Belton ISD Board Meeting June 16, 2025

001The Belton ISD board of trustees meeting. Tonight's student showcase highlights the remarkable talents of two 7th grade North Beltton Middle School students, Emry Hobson and Sarah Jackson. Will you stand up, ladies? Their passion for history and storytelling earned them top honors at the Texas State National History Day competition. Their project stood out in depth of research, creativity, and connection to our journey of a graduate competencies. Emry and Sarah were among six students from Belton ISD who advanced to the national competition in Washington DC last week. Please note that every one of those students came from North Belt Middle School. Lake Blake, I'm It's totally what I said. Continuing our strong tradition of excellence in history education. This year we had a total of 41 students across the district that actually made the state level. This

002is our second largest group ever. And those six um including Emory and Sarah went on last week. So, please join us in celebrating these outstanding students. And now you're going to get to enjoy a special viewing of their award-winning documentary, Betty Crocker, and Women's Roles. [Applause] Hello everybody. On behalf of General Mills and its many and varied services, a warm welcome to our Betty Crocker kitchens. Betty Crocker is an American icon, shaping generations of women in the kitchen. Created to sell ingredients, she embodied the ideal American homemaker and reflected corporate America's visions of women's responsibilities and identities. However, her cookbooks and image catered primarily to white middle-class women, excluding the experiences of women of color, immigrants, and those in poverty. Even as women gained social rights through the 20th century, Betty Kroker Cookbooks continued to

003promote the idea that cooking and housework were women's primary duties, falling behind the pace of social change. Ultimately, Betty Crocker served to market general Mills products and to guide women in becoming ideal mothers and wives, responsible for cooking nutritious meals for their families. In 1921, the Washburn Crosby Company ran a gold medal flower ad challenging readers to solve a jigsaw puzzle to win a free pin cushion. Thousands of women responded not just with solutions, but with baking questions. These letters forced the allmale director and marketing team to create the character Betty Crocker. They chose the name Crocker to honor their company's director and Betty for its friendly, relatable appeal. Betty Crocker soon evolved into the image of a real woman, becoming a trusted authority who reinforced homemaking as a central part of a woman's identity.

004A team of men managed this fictional woman, effectively connecting with their female consumers, boosting both sales and promoting women's domestic responsibility. In 1924, WCCCO in Minneapolis partnered with Betty Crocker to launch the first daytime radio cooking show, the Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air. After the Washurn Crosby Company merged with other mills to form the General Mills company, Betty Crocker became the bridge between the brand and homemakers nationwide who listened to her advice and bought General Mills products. The daytime radio show offered recipes using General Mills ingredients and household tips, inspiring women to manage family meals with pride. Participants even earned the Homemakaker's Creed, a symbolic diploma to celebrating their domestic responsibilities. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, Betty Crocker pamphlets and the Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air focused on affordable

005recipes and resourceful cooking. During this time, Betty Crocker promoted the home as a woman's primary responsibility and women looked to her for support. World War II prompted a shift in women's roles with many entering the workforce to replace men. By 1943, 47% more women were working outside of the home. Despite this change, Betty Groker continued to emphasize that a woman's primary duty remained in the home. General Mill's home service staff used her image to encourage women to return to homemaking after the war. The your share wartime pamphlet reinforced this message, claiming men were fighting for homemakers, not for women to assume male roles. But whatever else you do, you are first and foremost homemakers. Women with the welfare of your families deepest in your hearts. A beautiful cake contributes to your happiness and the happiness

006of all around you. But sometimes women have had difficulty in achieving a perfect cake. Cake recipes in the old general cookery terms have been difficult for the untrained person to interpret. As a result, some housewives had good luck with their baking at times, but results were unsure. Others never made a perfect cake, but time was ripe for further experimentation. Betty Crocker and her staff had already given years of service to homemakers and the idea was born that cakes could be made easier and better. You certainly have revolutionized cake making. Yes, homemakers approved. In 1950, General Mills released its first official cookbook, Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook, which quickly became a bestseller. As the post-war economic boom fueled suburban growth and convenience cooking, the cookbook promoted processed meals as time savers, encouraging homemakers to be creative while

007prioritizing their husbands and traditional family values. This cookbook, more than just a recipe collection, reflected changing domestic American family dynamics. It depicted the ideal white suburban family with colorful photos of dishes emphasizing meals as central to family life and the woman's role in managing a wellorganized home. Meanwhile, cookbooks for African-American women emphasized traditional values and religion, using Bible verses and cultural chants to guide them. But white middle-class readers of the Betty Crocker picture cookbook were constantly reminded to heed the directions. Success is up to you. Eat proper food for health and vitality. Every morning before breakfast, comb your hair, apply makeup, a dash of clothes, and perhaps some simple earrings does wonders for your morale. The 1960s saw the rise of the feminist movement challenging conventional gender roles and bringing a wave of political and

008social activism. Pioneers like Betty Frieden, who founded the national organization for women, helped give voice to gender equality. In her book, The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, she named the struggle white middle-class women were facing. The homemakers of America were told to perfect their sulets and stay slim for their husbands as if the ultimate goal of their lives was to please their families through good cooking and good looks. The same year, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963. This law aimed to address wage inequality based on gender. Then in 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination in public places due to race, color, religion, sex, or origin. While Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook sold over 10 million copies, making it one of America's bestselling cookbooks. A new addition was

009released in the 1960s, continuing to offer domestic advice rooted in traditional gender roles. But with freedom's influence and new legislation, many American women were ready to break away from those roles. Cookbook buyers began seeking titles that reflected the shift. Peg Bracken's The I Hate to Cookbook sold over 3 million copies, used humor to highlight women's frustration with kitchen duties, and offered simple recipes for women to master. While Betty Crocker cookbooks printed, "By and large, the favorite dessert of the majority of American men is apple pie. Therefore, it behooves every American female to know how to bake an apple pie to perfection." Peg Brack encountered with, "Some women like to cook. This book is not for them. This book is for those of us who hate to cook, who have learned through hard experience that some

010activities become no less painful through repetition, such as childbearing, paying taxes, and cooking." Though Bracken didn't advocate for shared responsibility, her book resonated with women pushing back against domestic expectations. The 1970s brought both shifts in American cuisine and key legislative changes for women. In 1972, Nixon signed Title 9 prohibiting sex-based discrimination in fally funded education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, addressing workplace discrimination. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, protecting women from workplace discrimination due to pregnancy. These laws helped redefine women's rights in the workplace. During the time, Betty Crocker adapted recipes to reflect dietary trends, focusing more on whole foods. However, the brand continued to reinforce the notion that cooking was a women's sole responsibility, overlooking the social progress women were making. Despite new rights, Betty Crocker cookbook still conveyed

011the message that a woman's cooking was responsible for keeping others happy. Often emphasizing phrases like make somebody happy today, bake a cake. I just needed to learn a lot and I didn't uh and and that did help me out, you know, having the cookbook and I the very first cookbook I ever received was a Betty Crocker cookbook and I I was desperate to keep up with the norms. So, keeping all of those rituals um intact was important to me. I Yeah. All of that was taken care of, done, dinner on the table. The social norms portrayed in Betty Crocker cookbooks, lagged behind the progress made in women's rights. Betty Crocker, a company-driven cookbook, was designed to sell both cookbooks and general meals ingredients within a capitalistic society. Thanks to the rights women gained in 1970s,

012more women were entering the workforce. And in order to continue cookbook sales, Betty Crocker had to adapt. In 1982, General Mills published the first book in the line of their career cookbooks, the Working Women's Cookbook. This cookbook now encouraged women to share household cooking responsibilities. Aimed at working mothers, it offered quick recipes with meal planning tips for balancing career and home life, and most importantly, a shared responsibility with others in the home. Unlike its predecessor, now Betty Crocker's special helps and information section outlines specific instructions for when a woman has help in the kitchen. Use a casserole in the freezer on days when someone is home earlier than you are. He or she can put the casserole in the oven and set the table. When you arrive home, the main dish is almost ready, and

013either you or the other person can prepare a quick salad and dessert. Write and leave meal preparation schedules and instructions for other members of the family so that they can start or prepare the meal when you know you will be home late. Since 1921, Betty Crocker has portrayed cooking as a skill for women to master. As she became a staple in American homes, General Mills focused on building the personality of Betty Crocker that the American housewife yearned for to reinforce the traditional role of a homemaker. This approach helped sell over 75 million copies of Betty Crocker's picture cookbook and led to the publication of 250 additional cookbooks. However, as society progressed, the cookbooks were slow to adapt, reflecting the challenges women faced while gaining equal rights. My daughters and my granddaughters are going to be

014able to choose to do whatever they want. Today, Betty Crocker promotes a more inclusive message. Anyone can be a Betty. This reflects a shift towards shared responsibility in feeding the family. Each product now carries the Betty promise, encouraging and empowering everyone, regardless of skill level, gender, or age to share in the joy of homemade. With this, Betty Grocker promotes that anyone, not just women, can share the responsibilities of cooking. [Music] Okay, that was fantastic. So, I was interviewed for that documentary as well, and I I thought one of the things that was really funny, I had never read I have a Betty Crocker cookbook. I had never read all of the details. And through the interview, they asked me questions. And as I read the details, I found there was advice that um I was

015to lay down on the floor um when I was tired to cool off and take a break from my long day. And I thought I had no idea that advice was in there. Um so if y'all see me in my office laying on the ground, I'm taking Betty Crocker's advice. Um so that was fantastic. super proud of our students. Um, being able to do such a good job at our state level competition, but to make it to nationals is such an amazing feat. So, will you all please join me in congratulating them one more time. All right. So, we we've got to make this thing official. So, you notice uh we got a new face tonight, so I apologize. So you'll have to suffer suffer with me through the meeting here. Um all right. So

016good evening good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us uh this evening and for your interest in Belton ISD. Uh our showcase this evening was national history uh student presentations and again awesome awesome awesome job. Uh my oldest who's now who just finished her freshman year at&m got her start I think at his history fair and she learned so much through it and I'm so impressed with what you all put together. So so great job. Um, let's let's see. We just gave them another round of applause, but let's do it again because you all are awesome. Um, all right. The the time is now 6:22 and the Belton Independent School District Board of Trustees are now convened in a regular board meeting on Monday, June 16th, 2025 at Pittinger Fine Arts Center, 400 North Wall

017Street, Belton, Texas 76513. A quorum of board members is present. Uh please note that board president Emanuel Akoser and board secretary um Aaron Bass are absent. Uh this meeting has been dually called and notice of the meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act uh Texas Government Chapter or Texas Government Code Chapter 551. Woo, mouthful. Almost there. Uh I want to welcome the members of our audience um our live audience here and our live stream uh uh video viewers uh to this meeting. Uh, as the Belton ISD board of trustees, we are here to set goals, listen to reports from the superintendent, approve budgets, contracts, personnel appointments, and make policy for the district. This is a meeting of the board of trustees held in public, but not a public meeting. Uh,

018prior to this meeting, uh, board members received information related to items on tonight's agenda. It was about 250 plus pages of information that we got for tonight. Um, agenda items may not necessarily be handled in the order in which they are listed on the notice. Uh, and this meeting is open to all who wish to attend and hear the matters discussed. Uh, these proceedings are being livereamed on the district's YouTube channel and will be available for review in the days following tonight's meeting. for the video to adequately reflect uh the proceedings. I respectfully ask you to please refrain from talking while others are speaking and that cell phones are on silent. All right. Uh please rise for a moment of silent prayer or meditation and then we'll get things started. All right, please remain standing

019as our students from Tarver Elementary lead us in the pledge uh pledge of allegiance and honors to the Texas flag. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. All right, let's give our pledge leaders a big round of applause. [Applause] All right, you all did a great job. All right, the first item on the agenda this evening is recognitions. And so we'll turn it over to our communications team to get us started off. Good evening. Our first recognition will be our amazing pledge students from Tarver Elementary. Tonight we have Colin Adams, Linen Bari, and Noah Perez. Colin is

020a fifth grader and her friends describe her as honest, caring, and kind. Linen is a second grader and she loves swimming more than anything outside of school. And Noah, who is also in fifth grade, his friends know him as funny, happy, and respectful. Thank you guys so much. Good job. Next this evening, we want to again recognize our student showcase, our national history day uh state uh qualifiers who earned first place at the Texas State National History Day competition. girls. I've seen that I think three times and every time it gets I learn something new. So, you guys did an absolute amazing job. Congratulations. And we do just want to mention that they were among six students from Belton ISD, Lake Belton in particular, who advanced to nationals. So, congratulations. Thanks for representing Lake Belton

021so well. And now we'll have our technology student uh association national qualifiers. We have seven of them from Lake Belton High School who qualified for uh as part of the robotics skill team. Uh these students as part of their CTE programming earned their uh spot in nationals by demonstrating strong problem solving, collaboration, and technical skills. Their sponsor is Jess Jessica Puril. Is she here? You are here. And we're so glad that you're here. And congratulations, guys. Absolutely amazing. [Applause] And next, we have our academic allstate golf students. We have several Belton ISD student athletes. from uh Lake Belton High School. Uh we have Coach Whitmer. Lexi Holler received honorable mention. On the boys side, coached by uh Coach Sims, we had Hudson Nicks and Eli Mascarenesis and Raleigh Soles who earned an honorable mention as

022well. Congratulations, Lexi. And now we have academic all state. Some of our softball team members are here. We had we had three student athletes earn academic all state in softball. Uh from Belton High School uh we have Jacqueline Munoz and Haley Shootes under the direction of coach uh Burkel. And from Lake Belton High School, we have Alexis Ortiz and Coach Mcierin. [Applause] Congratulations. And our academic all state for track, we have nine Lake Belton uh student high school students uh who earned academic all-state honors in track. So, uh, we have Coach Bird and we have Zach Dodd, Neil, Julian Travellis, and did I get all of y'all? Okay, perfect. Just checking. Awesome. Congratulations, guys. I think American Legion. Okay, good. I'm on track. American Legion Texas Boys Boy State statesmen. We are proud to recognize

023Lake Belton High School student Nick Dilva who's been selected to attend the prestigious 2025 Texas Boy State Program sponsored by the American Legion. [Applause] And now we have new administrator introductions. We can first have Courtney Brewer, new principal for High Point Elementary, Holly Griffith, new principal for Lakewood Elementary, and Will Young, new principal for DAP. all three. Truly outstanding. Congratulations. Project Lead the Way is our next recognition. We are proud to recognize three of our schools. We have Lakewood Elementary, Belton High School, and Lake Belton High School who have all been named 20242 Project Lead the Way distinguished schools. This recognition celebrates schools that are empowering students develop to develop in- demand real world skills through highquality STEM programming. Congratulations [Applause] And tonight we would like to recognize Freedom Urgent Care as a community partner.

024Freedom Urgent Care has been dedicated supporter of Belton ISD's Project Heartbeat, playing a vital role in serving our students. Their ongoing contributions have included providing uh immunizations, free sports physicals, and urgent medical care for uninsured students. Most recently, they generously sponsored the mentor program end of year celebration, offering a movie experience and meal for our BISD mentors, students, and guests. their continued partnership and us being able to depend on you whatever the need is. We are truly grateful for your support. Thank you so much. [Applause] So, real quickly, the project lead the way schools of distinction, they have to go through um a really rigorous um program in order to be identified for that and it's just such a commitment to um STEM education to engineering and so I love that we have elementary all

025the way to high school and so congrat congratulations for that recognition and a huge thank you again to our partners. So one of our beliefs in Belton ISD is that community engagement enhances the educational experiences for our students and y'all are just living proof of that. Thank you all so much for what you did. I got to go by the amazing movie night um that y'all provided for our mentors and our students and just thank you very much. Yeah, in relation to the recognitions, I mean tonight and last month's recognitions just continue to show where our students and our faculty and our staff and our partners are doing absolutely amazing things from the district level to the national level. Uh and so so proud of uh so proud of everything that's going on. So um

026now that we've concluded the recognitions, uh for some of you this might be the part of the meeting where you've really been looking forward to. Uh we're going to take a short break. Uh and while we'd love you to stay with us and for the rest of the meeting, this is your opportunity if you would like to make your way out that you can certainly do that. And so we'll dismiss the students and families that don't want to stay with us for the rest of the meeting. So we'll take a quick pause while they while they exit. Super excited. You're missing again. We walked in here. They got All right, we are back in business. And yes, um, was it something I said? I I don't know. Where'd everybody go? Um, all right. So, next

027on the agenda would be public comments. I've been told that we don't have any public comments, right? All right. So, we're going to go with no public comments, so I'll skip the rest of the required reading uh based on that. Uh and so there being no public comments, we will move on to reports. Yes. So board U Mike Morgan is going to come up. Hold on. Okay. Yes. Oh, you said Okay. All right. So we're going to go to action items. I said reports, but I meant action items. Uh and the first one on the list is a uh consider discuss and take appropriate action regarding selection of construction delivery method for the Roy and GPOTS uh belt and swim center HVAC replacement bond project. There we go. Now we're back on track. Yes. And

028Dr. Morgan has joined us at the podium and he's going to talk to you about one of the projects from our 2022 bond specific to our natiatorum. Yes. Thanks Dr. Golden. Thanks Chris. This is a um the next step in a in a program or in in part of our bond program around MEPs particular to HVAC. Um this was what's included in the scope of the engineer that we hired earlier this spring to come in and design the HVAC packages for the remainder of our bond projects. Um, also tonight we also had the same consultant to scope the uh equipment that would be needed for this for this replacement of the HVAC equipment at our nitorium. And tonight we're coming to you as well to ask for the selection of the delivery method that we

029would uh bring the best value to the district to use for this project. And and that tonight is a competitive seal proposal. When a construction project is undertaken by district, uh the district must select the appropriate or the best uh uh delivery method for that project. Since this project has already been designed and since the equipment uh we recommend that the equipment be ordered later tonight, we would like to go out for competitive sealed proposals and that would be to secure uh qualified and available contractors who could install this equipment when the equipment arrives. We suspect or anticipate a six to eight week league time and we hope to have the equipment here by August and have it uh installed and ready to go sometime in August before the start of school or around that

030time. All right. Do we have any discussion questions? Okay. All right. So, do we have a motion to approve a competitive sealed proposal as the delivery method for the Roy and Gene Pototts uh Belt and Swim Center HVAC replacement bond project? um and authorize the superintendent to issue a request for competitive seal proposals, establish a selection committee uh to evaluate and rank the proposals and bring the recommended uh ranking back to the board for approval uh and contract authorization as presented. That was a mouthful. All right, Mr. Preston. Uh all right, second. All right, got it. All right, so uh we've got Mr. Preston with the motion and uh Mr. buzzing for the second. Uh, any additional discussion? Okay. All in favor, please raise your hand. All right. I see that as 50. Thank you.

031All right. Thank you. All right. Item B, consider, discuss, and take appropriate action regarding appointment of board committees. Uh in accordance with board policy BDB local uh the board president holds the authority to appoint members to the board committees uh to best serve the district needs. Uh board committee membership will not exceed two trustees. The board president is not formally appointed to a committee uh and may attend uh any or all committee meetings. Uh there too committee appointments were made by the board president on May 15 uh 2025. And so I am actually going to read um read this on on Manuel's behalf and I'm going to go ahead and make the motion. Um I move the board approve the appointment of Chris Flor and Brandon Bzen to the um budget committee, Jeff Norwood and

032Rucker Preston to the facilities committee, Aaron Bass and Riley Beck to the policy committee, and Manuel Emanuel Aloser, Aaron Bass and Riley Beck to the district safety and security committee. So, do we have a do we have a second? All right, we've got a second. I made the motion. Is there any further discussion? No, I guess just a clarification. I just thought I'd heard you say something that that the president is not a part of any of the committees. Was that was I wrong? Yeah. So, so those committees that uh uh the president will not be part of the budget committee, the facilities committee, or the policy committee, right? So the the district safety and security committee is a little bit different beast and I think he's actually required to be a part of that

033committee. So yeah. So perfect. Great question. Anything else? Okay. So all in favor of the appointments, please raise your hand. Okay. I see that is 5-0. All right. Thank you. The motion passes. All right. Okay. Now I think uh where I jumped the gun earlier, we will move on to reports. Um, and so we've got a couple reports on the agenda. We'll start out with the 2024 2025 key project key progress measures. Yes. Thank you, board. As you know, throughout the school year, we've come to you with various reports on each of our goals. Tonight, Mike Morgan is going to kick us off with closing out our 2024 2025 key progress measures. each of our cabinet members who has been um taking a key leadership role in each of these different goal areas will also

034join Mike. Um but Mike is going to kick us off this evening. Thanks Dr. Golden. And yes, we are coming back tonight as a wrapup report of our 2024 25 key progress measures. If you'll remember these these progress measures were adopted a year ago. They were adopted in June of 2024. And as as Dr. Golden stated, we have brought you regular reports. Um we reported on all five key progress measures in January and I believe we've touched on each one in at least one workshop throughout this year as well. So with that being said, um we will start with goal one and uh Christine will step up and talk to us about goal one. Good evening again. Um we met our KPM uh goal for or for progress measure for goal one uh back in

035January. The due date for this one was for all campuses and departments to have um uh administered and collected uh data and then analyze that customer service uh uh satisfaction data to implement um uh different data, excuse me, different uh strategies and their improvement plans to improve that customer service uh baseline data. Um as I shared with you uh back in the I guess in January when we initially met this goal uh this was a new process for us. So uh this included developing the survey um and uh administering the survey and making it available. So we collected data uh in the month of October to create that baseline after the survey was created and uh in that first uh uh baseline data the response rate we we received close to 1,200 responses and it

036established a great uh starting point for us. What we realized and as campuses and departments each received their data and began to analyze it was that in some cases as with a new process we didn't always have enough data for a particular campus or department. So as uh uh the campuses and departments were implementing strategies for many of them it was about implementing strategies to get more feedback to be very direct with how they could elicit more feedback. For others, we felt like they had a decent response rate and they were able to implement uh specific actions um ranging anywhere from uh additional front office staff training to all staff training on some specific things and then um also just uh principles andor department leaders uh reiterating expectations for response rates and what that looked

037like. And so all campuses and departments submitted their strategies as part of that baseline data. You'll see here the overall uh uh satisfaction uh rate was 85% and four out of five people would recommend Belton ISD. So again we met our our um uh benchmark for this KPM back in January, but that work did not stop. We have continued to collect data and we are starting to analyze that this summer now that the year is over and we will give that to campuses to continue their improvement processes and board. While we did not adopt a KPM specific to our customer satisfaction data moving into next year, the intent was not to do this for one KPM and be over. it really was to implement a customer service um surveying process so that we on an

038ongoing basis will be getting that data um to include the superintendent's office. It was super important that I also got feedback on our office. Are we timely in our responses um to emails to phone calls? Um were people treated courteously? Were um challenges addressed? Those kind of things. And so it was to establish a habit and um within our district of always paying attention to our customer satisfaction data because how we treat people is super important. First impressions are super important. Um and it will continue to guide um our work. So again, while y'all did not adopt a KPM um align to this one for the 2526 school year, this work will continue. Oops. Good evening. I am going to report out to you on goal two and our progress towards ensuring exceptional learning experiences

039for each and every learner. Much of the information I'll share, so it'll be super brief, we just reviewed in our last month's board meeting. Um for key progress measure one under goal two um our our progress measure was to increase the level of critical thinking in Belton ISD as measured by classroom observations using our journey of a graduate competency rubric from 63 to 70% by May 2025. I'm going to flip forward real quick and then come back. You'll recognize this slide from our last board meeting. Um and we also discussed how we observed in each of the different elements that we've defined of critical thinking. But just as a reminder, what we've done um as a district over the last two years is really align ourselves in how we define critical thinking in Belton ISD

040and have broken a broad definition into key elements um that we look for evidence of in the classroom both at the teacher level and the experiences that they're designing for students as well as at the student level of what we see in their um work-based learning experiences in the classroom. And we did meet our target this year in our observational data um of observing experiences where students are engaged in critical thinking. To Christine's point, this is not just something that we want to do this year and then move on to the next thing. Our goal is to continue going to further and further depth in the experiences that our students have and continuing to get stronger. These observations of classroom instruction have really informed our upcoming focus areas for the coming school year as well.

041Um, and areas that we can refine and invest in our teachers and students learning experiences. Now, let me go back to there's a second uh key progress measure under goal two. Um, and that key progress measure is um related to House Bill three goals. And actually, there's three House Bill three goals. So, um, we will update you over time. I'll share some this evening in my academic report related to House Bill 3, but over the summer, we will be receiving and, um, digging into the data related to STAR perform, student performance. And the first two House Bill 3 goals are directly connected to third grade performance and early literacy and math. And then the the final KPM for House Bill 3 is related to outcomes um for CCMR readiness. And so I'll review some of

042that with you all this evening and come back to you over the summer with final progress on House Bill 3. Okay. With goal three, we had a KPM of of new employees um and their onboarding plans being assessed at the 30, 60, 90day, and then year-end um time frames. Um we did that. We've documented some feedback along with that. We created a survey report. We provided a report to you all last month in a workshop um regarding this goal. And the data that you're seeing on the screen now is is the most recent data from our last survey around this school year. Um it's the end of the year survey results and you'll see there on the lefth hand side of the screen um a report of all staff and then on the right side

043of the screen a pie a pie chart that represents um the onboarding experience recorded for teachers and so happy to report um that um scores of three four and five were mostly received. I think it's 90 94.9% on that on the all staff 92.4% 4% reporting scores of three and five, three to five um underneath teachers. Um like for them all to be fives um and we will work towards that. Um we also asked in addition to this information if resources were provided um for them to be able to do their job effectively. Um do they have a support person and how do they feel as an employee if they felt valued as an employee? And so um like goals one and two, this information will not go away. Um we'll keep on doing this

044um every year. Um, we're also utilizing this message and comparing it to information we're hearing in listening sessions that are conducted on campuses um, as well as exit interview data that we get um, from individuals that choose to leave the district. And so we're utilizing that information, talking about as a leadership team and making improvements to our onboarding plans to make sure that they're effective and beneficial. Um, goal four was an interesting one this year and um, what we had the design team what we had came up with was a trying to figure out a way to increase the number of staff and student recognitions and celebrations an increase of 25% and to also collect baseline data where we could gauge from our staff and from our students the value that they place on celebrations

045and recognitions. So we started um back in October or back in September with a staff interview and we had over a thou a staff and student interview with over a thousand responses and in that interview we found that almost 95% of our students and staff valued or placed a a value or a high value on being celebrated being recognized for for the good work and accomplishments that are going on not only for themselves but for their colleagues their peers and for their campus and their organizations as well. So uh on essence the you can see there to the left uh one of the uh we had 750 responses throughout the year. So we we asked each campus and department to track their celebrations and recognitions and we gathered a variety of data throughout that process.

046But uh ultimate back to the key KPM was that we wanted to increase new opportunities of celebrations and recognitions by a minimum of 25%. And so what we found of those 750 responses is that in uh 42.9% those were new instances of celebrations and recognitions and we asked them more specifically these were things that you were not doing during the previous year. Um some of the the things that also came out of this is we found we tracked costs for celebrations and recognitions and we found almost a little over 55% of the celebrations and recognitions had no cost as well. So moving forward, what we think we've created is some baseline data of the value of celebrations and recognitions to our student and staff. We we've created a database of several hundred ideas that were

047presented by students and staff in the baseline survey as well as 750 unique responses to celebrations and recognitions that were carried out this year. Uh we did include as a lag measure to the right. You can see that one of the reasons we went this direction in this KPM is we had saw um really kind of a a static straight line in our data from our previous three years in our staff surveys of staff feeling valued and staff feeling supported. So we felt like that although this wouldn't be the only factor that could impact the value and support that a staff member feels. Uh, I think you could make a strong argument that the customer service initiative in in goal one or the onboarding efforts in goal three could play into this as well as

048a host of other factors. But we what we did see though in uh in our lag data was that we did see an increase for the first time in the past three years a significant increase of six and seven percentage points in the percentage of staff who felt valued and the percentage of staff who felt supported. So that was one of the things this KPM was specifically designed to try to address and we do think that we did see some improvement in that area. We will study this data, the other data from our KPMS, the the data from our staff survey and and the the data from our listening sessions and try to make sure we can do all our can to make all we can to make sure our staff continues to feel valued

049and supported and we can make more gains in this regard. All right. The key progress measure for goal five, uh, we were going to evaluate two primary programs uh, for improvement and resource optimization by June of 2025. And if you'll recall last month, we brought you the reports on both special programs and um schooly the right way. All right, Gabby's going to talk in regards to the special programs. Just as a reminder, I'm going to highlight the key findings of the report um that also align to specific um strategies that we'll engage in over the coming year for program improvements. But our program review um conducted by an um outside agency highlighted a need for an emphasis on special education and general education collaboration. Um really ensuring that there's alignment and services um based on

050student need both provided by special education staff as well as the general education environment. Um and that includes a consistency in the um quality of inclusion support that our students receive. inclusion is one level of support on our continuum that really um was emphasized in our report as an an area for improvement for us. And so you'll see highlights in our improvement efforts for the coming school year related to that. Um and then um finally not you know we just talked about what inclusion might be as a part of the continuum but an area for us to invest in is how we determine the services that students need and schedule for those needs to maximize our resources including our staff um in serving our students in special programs. So again, those were key areas um

051that were identified for emphasis in our program review and you will see specific strategies um to address those in the coming school year. And in regards to schooly, um you know, during the evaluation, we pulled data analytics um to see the usage on both of the learning management systems between Google Classroom and Schooly. Um and what we found was that uh elementary primarily used Google classroom and uh schooly used um I mean I'm sorry secondary used schooly. They were heavily reliant on schooly um and in an effort to try to streamline the learning management uh system experience for students um we tried to standardize and thought that it would be too much of an undertaking to try to transition secondary over. So we made the recommendation that elementary since they already primarily use Google classroom

052we would go ahead and standardize to Google classroom at the elementary level. And then uh for the secondary then we would begin a pilot program uh to try to see uh and get teacher and student feedback during that process um before to help us collect data to see what our next steps should be in regards to a secondary learning management system. and throughout that just making sure that we're continuing to give robust training and support in that transition. And I and I would remind that last month we adopted our 2526 key progress measures and have already begun to work through uh those plans and those strategies to make sure implementation gets underway and and have we have a smooth start to the school year. Uh we will keep our team members up as as well

053as Dr. Golden and and would entertain any any discussion at this time. I just want to thank all of you for all your hard work. Um there's so much data throughout here and it's really great to see and and this is just high level data. We've seen a lot of these reports before that go a lot deeper. Um it's just really great to see as we're moving forward as a district that we can see growth objectively with these numbers. So appreciate that. Thank you. Anybody else? Go ahead. I was just having a thought um when we were talking about the fourth the fourth one about um let's see what was the fourth one the val finding different ways to celebrate and recognize. Yeah. Recognition. Um I in all the goals we as a board I

054think want to be aligned and uh I think that I mean for the just the two months I've been here it looks like we at least right here we do do a pretty good job of that. I just wondered if if there's other ways we can contribute if there you know if you if you gave us a few employees a month that we could email or something like that. I mean, at least I'd be happy to do it or per committee, someone who's stepping it up on safety or someone who's, you know, academically just, you know, I I mean, I'd be happy to contribute. And I can get that mic. Um, thank you for that. And actually, we're taking y'all up on that. One of the things that we it looked I think I heard

055um that we've institutionalized sort of what we are doing here right so when we're taking customer service data right we've institutionalized the practice of hey we care about that we're going to ask about that we are driving that forward um uh exceptional learning experiences and critical thinking right we've institutionalized that that's really important that's part of our journey we're going to continue to wear that out. Um, uh, attract, retain, um, and support world-class employees. Right? The the 30 6090s, right? That's now in institutionalized as part of what we do, um, as a just as a practice. Um, I guess I won't go through the other two, but but I think the answer is yes, right? Like these things are going to continue. They're important. Um, okay. Um, and then my last question related to goal

056four. Um, so we we had some measures around employees, right? and we were able to capture employee improvement from 2023 to 20 or 2324 to 2425. Do we have a mechanism to survey students on this? We do and we'll look at that data that we that we can and provide that back to you as well. Yeah, just interested to to Yeah, I I didn't even know what we had. So, um um I I think that's it for me. So, last call. Anybody else on on this one? Okay. All right. I think we'll move on to the next one. Yeah. And if I could just say thank you to the team and thank you to all of our teachers and campus principles while they're up here doing the presentation. It it really represents the work of

057people all throughout our organization. And so just super proud of our campus teams um as well as district staff who are uh shephering these goals along. And and again just want to reiterate all of these opportunities to give feedback. The worst thing we can do is seek feedback and do nothing with it. And so absolutely, we even talked about it again this morning in our cabinet meeting. We have to be able to identify the areas of improvement and point to where within our planning are we actually addressing those areas. And so we'll be bringing a district improvement plan. And while you're not required to adopt that, you're required to adopt the goals um which you have done, we are going to still bring those plans to you as well as the campus objectives and plans

058in a future board meeting. And you see Gabby Nino, our um assistant superintendent for teaching and learning is here um for our academic progress report. So this evening in our academic progress report, I'll kind of begin the series of reporting out to you on our our endofear assessments as measured by STAR. And and tonight's conversation will really center on our end of course exams um that our high school students take. We'll also look um at some of our CCMR data as well, but let's just start with our end of course exams. And I want to spend a minute kind of orienting you to this chart because there's a whole lot of information on it or numbers on it. On the far left, you see the five different exams um or assessments that our students take

059um as end of course exams. They're the culminating um assessment for the academic content areas. The second column is um the performance band labels that students results fall into. Um a student's score will either be an approaches, meets or masters. Approaches as a reminder is considered passing by the state of Texas. Um the language of approaching can cause concern for folks. Um and I and I can see why in that. But a student is passing but may need targeted supports in specific areas um of standards associated with that content area. Meets would mean that they met all standards for that content area and masters would mean they met and exceeded um those standards. Then you can see the years. um we feel like it's important um to you to report over time um due to

060some interest that one it's important for us to monitor over time but there's also been some interest from you all in monitoring um changes in our student performance since prior to COVID and a a question has emerged multiple times on um Gabby have we come back to where we were prior to COVID have our students recovered from that and Gabby before you start talking about that over time. Um, we received a question. So, when you add up approaches, meets and masters, it doesn't equal 100%. So, will you explain that before we start digging into the data over the course of years? Yes, I will. And so, I'll start that now just to show that um in the approaches, it's going to be your largest percentage. It includes the students who performed at meets and masters

061as well. So we'll report out everybody in approaches that was passing or above. The meets category gets a little bit smaller but it includes students who met or mastered and then masters is only students who were at master's level. Is that helpful? Okay. Um so the question comes up often about have we recovered and that's really challenging for us to answer um three through eight and end of course because there's been so many changes over time in earlier grade levels students hadn't taken it or had not experienced that in older grade levels. Yes, we can see their performance over time but our assessment instrument has changed as well but we do want to give you perspective on that. Um and then between the 22 and 23 school year, that's where we saw the significant change

062um in the assessment design. Now, there's one other reporting nuance that I want to share with you all before I talk about the outcomes. Over the last few times we've come together talking about this data, I've reinforced statistical significance and we've used um and it's not like we just made it up. is researchbased practices. Um this variability of above or below 3% so that standard deviation and so I've been talking about it but al oftentimes my visuals are still like a rainbow. There's colors all over the place. And so the the way things are colorcoded in this report is yellow if we don't say that there's statistical significance. So, we're going to study it, see if there's anything stands out, but we're really going to give our attention to those positives and those negatives that

063are beyond statistical significance so we can do some good root cause. So, you can see areas that are highlighted in green, we want to ask ourselves, what happened there? Why did we see that gain that exceeds the norm? and areas in red, we want to dig deeper and say what really happened there that it that far goes far beyond um what we would consider norm. So, as a whole across all of our assessments, a general statement is that our system stayed pretty stable and we are seeing that across the state as statewide data comes out. Um there wasn't a a large amount of variability in our student performance o um year-over-year in any of our subject areas except for in algebra 1 we see um a a fairly significant gain of 9% in student performance

064at the meets level and 7% in the mast's level. And so we want to celebrate that absolutely and ask ourselves why do we believe that happened? um same uh questions we might say to ourselves or ask in biology at the meats range. Um we saw a 5% gain. So we want to dig in there and ask ourselves why did that happen? Um and then in English two is an area that we have a greater degree of concern because we saw a drop in student performance. So the same exact questions we'll ask ourselves. What happened? What do we think is leading to that? It's going to be really important for us over the summer. What all we have right now is raw data. So, we will get um what I'd call standards level data in very

065soon so we can lay it on top of our curriculum. We can think about the experiences student students have and get much more precise in our root cause analysis. But I will tell you um in algebra 1 what our belief is at this point is there two years ago in the 22 23 school year we started bringing our algebra 1 teachers together across the system and so really engaging in collaborative planning together. We started with a process called designing engaging work um and built some community in our algebra one teachers. At that time in that collaboration we were able to identify that they were filling in the gaps of curriculum resources um in different places across campuses. So there was variability in the instructional experiences and so the work that we've done on curriculum alignment

066with a collaborative team that has a culture of we come together we believe has really um paid off. We also made a significant investment in a curriculum resource walk with purpose this year that has been heavily supported through professional learning monitoring and again that collaborative planning process and we we feel like in year two of that group coming together with a tight collaborative culture we're seeing some significant impact um in that student group in biology um we made some adjustments again to our curriculum curriculum resources that you are very well aware of. Um, and then the experiences in the the TEACS changes um they're much more hands-on and inquiry based, the requirements of students and the standards. And we think that that's really positively impacting our um students as well as the partnership um in

067our collaborative teams and English one. I'll be honest with you, we're pretty bothered. Um, and we see stability, more stability in English too, but also um, some concerns within there when we get down to the the campus level. And we are digging in deeper to understand that the standards is going to be really important for us. What we are looking at right now um, is the impact of the writing element of the English assessment. And um if you recall, if you were on the board last summer in July, I brought some writing prompts and showed how those changed even in the cognitive demand within the prompts for students from um year to year. And we believe that that is at play in the assessment design this year um in English one as well. See similar

068patterns across the state um in this per in these performance levels. With that said, I want to look at just at a glance our performance compared to the region and state. The color coding on this chart um really just the green means our performance was higher than both the region and the state. Um and that you can see one area of US history where our performance was in yellow meaning there was not a difference um in our performance um compared to the region and state. I will point out there a 94% passing rate is pretty high for our students in U. US history. Um, so that's just a comparison for us. Before I move on, is there anything that I can answer specifically about EOC exams? I just wanted I have a few things. I

069just want to say it's awesome to see the gain especially in math. Um because I remember this conversation a couple years ago saying this is something that need to be addressed and so hearing about the process is really good to hear especially seeing the gains. Um I think it is interesting too because sometimes you can take one set of data and show it might be a low bearing a low hanging fruit and but you've gone up by 9% but also compared to the region of state you've gone up by 10 and 7% too. So you're showing gains across uh in our district and region and state which is important. My question is, can you talk a little bit more about the process of the evaluation? You said right now we just have raw data. What

070does that look like in the summer for all of these biology, English, math? Absolutely. So, um, what we'll do is already we're doing some assessment analysis, right? We've got just this raw numbers back and we are doing some assessment analysis and I gave the example of in English looking at what the the writing samples might be. Um, right the week we return from that July break, we are bringing a crossf functional team together. Um, you'll start hearing the the language of guiding coalition. We'll have a team of district leaders, curriculum writers, campus leaders, instructional coaches, and teachers who will come together and go deeper in this data together. Not only looking at just what the percentages say, but getting out our curriculum documents and looking at what we call our high priority learning standards and

071asking ourselves how did we perform on the there on those and if there are any adjustments that we need to make to our curriculum documents and our resources um and those areas of need that are emphasized or highlighted. I would just add one thing also looking at cohort data over time. So being able to look at our students and see, okay, algebra 1 scores look really good. What was the growth from eighth grade math? Um, you know, and so that al that cohort look of this data is super important for us as well. Yeah, that thing and I don't want to jump away from high school to illustrate a point with elementary, but um just as a a nuance to that, we've talked a little bit about our student groups. Um in particular, our third

072grade students and the impact um we know that there's a a challenge in particular with math and we've got some bubbles of students that we're going to have to follow through the system as they develop and make sure that we are planning for supports with them because they may have some more significant challenges. Can I I want to pull the thread a little bit. Right. So when we get the data back and specifically I want to look at the English, right? But what level of granularity do we get? I mean do we get like per student like response level data or is it summarized data? We do we get per student per question. Okay. And so it's really important that we use strong protocols in that because you can get lost in the nuances of

073data. And so we have to really ask ourselves what's the most important for us to look at and and that's where this statistical significance really is important for us because we can get lost and look at the wrong thing but we'll get to the student and standard um and so we'll disagregate based on campus grade level um teachers and look for and student level and look for any trends that will tell us we need to respond. Yeah. Awesome. I mean, just looking, you may have seen us whispering back and forth here. We were talking about this slide and the next one. Um, this is awesome, right? So, yes, like we're on the prior slide, we were comparing ourselves to ourselves, right? Really important to do. We want continuous improvement, right? Um, year-over-year where we can

074get that. We want to we want to drive to the highest achievement levels we can. And this is comparing us to the rest of the state, right? Um and what I see here is as a whole we're doing really well right um you know these are not small gaps right um uh you know where we are eclipsing what's going on at the the region and the state levels and so um you know I just want to thank the entire team top to bottom right everybody in the classroom everybody from a curriculum and instruction standpoint um there's a lot of great things going on right and we talk when we look at this data right we always talk about yeah you you know, here's the data. We've got some things that we can do. At the

075high level, we're doing great things. And so, what we're when we talk about having things that we can do, it's like to move the needle even further, right? How do we get how do we get it to shine even brighter than than where it is? Um, and so just, you know, hats off. This this makes my heart feel good. Um, especially the algebra scores, that really makes my heart feel good, the math guy. Um, but, uh, you know, I'm anxious to see, you know, kind of what that what the analysis turns out. uh particularly with the the English work but um but yeah I mean bravo hats off this is this is this is a good story to tell well and we're super proud of it but also I mean if we go back to

076our vision our vision is for each and every learner um and so important that we'll disagregate that data even further but also that the focus you know someone could look at okay 86% of our students that's great um approaches meets or masters that is great but there are um individual students within that data that still we have to focus on and we'll focus on because we want each and every learner in our system to continue to grow. So I appreciate that and we believe in continuous improvement and we're going to keep pushing to get better. Yeah. But yeah, by no means did I mean this is a place to stop. Like no no we're not stopping here. We're we're pushing these number pushing the colors. We want them bright green, right? Agreed. Yeah. I I

077just I just want to say this is why we're here, you know, for these students to our for our students and community to succeed. Um going back to Dr. Golden's point about seeing trends over time. Uh and I know we've seen before class data over successive years. I would love to see more longitudinal studies of different cohorts of our uh students coming through third grade, 8th grade all the way. Absolutely. I I just wanted to mention on that slide right there uh this this second one. Yes, this one. Um until today I didn't really understand. I knew there were three levels but what the way I would have read it would have been incorrect. Um thinking that oh man 86% approaches I would have figured that that wasn't passing. if there was if there's a

078way to qualify that for the public, you know, like on these slides. I bet, you know, I just this could be misconstrued or or misunderstood. I I mean, I misunderstood it until tonight. So, um that's just a a recommendation because really um we we're doing better than what some people might u might think if they saw a slide like this. Absolutely. Thank you for that feedback. So, I want to show you a little bit more. Um and this is related to sorry um to CCMR. Um we CCMR is our college career and military readiness. And um as you can see on the far right we are at 94% of our students who are meeting college career and military readiness. So this if you recall there are a range of ways that a student might meet

079CCMR. Um, it could be on ACT, SAT, dual credit, AP, earning industrybased certificates, um, demonstrating readiness for military. So, there's a there's a wide range of, um, areas that a student might meet CCMR, but we're very proud to show the growth in CCMR. Um, especially if you take a look from 2018. Um, I just sort of downshifted my voice because I got a little excited. But, um, 2018 to where we are now with the percentage of students who are college career military ready. Very proud of that data. So, yeah, I mean, changing these numbers, this is like getting a cruise ship to turn fast, right? Like it doesn't really happen, right? And so, I mean, this is over 100% improvement since 2018, right? Massive, massive, massive effort to get this done. Like if if there's

080one thing to point at, right? Like this is this is like the one stat that I kind of like to point at when I talk to people. Like this, this is where the rubber meets the road, folks, right? Like this is like our kids are walking out of here ready to go on and dominate the world in whatever their world is, whether that's straight in the workforce, whether that's, you know, continuing higher ed, whatever that is. Like our kids are ready. And these numbers show that real work has gone into this. And and you know, again, everybody top to bottom, right? everybody in the classroom, everybody in the support of what's going on in the classroom should like pat themselves on the back 18 times. Um, you know, this this is what it's all about

081right here. And um, you know, again, I makes my heart feel good. We're moving in a great direction. So, again, not stopping here, right? We're going to keep going. Um, but this is outstanding. Yeah, I want to say ditto to that. And just after graduation, you know, all the students come across the stage, they say CCMR, CCMR for 94% of our students. And I had so many people say, why do you why you keep saying that? Just everyone gets it. Don't say that. And I said, no, that's not the case everywhere. But it is here. We need to say it for every single student. So, Mr. F, I was thinking about you um when preparing and that would be 108. Yes. Yes. Thank you. I I will use that. I'll I'll pocket that one. 108%.

082All right. Got it. and related um I think sorry yeah uh I I have a question is that rate uh similarly growing across the state and then do we expect as a result of that that the standards to achieve CCMR will increase? Yes, actually. Um I we do. So there has been growth across the state. Absolutely. Um and we've had a little bit more consistency in criteria across the state. Last year I shared that um industry based certificates which I'm going to show you some data on that. Um the criteria for those um we in last school year were able to meet um readiness by them taking the industrybased certificate. and that's going to need to be connected moving forward to completer status within a within a CTE pathway. So what that means is I

083can't just take a course. I need to take a course associated with a CTE pathway and then the level um will increase every year. I can't just take the course now. I need to take the course with the pathway and then I need to go further into the pathway. So the level of rigor yes um will increase. We also um believe that there will be um leveling based on the actual industrybased certificates. So not all will be considered equal. We are hearing that there will be um phases and leveling of industry based certificates. And so our team is already taking a look at that. There's not been specific communication about what those will be yet, but we understand high wage, high demand um so that we can study and prepare for that a bit. So

084yes, we do anticipate change. The other thing that we anticipate change with is a college readiness assessment. That is one of the ways that students might meet um readiness and the agency just announced to us last month that there will be significant changes in that as well. So yes, we do anticipate change and we'll keep you informed on what that is as we learn more. Thank you. Speaking of industrybased certificates, um in 2122 we really started taking a look at how our students are doing on industry based certificates and we have seen significant gains in this area as well. Um it is a 5% um gain since the 23 20 from 23 24 to 2425. If you take a look over time, Melinda and I were doing some calculations just last week and that's a

085223 percentage point change from when we started measuring. What's really important here is also to know that um in some years we've just looked at the number of IBC's. We've changed our reporting to make sure we're looking at the number of students who are earning. So there's not duplicate students in the numbers that we're sharing with you tonight. So also very proud of the gains that we see there. So I want to share a wonder, right? So I don't expect an answer, right? But when I when I'm looking at this data, I I wonder if we go back to the GPA calculation work that we did several years ago, right, that took effect with this year's rising seniors, right? Is there a correlation between the work that we did there and some of the results

086that we're seeing with some of this, right, from IBC's, um, CTE completions, all those kinds of things, right? So again, not anything that I expect an answer on here, but I wonder that I would love to see us talk about when we have the the right amount of data. Well, and we'll be revisiting that particular policy because of recent legislation. So EIC is going to be looked at once again, but absolutely we can get you some information. And the grand finale on this high school data is that we have a 98% anticipated graduation um rate in our students who are leaving us that you all just shook hands for with um at graduation this year. I might have just said where's the point six? So this is anticipated and I like projections. Um, and we

087know that as all of our PE's data gets cleaned up that there are um are in all of the data slight nuance shifts and so 98% anticipated graduation rate and yes I can put a point on it too. So thank you. Any other questions related to delayed? Let me just reinforce some things that I already talked about in the presentation. But regardless of what the data comes in as we do our analysis, we are going to be planning for how do our curriculum resources support our teachers support our students um in our improvement efforts as as well as where we look at where our wins have been. Um we will align our professional learning. Um we've made significant strides in improving curriculum embedded learning um for our teachers and really an emphasis on what those

088collaborative partnerships look like. We have key strategies. Um we have grown in depth around the professional learning communities this year. Did a significant investment in professional learning for our campus leaders, their instructional coaches and teachers side by side. Um and we've already started the next level work going deeper with our teams. um to improve a high um intensity focus and collaborative teams on the academic outcomes of students. And so that targeted support will continue um as we learn more about the data over the summer. Any questions? Anything additional? Mine's not really as much of a question. It is just um reiterate what they said. I mean, I've been here for a while, so I you're going to have good years, you're going to have bad years. I sat through these meetings when the messages not

089quite as good. But one thing I can say and I just appreciate y'all's work is, you know, it started several years ago, but the deep dive that's been done into curriculum that, you know, we had people that were working really hard, but the curriculum wasn't matching up. And that's, you know, that that's trying to use a screwdriver as a hammer. It doesn't work as hard as you want it to. So, the deep dive into curriculum, it's showing up in the numbers right now. Another thing I'd like to just celebrate is we know on these campuses it starts with a principal. It it always starts with a principal. If you have a great leader at principal then your campus will succeed. Well, we have in the past few years we brought in our our principal coaches

090which a lot of people didn't understand. Why are you doing this? This is the reason that we're doing this. Why you know we hear a lot in the community and and people and it's legitimate questions but is you know why do you have these these instructional coaches? Why do you have principal coaches? Why do we have to have why are we spending money on these uh professional learning days? Why why are we doing the things? And I believe the why is always a good question to ask. But when you look at the data, that is the why. Why do we do these things? Look at the data. And I also appreciate as someone who's done it for a while that we do get to see a deeper dive into the data now than you know

091four or five years ago. Now, I don't want to get as deep as y'all are going to go. You have fun with that. I have my own data, my own life to deal with. But it is very difficult to sit on a board and see really just a 100,000 foot view and understand it until they give us enough data. And I appreciate that the time it's not easy for you to put all these presentations together to show us, hey, this is what's happened. We we're going back from pre-COVID all the way to now. And here's the breakdown. We didn't we just just used to be Well, here it is. You know, you got an A campus over here, a B campus over here, and this one's a C. Why? Well, we really don't know, but

092this is what it is. So, I just appreciate all the hard work that y'all put in. Um, everybody involved, you know, from teachers to principles to the paras and especially the, you know, say the unsung heroes who kind of get a bad rap in the state of Texas, that is the administration. the administration is the one who comes up with these ideas of deep dives into curriculums and the principal coaches and you know administration's in a hard place right now in the state of Texas. So, thank you'all for what y'all do. Um you know, superintendents are held to the standard that that we see here and we just appreciate all of your work and your team. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Jeff, for that. And I just want to underscore something Jeff said. You

093know, there is there is danger in overly celebrating this data because for elementary, for example, they're going to get an A throughF rating based on one test. It's the STAR test and it's one day. And we just did a KPM report where our community told us what they wanted us held accountable for in our strategic planning work around having good partnerships with the community, having um retain, recruit, support staff, ensure that we have a culture of value support and that people are challenged to grow, we maximize our resources and we know we have work to do in all of those areas. a star a star score on one day does not assess all of that. And so I am very proud of that. And to Jeff's point, there are years where it changes. This system

094has gone through tremendous change. They h our students now have to test online whereas they used to not. The way the questions are formulated have completely changed. the expectations around writing what was okay in Texas at one year changed overnight and the next year was no longer okay. And y'all saw actual reading samples to to show that. And so while I am proud of those gains and appreciate Gabby talking about statistical um significance, I don't want to overly support a 1% gain when it could be normal variation in a system just like a 1% drop could be normal variation. So, um, I appreciate you saying that. I think there's been tremendous work because this star data at this level really gives you information around the quality of your curriculum, your resources, how aligned are your

095assessments, and how aligned is your instruction to those assessments. This data can inform some big district improvement. The quality of this though is when you get down to the individual student level, are students growing in every single classroom? and if they're not really seeking to understand then what can we do to better support our campuses and our teachers so that our students are growing. So thank you u Mr. Norwood you said it but I want to just express an immense amount of gratitude for our team who have really done the work and the curriculum transformation and giving the the data to us to be able to make sense of it. Um, and I want to take liberty to close um, this conversation with a story that builds off of what Melinda said. There's a young

096man that got a certificate this evening, and his name is Benjamin. He entered my campus in preK in 1112. Um, and the campus at the time was an academically unacceptable campus. And his family was one of the first families that I met with who was interested in a different environment because of the campus rating. and I spent a significant amount of time with them and many other kids. And he saw me tonight and he said, "Miss Nino, I'm doing a whole lot better now." To watch a child who worked through some significant struggles followed me to another campus where he was a Project Lead the Way student and now graduated this year and is going to nationals, performing in robotics competitions. That is why we exist. And it could have never been measured on a

097single test on a single day. And in fact, his parents would proudly say, as would he, his star test would not have reflected the young man that he is today. And that is why we exist. That's why we are here. And yes, we will always look to these assessments to grow and to give us information about how we can be better. And there is so much more to each and every one of our students stories than that one day. Yeah. And and maybe just to bring this home, I mean, I'll try to look into the camera there, right? to to our our teachers and staff and everybody who's, you know, impacting the classroom. What you do matters, right? What you do matters every single day and we are seeing what you're doing and so appreciative.

098So, thank you. Thank you. Oh, maybe not Mike. We're going to talk about the 2022 bond project report when we get it up. All right. I think they're getting ready to launch that and I'm very appreciative for Dr. Morgan being here this evening. He's going to give us a report. We are getting really close to closing out our 2022 bond projects and so so thankful to our community for their support. So, he's going to hit some highlights with some pictures really showing the the great work that has happened and is continuing to happen as we close out the 2022 bond. I thought I could talk long enough to get that. Um, there we go. Okay, Dr. Morgan, take it away. Thanks, Dr. Golden. And we're still not up on the the big screens, but I

099think y'all can see it here. So, we'll go ahead and get started. So, I we I am here tonight to provide an update and answer questions on the progress of the 2022 bond. I really love these two pictures. What we've shown you a lot over the last three years have been construction pictures, but these are a couple of pictures of the spaces in action. So, to the left, those are students in our summer enrichment, our sale program at Southwest Elementary. to the right. That was when we had our our board meeting at Belton High School in April. And we uh we allowed the board was able to take a tour of some of the new CTE facilities and we also had some community opportunities for for uh families to see those spaces as well. So

100those were some of my my favorite pictures from recent around the bond. Uh I've included a different slide tonight and this is the slide around board actions for consideration. So much like early in the bond project when we were approving a lot of FFN budgets and approving a lot of guaranteed maximum price contracts and choosing architects, uh tonight's a busy night. It's the busiest night we've had in a long time. We have several several board actions for your consideration tonight. We've already uh asked you to um to uh support us in the recommendation of the delivery method for the natatorium HVAC equipment. Tonight in consent agenda, we also have a busy slate. Uh the the recommendation for purchase of the the HVAC equipment for the natiatorum um the purchase of elementary student devices which is

101funded in part by bond funds, in part by our instructional materials aotment, and in part by local budget. Uh that this will be the final purchase of devices from our Proposition B and our 2022 bond. um a deductive change order number two for Hubard Branch Elementary. And I'll speak a little bit more to that, but we we are doing a final deductive change order of 1.9 uh13242 million, which is about a little over $200,000 more than we anticipated in return on that project. So, we're thankful for uh our architect that worked on that project, Huckabe, and for our construction manager, American Constructors, for um over helping us overrealize savings and close out savings from that from that project. And then a a second deductive change order for Southwest Elementary of $1 million. That, as I'll

102discuss later, that program still has not uh it has reached substantial completion uh back in the fall and students have been in those spaces throughout the school year, but we are down to the last few punch list items and uh still have to complete our construction audit and we do anticipate a little more savings from that. And then u finally, two closeouts tonight. So, the close out of the district-wide security vestibial projects, those projects have been completed for several months, but we've been completing all the closeout documents and final payments, uh, approval of final payments. And then the big one tonight is the acceptance and close out of Hover Branch Elementary. That was the, uh, the one of the two largest projects in our bond. And like I said, we're thankful for our partners and

103our and our team, the whole design team, including our our construction department and led by Steve Barry for uh for receiving some pretty good uh uh buyback savings from that. Um I'll talk briefly about construction projects update. And I'll just leave this on. That slide's uh missing. But um we do have um just going through our active construction projects and on the the presentation or the slide deck. Uh we do have four that are all closed out and final completions been attained. I'm not going to spend much time on those tonight. James Burrell, Hubard Branch, the A addition, and safety and security projects. Those have all been closed out with Hubard Branch being closed out tonight. And we've we've already discussed the additional uh savings coming back. Uh as far as our three renovations and

104additions at Belton High School, Lake Belton Middle, and Southwest Elementary, we are we are rapidly closing these projects out. We're down to around a dozen or so um punch list items that still have to be completed on those three campuses. And that's for the totality of the three projects, not per campus. Uh at BHS, the only really the only remaining construction is we are replacing four HVAC units on top of the auxiliary gym at Belton High School. That construction started the day after school is out. Uh I'm told we are hitting every milestone on that project. The the the equipment will be up and running before the end of June and then they'll have the final construction done during the month of July. So before our uh our cheer and our volleyball players and our

105athletes come back at the beginning of August and our band students uh and and everyone that uses that end of the building for extracurriculars this summer that those that equipment will be up and running and it's going to make a significant improvement in that in that auxiliary gym. We also uh are are working to try to rapidly get to a construction get the completion of our construction audit so that when these last few punch punch list items and the HVAC is over uh we hope to bring back a close out of that project to you for Lake Belton Middle School. We're down to the final punch list items uh and and complete our construction audit and close out. I will I am happy to report that I've been given info that the the last sound

106door for the band hall that we've been waiting on for months has arrived and has been installed. So, that was uh uh something that's been kind of a uh we've really wanted to get that finished up and and we appreciate Jordan and his program, Mr. Hobson and the staff being um being being patient with us as we finish that. But we're down to the last several punch list items and to complete our construction audit and close out. And then Southwest Elementary, once again, we're down to the final punch list items. Uh we will have two items of self-perform on these works. They're not included in the GMP or any of the work that Core Construction has done. Uh we're going to install uh we brought an RFP to you last month for installation of some

107security fencing at Belton High School. that's going to be around the detached CTE areas uh on the back of the school and we're going to be able to have the uh the 8oot TEA safety standard fencing there that will allow the campus a little more flexibility and how students pass back and forth during the day between those facilities. And then we also are self-performing. We brought the RFP I believe last month as well to to uh the final portion of playground equipment at Southwest Elementary. So, they lost some playground equipment in construction and uh as uh as that progress as that as that project is wrapped up, we do have a few playground items that need to be installed for those for those um those those kids to play on for the starting with the

1082526 school year. So, those are not included as part of the overall program through core. Those are self-performed items that will be complete before school starts back next year. And so, that was a lot. So before I go to the next portion which is the non- construction projects update, is there are there any questions or discussion about the the construction projects and just kind of where we are on status? I will I do need to mention Delta. Um and Delta's one of the ones in black. You can see so the four in red are the clo are the ones that are closed out. The four in black are the ones that are still active. Uh as as we've discussed with you in workshop and in in these reports, the Delta facility has ran behind schedule.

109We've had uh three different uh delays uh throughout the construction. We have worked with the contractor to develop a recovery schedule. And I will say that that for the last several weeks, we've met every milestone. We are anticipating a substantial completion date of July 27th, which will give us enough time for to bring in all of our furniture and equipment, allow the staff to move their items in, and be ready to receive our our Delta students when school starts next year. So, we're really excited about that. Um, we we we we do we do feel like we've gotten over the hump of the things that that slowed that project down and we do feel like we're we're steamrolling to a finish and we're we're anticipating that to be done in uh in late July so

110we can we can be there to start the school year. I just have a question. We saved some pretty substantial money on Hubard Branch and and the other elementary school like uh what did we do? what what worked out well there so we can do that so that it works out like that in the future or so that we what have we learned from that? It's a great question and it's a little different on each one. Um and we learned some le one of the things that it actually ended up to our benefit that there was a slight delay when we went out for bid between elementary 12 which is now we now know as burell and elementary 13 that because we did find a few things in the first construction project that we were

111able to do and the second that saved us some money. We also um have been told that it with both of those projects, they were large projects with very very reputable uh contractors, construction managers, and we had a lot of participation on bid day. We had a lot of different subcontractors who wanted to work on those projects. And when that happens, you usually get more competitive pricing than if it's a project that that uh that people aren't crazy to bid for. So, those were two of the things. We also had um had just teams that were that were partners with us and they treated our money like it was their own and they helped us find savings anywhere anywhere that they could. I I will say on the Hubard branch particularly and I I think

112we've thanked them before. Uh we had a great partnership with Heights Evergreen, the the company that's that's doing the Hubard branch development and we were able to negotiate and work out some terms where they took care of a lot of the infrastructure within the subdivision as far as roads and utilities and really minimized our cost and we were able to take SE take care of some of the text dot required improvements on the highway. And so it was really a good partnership and we do feel like we saved some money there because uh um if we would have had to uh do some more to partner to get the road to our school it would have cost us some more. So good partnerships uh really good construction managers and very competitive uh subcontractor participation that

113gave us some really good pricing on some. Thanks for that question though. That's a really good question. Any other questions? So, I'll talk briefly around the non-construction projects update one and and I'm going to really dig deeper into this one on the next slide, and that's around MEP roofing and interior finishes. I'll I'll briefly talk about what what we've done so far, and then and then what the next steps are for buses. We have made two bus purchases with the the uh money that was designated. We have bought 30 buses to this point, 23 regular education. Those are our those are our 77 passenger buses. And then we've bought seven special education buses. And so with uh anticipated pricing, we're going to be somewhere in the 10 bus range on the final purchase. And I

114talked to our our transportation director last week. We are uh currently going through uh setting up our procurement processes and then we hope later in the summer we'll be able to bring back a purchase uh for buses that potentially could be uh in the spring of the 2526 school year. we can start seeing some use out of those buses. So, we anticipate around 10 more. That would be a replacement of around um around 40 buses in our fleet. And just a reminder, we do try to get a minimum of 15 years out of our buses. And we evaluate as they get close to that age, we we do a costbenefit analysis on what it's going to cost to keep them on the road versus what it's going to cost to replace them. So, that's been

115pretty considerable for our transportation department. And then, if you'll remember last month, we brought a resolution to you on land purchases. We do feel like that there is one additional purchase that we want to explore from these bond the b the proceeds that were that were set aside for land purchase and um we are looking for a elementary school side in the northern portion of the district. So those are kind of the next steps in those projects and I'll dig a little deeper into the upcoming MEP uh the the MEP projects. Yes, I'm sorry. I think Rucker's got a question. Sorry, Rucker. on the the 10 new buses, you know, with the new legislation. I want the three point seat belts. Would those I mean, that was a decision made beforehand, but would be able

116to buy those new 10 buses with the seat the new seat belt legislation requirements. They will that all of the buses that we've bought have the threepoint seat belt and uh it's kind of it's the standard now. So, any buses we buy will have that. The question has been when the original legislation came out to require threepoint several years ago that became the manufacturing standard at least in Texas. At that time you were you were not uh asked to retrofit the twopoint but with the new legislation we'll have to go back and retrofit the two point the but the older buses with two point. So it's a little bit of a win-win on the the buses on the replacement because they will meet the uh the new legislation and have the three point. Just a

117clarification also on the bond when we when we set out the bond and and considered purchasing the buses as part of that. Uh does that money just go into the transportation department to to do with what they want? I guess the kind of the bottom line up front is I'm wondering if that money could also be used in retrofitting or getting those seat belts. That's now a new requirement. That that's a great question. So it it stayed in the bond program. We did not we do not mix and mingle bond funds with our M funds because the bond funds are specific to the purposes that were outlined uh in in what we communicated and what our voters voted on and what our board approved. So the money stayed in the bond fund and the PO

118the purchase orders would go and they would be paid out of the bond fund. Uh I would say that would be a question that we could ask our bond council if there were funds available to do that. that is an interesting strategy to potentially use some of the bond funds to retrofit. I I think we would have to get an opinion on that one to be sure, but uh that is that could potentially be a possibility. So, thank you for asking that question. And so, I'm I'll move into the MEP projects. And like I said, most uh centered mostly on HVAC and mostly on HVAC improvements at multiple campuses throughout the district. I will remind um that we we we invested around on those construction projects, the three renovation and additions. There were significant HVAC

119needs at Belton High School, Southwest Elementary, and Lake Belton Middle School. So, we've already invested around $5 million in HVAC at those three campuses. Uh now we are too and and we've we've talked a little more in depth about the the natatorium HVAC equipment. Um we we do have an order and it it didn't come to to the board because of the amount but for some HVAC equipment that's going to go in at DIAP uh next month and that we have our engineering firm consultant that we brought on is finishing up design work at Purle Belton Middle School, Becks, Belton New Techch and Sparta and so we anticipate ordering that equipment next month. Uh, and these are much smaller systems. We're not talking about the same type of system that we're replacing at the natiatorum.

120They will not require a delivery method. Uh, for the most part, they are exchanging units for units. So, they it's not considered construction. It's considered replacement. So, it's a lot faster to get those done and a lot easier to get those done as well. The only one that might be a little more of a challenge is some of the equipment at Purle is on on an elevated um mechanical platform under the roof and that one's going to be a little more intensive to to replace. But the other ones are pretty much rooftop or ground units and it's going to be just swapping out unit for unit. So that work will go really quickly once the equipment is here. And then classroom lighting, we have started to try to start switching over to LED. And so

121the the first phase or the the phase that we're included in this bond package is changing out classroom lighting at Lakewood Elementary and Belton Middle School as well. So that that's that's next on on some of our summer work and some of our early fall work to finish up the bond. And then I I'll I'll reach to the final is the just re a quick review of of financial and and um financial information. I'm trying to it looks like it's gotten a little skewed on the switch over. Um the ones that are in red as with the other are close out projects. So far you can see that right now our total GMP savings which is the uh buyout savings unspent CM contingencies and allowances from the GMP. We sit right at about $4.49 million.

122That's money that comes back into the bond program and can help fund MEP projects um and help fund some some of the overages on a couple of the smaller projects where we don't have a GMP and will not realize buyback savings. Uh overall our construction projects we had about one um $156 million designated or or estimated for the construction projects. Uh once again, these are not total closeout numbers because we still should should see some more buyback savings from the from at least one and maybe two of the projects in black at the top, but um have ran about one 159 million or difference of about $3.1 million or about 2% of the total bond construction project amount. Um you can see at the at the bottom the returning balance of work. As I mentioned,

123we still have uh multiple MEP projects. um and mainly centered around HVAC and some lighting. The only safety and security items that are left and this is something we'll self-perform a lot of this work, but it's changing out older fixtures to LED fixtures. We get better better lighting, better uh energy efficiency, and we those they're a lot easier. We can program those to come on and come off at certain times as we retrofit and put new equipment in. Um and then for for land, we spoke about the land purchase, the next land, and the next bus purchase as well. So, uh, we do anticipate being able to realize all of the all of the, uh, the needs that were outlined here on this page, and we'll do that with a combination of of money that's

124remaining in the bond program. We'll do that with a combination of money that's coming back into the the bond program through GMP buyout, savings, and contingencies, and allowances, and then also by utilizing a portion of our interest earnings to to round out the 2022 bond program. And with that being said, I would open it back up for discussion. I know that was a little more lengthy than, but we are getting closer and there's a lot of action going on right now to try to wrap up the bond. All right. I know we ask a lot of questions along the way. Is there anything else? Yeah. Good. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. All right. Superintendent report. Okay. Thank you board. So, a lot has happened since um our May board meeting and so I

125want to hit some highlights in the report this evening. So, I just love this one image just this is obviously our vision, but we have such incredible students. So, many of the faces you're actually seeing on that screen have now graduated. We shook their hand as they walked across the stage. But the spring, particularly late May, brings such an opportunity to hear our students perform. You see Lake Belton High School spring orchestra concert as well as Belton High School. And it's incredible to really get to witness the growth of our students from the beginning of the year till that end of the year performance. I'm going to show you in the next slide and and part of this is from feedback from the board, but I want to share with you an image that we

126started using in our leadership retreat um that happened since our last board meeting. So, we met um right after school was out with our campus and district leaders to really reflect on what happened last year. Um what are the celebrations, what were the challenges, and really start to think about and dig into what are the improvement areas we want to focus on for next year. But we started our reflection um utilizing this tool and they're going to hit play for me. Heat. Heat. [Music] So I I said the tool because we very intentionally want this to serve as a communication tool for us. And I don't know if we can go back and just see the image itself without playing the video or playing it and going back to stop. Perfect. Okay. So, we'll just

127stop there. Um really the feedback that I think Chris you had given us last year and Riley you had mentioned in the last board meeting. um our goals were ordered not in order of priority but to really just give us a reference for a particular goal um a reference number and so you really got us thinking and one I want to thank Christine she took some napkin drawings and some ideas and created a tool for us to really explain how our guiding documents work together and it all is in service to our vision And that's why that's in the heart of it. We want to empower each and every learner to pursue their dreams and enrich their communities. And what you see around that really were the marching orders of our community solidified by our

128board when you voted for our goals. And that is absolutely we want exceptional learning experiences. And for that to happen, we have to have stakeholder engagement. We need a world-class team of employees. They need to be able to work in a culture where they and our students feel valued and supported and challenged to grow. And we know that we are not in a situation where we have unlimited funds. We have to maximize those resources. And you see that arrow that's that's like a compass that is moving us in that direction of empowerment. And we've talked about this so many times, but empowerment meant through the feedback we received from our stakeholders. It's not only academic and knowledge and skills, but it's and it's and our journey of a graduate competencies that came from the voices

129of our community. We want them to be able to persevere, adapt, collaborate, communicate, critically think, and really grow the skill of empathy. And then you see on the bottom, and we know it takes leadership. And leadership is not in the role of superintendent. It's leadership. Our teachers are leaders in the classroom. It is our principles. It's our district leaders. And we know in order to do this work and and really have our students growing in these competencies and achieve our vision, we have to be able to build culture, empower people, and pursue excellence. And so those words represent competencies for leaders that we've been working so hard on. And then all of that within the values and beliefs of this district, our values guide how we enact the goals. They guide how we enact and

130pursue our journey of a graduate competencies. And so just wanted to share with you, we we launched this at our leadership retreat since our last board meeting and actually had staff brainstorm what are all of the actions and and strategies we've implemented over the past year. They took wrote them on note cards and then tied strings to where that explicitly connects to this framework of our work. And it was a really incredible reflection and um hope that this tool will be used to better communicate how the board's action and the governance of the board at the goal level helps support us in driving our work which ultimately is to empower each and every learner to pursue their dreams and enrich their communities. And so just wanted to share that we're going to have this on

131our website as well as people consider Belton ISD both staff and families so they get a sense of who we are and who we are working to further become. And oh did I mess that up? Okay. So, also we this last month, including our board meeting recognitions, included a ton of opportunities to celebrate our students. What I will just highlight, we were super proud of all of the scholarship ceremonies. I just wanted to share that we awarded over $1.5 million worth of scholarships to graduating seniors this year for Belton. So that was an incredible number and that's thanks to the incredible partnership of our community and our Belt and Education Foundation and all of those donors that give so generously to these scholarships. And then we had lots of academic awards as well which were

132lots of fun to celebrate um our incredibly talented students. Lots of traditions happen in May in Belton ISD. Some that I've never seen in other school districts. And so, um, the senior walking the halls is such an important event. It shows our elementary students what they can become. They get so excited to see students walking their halls that actually attended their elementary school and are now on their way to graduation. It's also so affirming to our teachers. You know, our elementary teachers don't get to see our students in middle school. They don't get to see how our students grow into high school. And so it's incredible for our teachers to get to see you played a part in making this happen for our students. And so we had lots of fun with senior traditions in

133the last week. And of course, I don't have to tell y'all graduation was incredible. We graduated over,70 students um that day. It was a great celebration for our families. And I we had to throw in we also graduated um some of our students from Becks. Y'all, they're the class of 2037. The work that we are doing is to impact that class right there so that in 2037 when they walk across the stage, they are absolutely career ready and life ready. And so, um, also already this is getting us into the summer. There are a lot of pictures up here. I'll just hit some highlights again showing some great partnership with our community. So we had um a quest coding camp CGI put on. So you see couple of pictures. The one to the far right

134is in that um just incredible experience for our students. Um STEM experiences in the summer for our students are incredible. You see some of our um Skills USA students getting ready for nationals. Just a reminder, they leave us next week and they're off to Atlanta for nationals. So, we still have students competing. Um, and we also had an amazing meeting with Temple College. You're going to hear more about that in the future as we are creating strategies for the next three to five years and how we do nothing but grow and ensure that our students have every opportunity available to them to earn college credit while they're here in Belton ISTD before they even graduate from high school. And then we also um had some incredible um nursing camp opportunities. You see that at the

135top of your screen. So this notion of empowering futures that includes into the summer and we've had some great experience in summer school as well as some of our summer enrichment programs. And so just excited to share some of that with you. That's it. That's a lot. That's a lot since our last board meeting. Yeah. Any questions for Dr. Golden on the superintendent report? Okay. All right. Uh so we're now in the board highlights section. So board, this is your opportunity to share any prominent highlights uh from the last month. Uh does anybody want to kick us off? Um some of what Dr. Golden already mentioned uh the leadership retreat there at Belton High was really great to see um our administrators and principles getting off to the summer start. Um graduation of course is

136always I think the best day of the year because it's why we exist. See those kids ready um those CCMR students ready to conquer the world and move forward and um just it's a long day but a great day and it's it's what we're here for. Um the beef scholarships, BEF Beth scholarships at Lake Belton High was another great highlight and just the amount of money like you said that uh they raised for our community, not not just for our students who graduate right now, but our pair of professionals in August and then our teachers in December as well. Quite a bit. Um and uh I got to attend the bond advisory committee last week and I'm going to go tomorrow. All right. Anybody else? Bren. Uh uh Riley and I uh got to attend

137uh and then of course you uh chaperoned us uh down to the Texas Trustee Institute at SLI uh Thursday and Friday uh in San Antonio. So that was uh that was fun. It was a lot of information to take in, but it was a great training and appreciate being a part of it. You want to hit on that at all while we're on the topic or No, he he hit on that. I'll I'll talk about something else. Um, well, unless you want to go on that first. Uh, I was just thinking at the, you know, we just had the the end of school and hitting summer now. But, um, I was amazed at the amount of activities my children had, but as we went to those, I was thinking, you know, their orchestra teachers are

138are all there and the amount of time after school that must be that is spent by the teachers was just incredible to me. orchestra, the band, you know, different dance teachers that have just dedicated their time. Um, and so sort of what was being said earlier tonight of that that there's a lot more going on than just the standardized test, which which is super important. Um, but I've seen my own children grow um through all of those activities and just what a blessing that is. So that's all along those lines. Uh I'd be remissed if I didn't say just the coaches that are out there right now doing summer workouts at Lake Belton High and at Belton High uh with all the students uh last Monday I think was the first day. I know they

139had open workouts a couple week weeks ago and then they had um the whatever it's called the the regular workout started last Monday and they start at 7:00 a.m. and I got there at 6:45 thinking my boys going to be ready and there were about I don't know 60 kids already ready to go in and all those coaches we're out there greeting all the kids and parents too. So, you talk about um the amount of effort that our staff goes through, our faculty. I mean, it's it's going on constantly throughout the summer. So, there's just so much that goes on for our teachers behind the scenes. Um they just need all the applause they can get. Yeah. You sure? All right. So, I'm going to hit two things. Um so, I do want to come

140back to the Texas Trustee Institute and one thank the board. Right. So, one of the things that I experienced when I started back in 2018, um, you know, is is the board sent a buddy with me when I was new to the Texas Trustee Institute, right, the new board member training. Um, and so I remember, uh, actually Suzanne McDonald actually was my buddy and um, sat with me through that and as as I helped to kind of build the picture of what is being a schoolboard member all about, right? And so I'm thankful to the board for allowing me to go with with Riley and uh and Brandon to kind of have that have that same experience, although I wasn't allowed to sit next to them. Uh which is a bummer. Um but uh but

141that's not common, right? And so there were a lot of folks in the room that did not have an experienced board member with them to kind of hear what was going on and then to help answer questions sort of, you know, during breaks or outside to uh to help build that bigger picture. Um these guys were in it. I mean, they were in it for two days straight, right? So 9:00 am to uh to 4:30 and 9:00 am to 3:30 like really diving in to understand what is this job all about and it covered everything from like what's the role of the schoolboard member you know from a from a legal standpoint right what is uh what does the the law say that the board is you know where does the line between the board

142and the superintendent right um you know there's governance and there's implementation right and back on the monitoring piece of it right um you know what does that relationship look like we we dug into policy policy 101, right? What does policy actually look like and understand sort of what is the thick policy book? U which you know we all have access to online. Um we took a look at the legal framework that's really behind the the Texas um education system and and kind of walk through some of the Texas education code. Um we we learned more than we ever wanted to learn about the open meetings act. So um and maybe learned a new thing or two uh that that sparked a question or two. Um, we also learned a little bit about um what what

143digital life is like and sort of the digital pitfalls of being a board member, right? It's like some of the best practices and things you can and can't do or maybe should or shouldn't do um around just sort of living your digital life. Um we learned we stepped into um finances, the basics of uh schoolboard finances. Um arguably probably not deep enough. We've actually pro we actually probably went deep enough deeper in last month's um work workshop than we actually did in in the new trustee training. Um uh yeah and we talked about you know board operating procedures. Uh we got to do a panel discussion with um some experienced board members and we talked a little bit about what the advocacy role is and responsibility. So man they were drinking from a fire hose

144and they were champs. So you guys did an awesome job. Um you were in it. you were, you know, they were participating with their tables. Um, and it was just great to be with you all. So, I I want to thank you for uh for being there. And I gotta tell you, I leave the the summer leadership conference every year really with a feeling of gratitude for being in Belton ISD. Um and you know regardless of how difficult it is to be in the school business right now um the group of people that we have that touch our system from the board and the administration to the community right like there's a there's still a partnership um you know in Belton ISD um that uh that doesn't exist in a lot of places and it

145makes you feel really good I don't know maybe I shouldn't say this out loud to some extent it makes me feel really good to hear some of the really wonky stories but you know the flip side of that is maybe I wish I didn't hear those stories stories. So, um, but yeah, again, thank you guys that like these guys did did an awesome job to kind of help build the bigger picture for for for being here. So, that was awesome. So, looked like you wanted to say something there. Yeah, I was just going to express some gratitude as well for I guess the preparation. Um we had an orientate we you know that some the state kind of mandates an orientation but ours was several hours and we met the whole team. uh listening and

146talking to other people, I I could I realized that they weren't getting the same quality um of an of an orientation and and then and then I guess to add to that the the boards I mean Brandon's been a part of several of these boards as well and some of those were way beyond uh what these other board members were getting down there as far as financial training and and things like that. So we if there's probably we probably weren't it was never in the in the plans of having a a leadership pipeline for board members, but it it's sort of worked out that way for I think several of us. So um I I was just really grateful for, you know, some of the some of the preparation that had been done well before

147we even got there. Yeah. Awesome. And then can we go back one slide to Dr. Golden's last slide? Is that or did I am I making you change presentation? Uh, one more. All right. So, oh, there you go. Perfect. All right. The upper right hand corner. I want to explain that just for a minute. So, that So, I had uh several folks uh some of my uh CGI team members come out. We did a STEM camp. Um we had 30 students from across uh really across the district from a middle school standpoint. Um and what you're seeing is a picture of day one there. That's like a three-dimensional maze. Uh we were using little spherical robots called spheros. And you can basically program them, right? So, it's block programming, drag and drop. Um, and ultimately

148the goal of day one was to navigate the maze from start to finish, right? Um, and I got to tell you, it is it was not easy at at the end of day one, I think we only had five out of the 30 students, uh, maybe six out of the 30 students actually complete it, right? And so, when you take a look at a a and everybody was still very much involved, nobody had given up, right? So like this was a a a true vision, a true implementation of the journey at work. Uh perseverance. Uh while there were some frustrating times uh in some student frustrations, we were able to work through those. Um and actually one of my most frustrated students um in the room that day ended up being one of the six

149students to finish it at the end of the first day. Um and so we really were able to kind of help um you know, help her get through it. Um but uh but yeah, I mean so it was a two-day experience. The second day got a lot more difficult and actually include this took this three-dimensional or you know the onelevel map actually to a second level and you then had to kind of work in partners to traverse the maze um you know uh at the same time like partner number one and partner number two actually had to do two very different things but work together at the same time to complete it. Uh, and so again, it was a a pretty awesome opportunity to see. We had great great partnership and support from the technology

150team. Um, uh, the tech staff, uh, I guess Shad's Shad's team was there. Um, we also had some of the, uh, CTE folks there like Jesper Silver was there to kind of help us. But honestly, I think a good day was had by all um on there and it was it was super awesome to uh to kind of see that and and those are the experiences that you know our our career partners get to bring in to the classrooms, right? And you see that um you know in the bottom right hand corner with the the skills USA and all that kind of stuff. Um uh I had something else but I completely lost it. So we're going to move on. Um all right so I think that's it from a um board highlight standpoint. Um,

151all right. So, we will, uh, that concludes this evening's reports. We're going to move on to the consent agenda. Uh, does anybody wish to pull an item for discussion? Seeing none. Okay. Um, all right. So, do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as it's been presented? All right. I see Mr. Norwood. Any second? All right. I see Re. Okay. I'm sorry. Are there any further discussion? Seeing none. All right. All in favor, please raise your hand. All right. I see 5-0. The motion has passed. Okay. All right. So, uh, now we move on to our second public comment period. Are we Do we have any public comments for the back half? All right. We do not. Okay. So, there being no public comment, we were going to move into a close session.

152Uh, but if you didn't get the word, we do not have a close session this evening. Right. I know. So, we're gonna we're gonna I can't take Well, I don't know that I could take a whole lot of credit for that. So, um but we'll save an maybe an hour, an hour and a half. Uh get back get back to your family. So, um so no close session. Uh which basically means we are um all ready to go. Okay. Um so, all action items, reports, and consent items for this meeting have been addressed. There being no further business, this meeting is adjourned at 8:21.