to the final area which is teamwork, synergy and teamwork. And
104your your average attendance of the board has been 85.7. So average six persons per meeting over the last three months according to the records I have. So it's 85.7%. Where do you think you work collaboratively with our our statuto required training? So all board members that we got all we're going to go down everybody agree with that. I got 69. What I need you to do is the box. Did you get 12 4 [Music] 12. So this is and then Tony be nice to see where we score three quarters ago, three quarters ago, one quarter ago when we get this You can see as you go along you can see one quarter ago and I'll start writing in the last three passen so you get a chance to see okay and I can even send
105that to you ahead of time. Yeah it's not too much No it's not too much trouble at all. I like the fact that you're concerned about it and you ask questions about it. So, uh, as you're signing that, um, I want to remind everybody about our board conference, the vision 3 technology center, uh, on May 14th. And so, we'll have, if you get new board members, we'll have a strand for new board members all day long. And then we also have, you know, all kinds of good training for you to to get and you'll be able to kind of get if you're an experienced board member, you can get most of your training done that day. Whenever we do team building and then that that pretty much adds up to your time or something specific,
106we will provide a legislative update training for board members like in August or September, just so you know. And then um has there been any opportunities for community engagement in the last month for the last six weeks involve? Yeah, you guys are volunteers. Thank you for appreciate. Yes, sir. We have one one board position that's contested. Um if it's somebody who wasn't already here, I mean it's overturned, can that person join us in Victoria if they're able to? Oh yeah, absolutely. That's why we do it after. So you guys Yeah. If it's over even if they haven't done the process. Yeah. I mean have them come because we want to make sure they get that education. Uh and also I did board candidate training here. um city for I think there was two candidates that
107that showed up for that if they get elected and want to get selected they get to count that $3 towards their framework. Okay. Yeah. And so um just as far as like LSG coaching I just want you all to know I have a ton of respect for you because you guys are volunteers you give it your time. You could be with your family. So I want to tell you how much I appreciate the effort you made and I also want to say I really appreciate Dr. for his leadership, especially keeping everybody focused on academics. And I will just tell you this that if you just go back to that that LSG training that we had, one creates improved student, the very first thing the synergy, teamwork between the board and the superintendent. And I can
108tell you that there's nobody sitting here in front of me or there's none of us out in the audience that are perfect. But when we work together as a team, we can accomplish a lot. So as a board, you bring the values, you bring the the goals, the vision for the district and you bring the accountability, the expectations, the questions Priscilla is asking having high expectations. You're the ones that set the goals. You tell everybody in the community, here's the nine vegetables and you monitor to help make sure that reaching those goals. If you do all that together, research shows you're balanc, you know, you're destined to succeed. And I don't think there's a better example of the place that I know that I work with where these this research being applied day in and
109day out. And all I can say as a coach is you got a lot of struggles right now. There's a lot of struggles financially that were based on previous decisions, but when you pull together as a team, sit in a room and work out your differences and work together to move forward, you can't help but be successful. I just think you guys pull up together and come together and face the future and be successful. Because I'm going to tell you, I sit with different boards all the time. of different teams and what what you've got here is really is really a great thing and compete against districts about your size academically and all we would go we go to contests we weren't worrying about who's going to be number one because we already knew who
110was going to be number one we were all focused on who's going to be number two and when I sit with that district and they're celebrating the fact they had one kid in the class get an associates degree and then I have to tell them what that's really great for that kid in that family. There's another district their size that's really out you would just do some of the things they're doing you would be getting the results they're got kids. So, I know you've got struggles and I know sometimes it's easy to just focus on what the struggles are here at home, but I mean, look around. You guys have a lot of things going together in this room sitting at this table right here. It's the answer to the future if you guys can
111work together as a team. And I think you can find that way forward. I hope and I'm going to mention to you one other thing. I with full retirement July 1st. Congratulations. My house is for sale. The closing date is May 5th. I bought a condo and I move [Music] there. We're going to have our RV at Lake Texas for the month of May as I transition job. I told Morris, he's already threatened to come back from the board conference just like we're excited. So, I'll be here in May and I'll be here know transitioning. But I will tell you working with you guys and seeing the improvements that you've made, getting to be a little bit of a part of that and then seeing Dr. Matt come in the work the fantastic work he's
112done and and y'all have done as a team. It's been really enjoyable for me. So when was your last meeting with us we appreciate you and all your work and with our district with our staff is very valuable. If my kids were still in school I would see That's true. Congratulations. All right. Is there a motion to be made in regards to LSG? All right. There first on the table. Is there a second to the motion? All right. A first and a second. Any further comments, questions? Hearing none. All in favor? Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. All right. Moving on to items of business. Item A, announce board members training hours. Um, so I'm gonna go quickly, but I do have to read it off. Um, Laura Beth Roisho, she completed hers with 18
113hours um with all of her new member training and then the specific things that she needed, which were improving student outcome, child abuse prevention, and team building, cyber security, open government, entry to Texas code and local districts. Felix Nunees is in progress. He has two hours for school safety. Priscilla Robinson is in progress. Has two hours for school safety. James Gardmi is completed with seven hours. The conference at region three and school safety. Trent Tenon is in progress with two hours in school safety. Um Mark West is in progress and Jill West is completed with 5.75 hours in advocacy 101 and 102 school finance and then legislative update 49 as well as school safety. So just have to read that out loud. Do we have to make a motion to approve that? I don't believe
114we do but I just wanted to make sure. Okay. Uh moving on to item B discussion and approval of RFP award for custodial services contract. Dr. M. So uh we did have the opportunity and uh AHI's here with us this evening. It has been uh a robust process uh through the RFP and uh working with some of your uh co-workers uh that could be here tonight. We appreciate you being here. Um, we did when you weren't here, we had our budget workshop last week. So, we kind of went in, we we actually go into the the RFP, we got some great questions today, really good questions that we'll probably discuss today and some breakdown that that we did. Uh, because I I really think this board is trying to turn over every stone and make
115sure the right choice is made based on uh people. And so, uh, that's what I got for the questions today. So, you'll have a few more questions, but uh I know that uh Carly uh our uh if we had our business manager has some some sick little ones and and golly, she put so much work into this. We just her immediate uh supervisor of course Brent from the department kind of and and Brent went back and forth a lot of stuff as far as who had what and teamwork that went into that. And so at this time I think what we're prepared for and Brent and you and of course Vince has turn it over to you all but I think the main business today is to get to some of these questions and we
116can get to those however you want. Uh I don't I don't know if yes you may have received them but you may have followup questions on that with specifics. We we had questions on uh benefits and so when we went into the question on benefits it's so it may sound like a copout but there's so many variables such as well which level did you have did you opt in for different things and so uh Jordan cross will be able to speak to some of those things there was a very strong pattern in the data as far as the level of coverage that our custo custodial folks have. So that was incredibly linear. Uh but then getting into the whole discussion of well here's here's your wage compared to our wage. Well, here's the benefits compared
117to our benefits. And I can tell you this is as a district uh one of the things we you're required to uh and I'm going to use an approximate number. Please no one quote me. Um it's around $220 that districts typically pay the boards benefits. Our district the total contribution not including insurance because you guys can correct me too and please do it's it's almost double that our contribution and so it you know that that is it is an expense. Don't I don't mean to sound like a business but there's there's money involved and so there's budgets involved and so that that is a significant expense for us, but that's commitment of the district to meet and so I'll open that up and then as far as this point, do you have anything to add?
118Just whatever questions the board has. Just whatever questions. Okay, I'm turn over. Or do y'all have any questions in regards to the RFP and information that was important? Yeah, thank you for getting us that information. Um, I think just the concern was, you know, obviously we asked previous meeting how much the RFP was going to cost versus what we're paying. There be a savings there, not a savings and added value there. So, thank you. And then if Jordan, if you just don't mind providing a summary kind of a high level of benefits that the employees are going to be receiving in the new versus what they're receiving now, you know, are they getting equitable benefits or have it been scaled back or increased? So based off of the data that their HR manager, VP of
119HR had shared with me was there is a percentage that they receive based off of their gross salary. So that's a bit different. Yes, sir. The 9.02% 02%. So that's going to be a bit uh different and hard to compare because ours is a set rate and and that's where it's going to drive the the concern is okay what if you have an employee that's making a dollar amount versus an employee that's making a significantly higher dollar amount. That 9.02 is what's going to take into consideration. One thing that she did share with me is that this percentage is applied based on the employees gross obviously like I stated and then each uh it may vary it was uh something in regards to I'm not on it that it didn't go above the 9.02 covered
120anything over yes that they covered anything over the 9.02 and so that was important because it's stuck at the 9.02 2. Anything obviously above it, their company would pay and go into a little more detail. I don't know if y'all have any insight on that with y'all being current employees um of AHI. U it makes it a bit difficult just because ours is a set rate and a set value depending on an employee and what they enroll in. Um we also have multiple different plans that an employee can enroll in where I didn't have that data to be able to compare. So that made it a bit difficult for me to give a a good example or comparison to y'all, but the 9.02 was the best thing that I could at least start with. 9.02
121is the max that that employee has put health in their check for best even if they have benefits above and beyond that. Correct. Okay. So are the benefits they receive similar medical and I know plans are different. They're getting medical, they're getting general, they're getting the same benefits just at a different cost. What I understood I do want to point out and I just enrolled. So our health is Blue Cross Blue Shield. I don't know what you all are using but Blue Cross Blue Shield I just enrolled is pretty good. Yes sir. And that's what I was going to share is I did notice that they are part of Blue Cross Blue Shield which is who we are a part of as well. Um y'all are under a high deductible. We do have a high
122deductible plan and based off of the data and the analysis that I pulled from um our benefit hub, majority of our staff that are under the custodian department are part of the high deductible. So that is a positive. A lot of employees do go towards a high deductible because they don't have to have a referral. Um more of our uh see it as a PO or HMO the comparison if they're under a primary or primary plus they're going to have to have a referral. So, a lot of those employees don't go towards that. So, that they can go to whoever um physician or provider is necessary to treat whatever they may need. In your opinion, similar benefit, similar cost, just depending on where they're at. I mean, it could be I would say based off
123of the data that I've received, it's similar just from us being able to provide a high deductible plan and them being able to provide a high deductible plan. Thank you. Uh a good point to make is uh we will be if we do get this contract the employees will be working throughout the whole 365 you know to keep them going you know doing some deep cleaning during the summer stripping the wax and floors they will be and of course Christmas whenever they're usually gone. questions, concerns. I was just um I know at the last meeting a little bit was definitely discussed about a possible town hall, you know, like if you got the contract. Have you ever done it where you have one so that our current employees could ask questions and not be in
124fear or coming to us to find that? Yes. Yeah, we would have something like that. And of course we will have one on that you know if they have any questions in regards to any benefits wages we can do it. So I think need to do something they need to know where they stand whether or not they're going to have you can only question I am so basic I want our staff I want to keep I know what you're bringing and looking at the last I don't see really anything on that we Other than this, we did the same thing up earlier. We had an orientation before we got the contract. We answer everyone's questions. So, we're familiar with that. We just want to make sure that the employees know that they're going to a
125great company. We've been in the business since 1967. It started as a small business and now the company's grown so much that we feel it's important for the employee to know where they you know they been working for a great district like you guys and you know coming to work for us. We want them to feel that same, you know, you know, welcoming and same uh make sure that they're aware of the benefits, make sure that they're making a good transition to the contract. But that is a great question. We would do that before as well just so we get, you know, want to get familiar with the company. They might not know a lot of the company's been around. You know, some folks, uh, you know, do their research. So we want to make
126sure that they feel confident. Yes, great question. Thank you. Has there been any information given to the our current custodial staff of what what is the conversation been? Yeah. On that front, there's been a lot of reassurance that from myself to the custodial staff saying this is where we are in this process. This is what we're going through. you know, based on this or the potential outcomes, there will be job opportunities for each of you that if if you want to stay here and be a custodian for Bay City if this was to happen, there's a job waiting for you to put in for if you want that job. And it's basically their decision uh to accept that position if they want that position. And then there's been also reassur reassurances for the wages and
127benefits. you know, that's always a topic uh that came up through the through the proposal process that came up in our budget workshop uh where they they mentioned that they know our starting pay. They mentioned that their starting pay is a little bit higher than ours. So there there has been some reassurances from myself to the staff uh about the wages and the benefits and the and the opportunity for them to be employed if if you make your decision this evening uh to go with AHI or not. I mean they have the opportunity to be employed with AHI if we decide to go that route. We're in my conversations also. I think the biggest thing to overcome was a purposeful communication enacted such as there are no days, there are no benefits. And that's what
128I don't know if they told me, custodians told me that there's no more days, there's no more. And so I I had similar conversations uh in this building as well as on campuses. And that was almost this relief where I got to tell you about rumors, you know, uh there's something about data, facts, just something there and it felt relief. And by no means am I saying anything is perfect. I'm not saying that. Uh but I think the biggest thing was debunking rumors, gossip, any window, false information. That was that that's exactly right. I tried to get ahead of this once we, you know, they got out to the public. I got out ahead of it. There's been some rumors since I've had those conversations with the staff and I have followed back up with
129staff reassuring them that this is the route we're going. We made sure that you were going to be taken care of if this was the the action that the district wanted to take. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions or is there a motion? I'll make a motion back in an effort to move this forward but to respect Trusty Robinson's desire more permission to have a forum on this model. Yes. So I move that the board accept the rankings of the administration for procurement of custodial services finding that AHI provides the best value to the district and move to delegate authority to the superintendent to negotiate the contract for final approval by the board. So what I did there was I authorized him to go ahead and negotiate this contract. He's got to bring it back
130to us and then we approve it and then that leaves us just a little bit of time employees in front of them for question answers or however they want however they want to do that. Yeah. So it will come back to our table for a final contract once the contract is gone through legal it'll come back here and in that time there'll be some type of whatever y'all necessary with Is there a second to the motion? All right. Any more questions? We don't have a contract. Well, we're honored that you allow us to come over here and represent ahi and you know we want to partner up with you all and I think we feel our company is very employee. I just you know I just started about a month and a half ago and
131what I've seen from this company is they're all about employee. So I I think if you guys go forward with this contract, you'll all see that you know our company takes very hundreds of employees out there probably the same they've been I just came from Dallas about three and a half weeks ago and we have employees that are 30 plus years that for me showed me that boys around 30 plus years see that what this company's moving to. So again, we're honored for for y'all inviting us here this meeting today. I know we saw some other things here. I was pretty impressed myself. Uh you know, I've never been to a board meeting, but it was good. It was a good learning curve for me how we all operate and I appreciate that. Yes, sir.
132Thank you all for being here. So there is a first and a second on the table. Just to be clear that the motion is to go ahead and authorize Dr. Mack to start contract negotiations, but it will come back to the board table before any final stamp is put on it. So there will still be a point to say yay or nay and you can still ask questions from Dr. Mack, Mr. Music and AHI as well as some type of communication will happen with employees. And another note, there's no rush, but we've got two more workshops before our next board meeting. So whenever it's done and we get the employees, we can throw them right back on the next workshop and get this get this turned in. So we got a full month to do
133it. So a little leverage on the negotiation. So all in favor? Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. All right. Item C, special education staff compensation plan. Dr. M. Um we uh as as I mentioned in the budget workshop um and and I'll have some other updates and and James I could agree more when we get some get it to you all. Uh just if if you've been receiving emails there is uh there's new movement. When I say new, it's not an average year in the legislature and what I'm seeing and then I made a phone call went to Austin today and individual I trust says, "Oh, no, you're right. Things are moving faster and I'm not going to quote that person who they are. Uh but for that person to tell me uh there's a
134good chance that we will know something very early and that is way more ever usually find out maybe as old as I am it is rarely uh July last year went all the way into the fall semester I believe it seemed like uh but that I just want to that update on school funding. Now, since it's still variable, uh at the last workshop, we said we've noticed an area of high need and that although we recommend waiting for more information versus jumping into something and causing a panic among staff that spe special educations with specifically the SLPA speech related services, Dr. Pronto's here as well. Thank you, Dr. Pronto for being here. Uh but they've got some numbers for you all tonight on how uh in that area where the data is telling us there
135may be some room for some adjustments. I did go ahead and print out and I do apologize. It was like I mentioned the other day I did not meet with Cassie and I didn't get to everything until yesterday. So um I did provide to the team but I wanted to go ahead and just provide the handout that I spoke to about so that we can have an update know a little bit about it be a bit confusing. Okay. So on page one what you're going to be looking at is our um it's just a graph that TI provided me. The way she started it out was just showing where we are compared to and this is specific to our professional assignments for special education. So, like I mentioned the other day, all of our diags,
136speech language pathologists, LS, SLPAS, LSSDs, everybody that is in Dr. Toronto's department that help service the students when it comes to those special requirements, not our special education majors. So, I did want to make that very clear as we start the conversation. So um if you want to go ahead and go to page two kind of go through the different pages so you have an understanding of what we're looking at. So as you can see on page two it highlights the percentage difference between salaries and the market value based off the diag are performing well compared to the market average largely because majority of our staff are senior staff members. So I did want to point that out because you can see that we are a little bit higher on that because of the employees
137that serve those clients. The behavioral specialist and licensed specialist in school psychology the LSSP positions are slightly below average. The director of special education falls within the market median. And then the social worker, speech language pathologist assistant, speech language pathologist positions are currently 8% under market value which is considered low given the market conditions and that's why we are bringing this information to y'all because that's where we're struggling with some of those assignments. We did this past year hire Dr. to do a phenomenal job with getting a social worker. She's been great. Um Dr. I don't know if you have any feedback on that piece, but from what my point of view, she's done a phenomenal job. And I know the assist done well with having her on those. She serves at junior high and
138at high school. Um the LS SLPA and the SLP. This past year, we did not have an SLP. Um we do have contracted workers. We started the the semester with an SLPA. um the SLPA did and go do continued education, but we are wanting to bring somebody on fulltime and that's kind of where a lot of these conversations were starting. That's where we're at. You want to add anything to that? So now, if you want to go ahead and go to page three, I did want to just add some notes. Um obviously it is under page two. I do believe it it went over to you. But um if you're looking at the very bottom of the notes, I did want to kind of just mention what the N75 mean. Um obviously it's self-explanatory, but
139the M does indicate the median salary from compar comparison districts. The C refers to the average of non school data in the 75th percentile of school districts and the 75 indicates the 75 percentile of reporting districts. So, that's important because some districts don't report to TAS. Um, I've learned over the last couple of years that I may want to look at a comparison of a district, but they don't have any data for me to reference. And that's important, especially if we're trying to compare like our size to another size. That's where some of the times I have to go maybe to region four or region two, just depending on what we're looking at and what we're really wanting to analyze. So, on page three is the range, the pay range medium. This was important because
140this is really specific to the LSP and the SLPA. Right now the ROS are three to 5% lower than market minimums which contributes to the recruiting and retention challenges that we're having. So I wanted to make sure that that was identified and those two are at the very bottom. So you can see what the market salary is minimum for the SLP and then you can see what the uh market salary minimum is for the SLPA and you can see where our district salary minimum is and that's what brings it down significantly. So after speaking with Lauren if you want to go ahead and go to page four this is where she did the pay adjustment and the structural recommendations for our district. Um she had recommended reclassifying the following roles into higher pay rates to
141better align with the market experience. She had suggested moving the behavior intervention specialist, the special education coordinator, the educational dias and the vision instructor to a pay grade three. Currently, if you look at our pay grades, they sit under a pay grade two for the um division instructor is the ON specialist, which is the orientation and mobility. That employee currently does receive the siphon for that O and M certification. She has combining the two, but if we do replace the employee, we will look at that depending on what the certifications are. If that employee does have a certification, if they just have a certification on vision, they would only be staffed as a vision instructor instructor, not a vision instructor because they don't have that certification. Is that correct, Dr. Sorry. Learn all kinds of
142stuff through special education with Dr. P. The other thing is we would like to move the LSSP, occupational therapist, and the SLP into pay grade four. Um, currently the data that we did receive, uh, she did look at occupational therapists that are within a school district, not at a hospital. That was important because a lot of these positions you're going to see not only here in um, school education, but also in a public setting with healthc care, um, different contract services, those type of settings. So I thought that was important to highlight that she looked at the analysis did the analysis on that specific salary for the occupational therapist to make sure that we were targeting those areas. And then the last she did state to keep the director of special programs in a pay
143rate six to stay consistent with our administrative pay rate. I was happy about that because I don't want to pull somebody off of the admin pay and make it a bit difficult when it does come to maybe other positions that we have to fill within a director role. That could make it very challenging when you start analyzing the different data and determining, okay, where do we place a director that's in this category compared to a director that's in that category. So, keeping it consistent with our administrative pay grade because we want to keep that plan consistent with what we have right now. So, that is the data there. Um, all in all, just kind of what we she had shared with me is that if we were to make any changes, um, the total results,
144um, the estimated increase would be about 5,000 if we made any adjustments to the current budget. That's based off of all of our employees that I shared with her in January. I had to submit all the data to CASBY for them to start analyzing. um she used whatever pay grade and whatever current salary that they're making, made the adjustments based off of this pay grade that she provided and that's where she had an analyze that the estimated increase would be about $5,000. I thought that that was feasible, but it is something that I did want to share. Just mentioning where we are, where we are at with the deficit, but also where we're at with recruitment. 5,000's the impact of this year's budget, correct? Which ends in June. What's the impact on? I would have
145said yes. She has on a pay grade because she would suggest you can get more administrative. So administrative is a bit different and this isn't a current statement. This is just a proposal pay. So what she's saying is where the director of special programs is on this pay grade five. She suggested to keep it under six under our administrative [Music] the ones above the LSB. These are all currently if you were to look at our plans right now the LSSP is in a three. The occupational therapist is in pay grade three and the speech language pathologist is in grade three. This play is making those adjustments to mirror what they are suggesting is moving them into all these different pay. So right now the behavioral intervention specialist, the coordinator for special programs, educational diagn specialist,
146they all sit under too. the LSSP, occupational therapist, speech language pathologist, all set under a pay grade three. Then our pay grade four may have an assistant principal, a principal, just depending on what that payment is under the administrative statement. We're completely taking these this specific group and pulling them off of that administrative pay plan and putting them under a special program. Does that make sense? Yeah. Char was filmed [Music] talking about [Music] the talking about and I'm still on the contract contract. So if I have someone that's under uh four payments, if we decided to open up a position and add another pay grade, what would that person know? if she was right here in court. So if they opened up another program instead of asking some contract person come in if we already
147have someone that's qualified will that no longer you just say that they receive their pay. So, if I'm under four and I'm hired as a contract person and I'm still here, can I get the same paid that they contract person? because we we've had I'm only talking about what we've had people to leave that's under four to offer bring somebody in on contract and you know which contract makes more than than what our person so there's a couple lot of questions that you're asking uh you have multiple different questions that you're asking in regards to compensation. Yes. So to answer your first question is if you were an LSSP and you're wanting to get hired under a contracted services and come in at a starting rate of or LSSP for respective 97 days the starting
148rate on your 70,240 one we're going to have to look at okay is this a full-time assignment or is this a a contract date? If it's a full-time assignment it's going to be based on what are your uh what is the assignment? Is it part of that pay grade? Does it meet the job description? Does it meet the responsibilities, the expectation to fall under that pay rate? But if you're referencing just a contractor that you're wanting to leave the district as a full-time employee and come on as a contractor, that's going to be something completely different because that's going to come through Dr. police department because you're going to have to be uh receive a fee based off of your contracted services and that's going to vary from company to company how much per hour
149and so that's a negotiation piece too of you know well you're giving me someone that has only two years of experience and they don't have much experience in school system so I'm certainly not going to pay them as much as someone that's been in the school system for 20 years and had a lot of experience So, um, that's a case by case and I have to look at the contract for that. We will look inside before we go. I think Oh, 100% refer to book inside. 100% would rather look inside. And that's I think what we're trying to do here is make our compensation package more attractive to um to um recruit and retain um direct hire. So I don't have to go contract because I would rather not. I would hire all inside and
150hire them direct hires and not have to go that contract. And a lot of times these these positions require additional schooling too. It's not like you're just traditional teacher that may have an SEC certification in special education. Um a lot of these assignments they're going to require additional uh schooling for getting a certification. And that's kind of where the conversation started with a psychologist assistant. We have an employer right now that got that degree and we're wanting to continue to keep them here at a district, but we have to be comparable with other districts. And that's where when we started analyzing the data and really looking into what's the comparison of a full-time versus contracting. That's where a lot of these discussions came up. I did want to reference chattering about the big plans. So,
151at the top you see that it says 2526 proposed. This is not our current pay plan. This is just a proposal right now. What I was mentioning is that if you look at our full pay plan, all of these assignments sit under something that says administrative pay plan. So from one all the way down to maybe eight. These positions are mixed in within those pay plans along with some of our assistant principles, our principles. Um, I'm trying to think off of the top of my head, directors, anybody that sits in an administrative assignment. And that's what makes this pay plan so important is because we're taking this specialized group out of that administrative pay plan and putting it on a completely different pay plan. So that's why whenever I was saying that we're moving the
152behavioral intervention specialist, the coordinator of the educational diag right now, if you look at the administrative pay plan, they're under a pay plan two. We're moving them out of a pay plan two and putting them in a pay grade three. That makes sense. Yes, sir. I I mean if if y'all would like even comparison, I can absolutely provide that administrative pay plan comparison to just to really see the analysis of moving them out of that pay grade or pay plan and moving it into a special program. I would like to see. Okay. So, what is the timeline on this? As as far as a timeline, we have uh some value 100%. This needs to be back on our next there's no action tonight. This needs to be back on our next meeting. So, it doesn't
153have to say discuss and approve. It just says discuss. Okay. There any other questions for right now? Is there anything else? Right. Consider this next week. Um, is there an idea of what we're spending on contracted services? versus if we were to stay if we were to approve and move forward with this pay plan increase what that would be to the district actually has them right here so he has just kept on Um, let's see. As of last week, we had spent $863,772 contracted services. Um, more than what we budgeted locally, but it's expenditures that I've mentioned before. We have to spend we don't spend it risk los. So, what we've worked with with Dr. Pronto's team, we're projected to be almost $840,000 over our budget 840. And and I think it's key and important
154and that was something that we as a team looked at and analyzed. That's just personnel. That's not anything else that comes out of Dr. P's department. That's just personnel servicing students that need to meet those assessments. I had a conversation last year $250,000. So that's kind of the importance of waiting on the legislative sessions is that there's a lot of needed education and it's it's all going to be formula based and you know we can get a draft budget tomorrow. It's going to be worth $500 deficit minimum six million. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the that's the question is we wait until session's over which is the beginning of June the third somewhere around the second third fourth somewhere around there and then we have to approve a budget by the end of that
155month because we start a new fiscal year July one. So I think see even if it's a draft budget that's a deficit seeing a draft budget and what some proposals are so so there's some conversation I think for me would be helpful instead of waiting until we hear from the legislature and then what if they don't make a decision right now they're saying they're going to make a decision but what if something shifts it's a lot of what if so that's where I'm wondering is it easier and better for the board to just say okay here's here's what we're working with it's going to change in one way or the other, one form or fashion. Um, but I think having that and having those conversations of okay, if this is if nothing changes and this
156is our budget, then what are we doing to how are we changing and shifting in that manner? I don't know. Is there any conversation or questions that y'all have in that regard as well? And I don't think this question. [Music] So just speak one more piece on that. There's the maintenance of effort piece for special basically you have four tests you have to pass um the easy one to pass is you're requiring you're maintaining your level of spending. So let's say we spent $4.8 million last year. The state expects us to spend 4.84 or more. Correct. Um district say who they are. They're going through something very similar. Um so say you're paying a contractor to service the company and Trusty Robinson might like Dr. Bronto said we would prefer to go with this model
157because it puts someone in the classroom and teach someone in the classroom versus having to because we have to meet the need one way or another. And the only way we're meeting the needs right now is when contract services because of where they're all going. Um I have a friend who's a licensed school psychologist that's getting you know coached left and right trying companies trying to coach him all the way out to California to pay for his so these people. um it makes it very hard for the district, but when we have the ability to hire them inside, it's cheaper for the district because we're paying them at a salary and we're not paying, you know, an additional amount to a company that goes on top of that. So, an individual could cost the district
158as a contracting service $120,000 a year versus staffing position $70,000 and paying them something that's competitive, you know, market compared to market value by Jordan Sharon. But then the state's going to You spent $120,000 last year, you're spending $70,000 this year, you have to you're going to get penalized that $50,000 difference by the state. And so that's something the state has yet to answer. Like Dr. McCay is saying, that's one of the biggest learning needs in the state is special education. They haven't come up with an answer to sit there and say we're doing the right thing and and ultimately achieving the mission by providing the best service to the student by having someone here someone rather than having someone provide a service virtually or doesn't include um just the proctor and all the other
159pieces that come along with it. So ultimately that that's something that you know we're going to have to pay a $50,000 fine or uh for having someone here or pay $120,000 for you know having someone provide a service virtually to our student in addition to having a propert. We're better off paying $50 fine. That's my perspective on it because ultimately it achieves the mission that that we're all in the business of which is educating students and providing the best services to we rather have someone that's there providing that service rather than having someone you know zoom in and provide a service like speech therapy or something like that. Um because the city is yet to come with an answer that we're actually doing the thing that we're supposed to be doing providing the best service.
160I just wanted to share that as well. are looking for a position right they're looking for and on that qualification they always come to pay to attract let me say to attract are we going to pay them if we hire inside the same salary that you out there seeking or so that's one thing yet to answer on is if because that $120,000 is a salary that contractor is making that's what a staffing company's going to charge to to you know bring someone in the person who's working they're not seeing $120,000 they may be seeing 60 50 we don't know what that number is but they're definitely not seeing 120,000 companies coming in and getting that cut so Essentially, rather than giving that $50,000 to the company, we're giving it back to the state and making
161sure that we're providing someone purchase providing someone. And then we entice the ours that come in direct hire. And that is that you know if they don't spring break or off they get off they don't have to lose pay where if you're contracted during spring break I did not pay contracted staff and so that five days they did not get to charge their daily rate or hourly rate. So but a direct hire would receive that benefit. um a contracted service doesn't receive benefits and so there are perks to even though they may get paid a little bit you know less although I agree with Vince we don't really know what that number is because they shave a whole lot the company shaves a whole lot off the top of that but they also don't get
162things like you know Christmas break being paid um holidays and off where they'll still get paid um benefits um belonging to uh a school system and a a campus where we unify and become a family together. Um, and there's really strong rules out there that we have to be very careful not to treat a contracted employee like a school employee. Um, I can't necessarily give them gifts of appreciation um because they're not a school employee or a district employee. They're a contracted staff. So we have to tangle with those guidelines too to make sure we're not crossing on that side as well. So um some want to only work contracting because they don't need insurance and that that's fine. um or uh worry about those things. But ideally knowing that they are invested in our
163district because we've hired them directly and they're invested in our students and they track our students and follow them and they work with them at this grade and this grade as a speech language pathologist. Um that's the ultimate goal and that's what we want for our students. That's best practices um for our students. And so we have to figure out how to compensate those that actually want to be hired directly with us and get some of those extra perks um where it's not such a um loss not going contracted. So in that uh a whole umbrella of special ed do you have that cushion in there that if we have a student that needs to be in just and is that cushion into this budget. So when we created last year's budget, we put that
164cushion in and this year we haven't created the budget for 2526. But yes, we'll have to pad in that cushion as well because we don't know we don't we don't and so we did last year and we will do that again this year for that unexpected. Additionally, Dr. applies for two different types of grants to try to bring those costs down. So when one of those students was attending a gay facility, um you know, they're eligible for something called high cost in order to be eligible for that student has to cost you know three times what the state average is state average was for this year which is a little over 12,000 for 12 13 so a little over 38 um we're eligible for that we're also eligible for discretionary amount of 9900 so um
165we're applying for everything that we can bring because what it does is allows us to recode those expenditures from the local budget and charge them to take them off the budget. So, um, if that student could cost us a quart of a million dollars for residential services, we're applying for at least 99 to a little over 100,000 to try to bring some sort of question table. I may see compensation for the next meeting. All in favor? Moving on to consent agenda. Is there anything that anybody would like to remove from the consent agenda? None. All in favor? Oh, wait. Is there a motion you made? Sorry, I skipped that. Is there a motion to be made to approve the consent agenda? [Music] Is there a second to the motion? All right. All in favor? Opposed?
166Motion passes six to zero. All right. We will move into executive session to take personal matters if necessary may be taken into close session pursuing Texas government code 551.074 074 delivery the employment employment evaluation reassignment duties discipline resignation or dismissal of a public officer or employee including contract recommendations for campus condition local administrators and teachers will continue to close session at 10:17 That's to close session at 10:51. I mean open session. Sorry. Yes, you're right. Open session. We'll reconvene into open session at 10:51. Um, cons discuss and consider approval of hiring contractual personnel. Is there a motion to make? Make a motion to approve contract contractual personnel discussed in full session. All right. Is there a second to the motion? Second. All right. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes six to zero. All right.
167Consider and discuss superintendent evaluation duties and responsibility related matters. Is there a motion to be made? I make a motion to authorize council to proceed as directed in close session. All right. There's a motion on the table. Is there a second to the motion? I'll second. All right. All in favor? Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Consider and discuss board member duties and responsibilities and related matters. Is there a motion to be made? All right. Hearing none. Next item of business is adjournment. Is there a motion to be made? motion. All right, there's a motion to adjurnn. Is there a second to the motion? Right. All in favor? Oppos? Motion passes uh 6 to 0 1052. Thank y'all.