001Hi, good afternoon. Uh, we have a quorum of the board. It is 12:00. This >> this meeting is called to order. Uh, we did not have anybody sign up for public comment today. So, we're going to go straight into uh the director of information technology, uh Britney Kaix, will con uh present a possible approval of a - category 2 uh internal connections. All right. Good afternoon, um President Krennic and esteemed board members. Thank you for your time today. I'm here to present on an infrastructure upgrade that's going to directly impact our students educational experience and represent our ongoing upgrades to make our connectivity better. And again, this is just one step in our continuous improvement process. So, I don't stand here alone. I work with an amazing team. And so, I have two of my
002teammates here. And so, we have Joel Knox, our network specialist, and we have Leslie Carroll here. And he is our network engineer. So together we planned out where these additional upgrades would make the biggest impact and they're going to be ultimately responsible for installing them and also configuring all of these switches and access points. Okay. So I want to give you a couple of examples before I ask you guys to approve this. So last year in the spring we got a phone call from Alton and they were saying that they had slow internet and they were still getting internet but the internet speeds were slow and they were testing. This was during testing season during our star testing. So our guys started to investigate it and we researched and what we found is that we
003had some old equipment at Alton and it was outdated and things like our switches and our SFPS they could not go higher than a gig. So even though we can get more speed than that, you'll never get higher with that old equipment because it can only go to a gig. So we realized that we needed to upgrade this equipment, but this equipment's very expensive. So I knew that we needed to rate it so we could get our discount on it. So I know that sometimes um when I was in the classroom, I would never have thought about this and I want to kind of share this with you why it's important. So, I know sometimes we think just about the Chromebooks and we think about the laptops in the classroom, but I want to share
004with you just a few of the things that pull our bandwidth that can affect our students in the classroom. So, we not only have those Chromebooks and we also have the laptops that's pulling our bandwidth, but we also have Prometheian boards, which are the interactive boards for the teachers. At the older grade levels, we have TVs that are starting to replace the projectors. And guess what? Those TVs, they're on our internet. We have just a couple years ago, Rod brought in um our phones on internet. So, it uses VOIPE, so it saves us a lot of money, but it also pulls our bandwidth. All of the classroom phones. Sprinkler systems are on our internet. HVAC system or AC is on our internet. Thermostats and kitchen freezers. We have vape sensors to see what's going on
005in the bathroom. Door access control. And then we have several cameras, as you guys know. And I'm constantly getting asked, well, we all are getting asked, to put up additional cameras for security purposes. These are all great things. And this morning, I actually got a call and asked if we could put the SRO's radios on our internet. So, all of these things are pulling at our bandwidth. And when it pulls at our bandwidth, that affects the student in the classroom and the teacher trying to teach. So, um, these are all great things and I have no problems with these things being on our internet, but I have to also make sure that I'm being aware of how that can affect the students. So, that is why we're looking at upgrading some of these systems so
006we can pull more bandwidth. So, sometimes we do have slow issues when we're state testing and that is not our issue. Sometimes that's just the program that they're on or if everybody in the state of Texas is using that testing program and everybody's on it, we can see that there's going to be slower speeds because of that program. But our job is to make sure everything here is not lagging because of our internet equipment. So the second example I want to give you is at junior high. So Joel actually got this ticket and he said that the phones were he was getting they were inconsistent and they were not connecting all the time to the teacher's laptops in a special room. So when we took a look at what classroom this was, this was the
007actual dance and cheer room at junior high. So when I was a student here, this was not the dance and cheer room. This was just a storage room. So as you can tell, we make different spots classrooms, but we don't always have the equipment in there. So when we looked, we had no access point in that room. So what's happening is that phone is trying to pull speed from the classroom next to its access point. So the teacher can't show the van dance video or that cheer routine without having issues. They also can't get to their phone which also has that spat button on it. So it's security issue. If we put an access point into that classroom, we'll get phone that's consistent leaving it's not being pulled from the other classroom as well as
008we'll get laptops good laptop speeds. But we can also add additional security measures like a camera where that drop off and pickup is for the cheer and dance people that are using that classroom. So that's another reason just one of the other reasons that we need to upgrade some of our infrastructure. Now what I'm asking you for today doesn't even touch the surface but we are just trying to do a little bit as a time so we don't pay for a whole bunch and we try to spread that cost out each year. So my solution to you guys is our district received rate category 2 funding approval. So based on our social economic status for our district we qualify for 80% of the funding to be covered. So, we only have to pay 20%. A
009reminder, I came to you last year. We asked about access point licensing. And um we talked about what can be rated and what can't be. And a lot of people are confused by this. I cannot rate laptops, desktops, Chromebooks, interactive boards, anything like that. It has to be internet or internet equipment that is directly tied to a classroom. So, um we did the rating. It began last fall. As you remember, this is a year-long process. We have to put our -ate submission out there. We have to follow very strict guidelines. We have to advertise this on the newspaper. We have to put it online. I have to ask answer several different questions from the vendors. Then when we get it in, we received 20 bids this year. So our team, the three of us, we
010sat, we went through every single vendor, we looked at pricing, we looked at experience, and we had to rate them on a matrix that we we get. And then we look if they're compatible with our equipment, and we look at the vendor selection. So once we choose our vendor and the one that scores the best on a matrix, the matrix is in your board packet. So if you want to look at that matrix that we did, um we can then ask for approval from you guys. And once we get approval, we have to submit that by a certain deadline. We can start ordering it and we can't install it until July 1st, but we can at least start the process and we have to have approval before we can move on to the next step.
011So, what we're asking for is 10 network switches with licing licensing, 20 SFPs, and five access points with licensing. That's all on that VIOS contract that you'll see as well in your board packet. And in that, it has like an itemized. You'll see it kind of towards the end. So, this is going to be all across our district. And again, this is just some of the upgrades. We will continue to do some each year, but -ate gives us this great opportunity to save the money. So that's why we do it. The total project cost $86,7785. It goes over the 35,000. That's why I have to come to you guys for approval. But again, covers 80%. So we are only responsible for paying $17,34157. I'm not asking you for additional funds. I already have those funds
012in my technology budget. I just have to get approval from you guys. So, I just want to emphasize this and to everybody that's listening. By doing rate, we save $69,000 over $69,000. Okay? If I went and bought these outright, now I do have to wait. It's a year-long process, but if I bought them outright, we'd be costing our district a lot more money. So, just kind of um just to put a little perspective on this, too. I like to throw the numbers out. So, the switches I was talking about at Alton Elementary to making those upgrades, just one switch with a license is around $6,500. If I rate it, we're saving $4,000 by rating it. So, the same thing with that access point that I'm talking about in the cheer and dance room at junior
013high. It's around $1,000 with the licensing. We can save $800 by using. So, that's why it's super important we follow the rules and we get our application in and we make sure that we do this every year. Okay. So um the impact is again the less lag in the classroom instruction. We're ensuring that our students have reliable high-speed connectivity and we want to continue in support expanding the security systems. You know when they ask me to do the radios on the network I need to make sure that it's not pulling our bandwidth. So it all connects back to the student in the classroom and making sure they have a good experience. So we'll continue each year to make these improvements. So, I'm now asking for your consideration for this and please let me know if
014you have any questions and we're happy with my team to answer those questions. >> As always, Britney, you come prepared. You try to save additional money, which is very good. Uh, if anybody have any I'll go ahead and make the motion. >> Do you have anybody? >> Anybody? >> Hold on. Before you do that, though, again, thank you for doing the due diligence, the year-long process. I know it's painstaking, but it it helps so much whenever we can save this much money because we can use that for something else, especially in your department because we're so reliant on technology with testing and everything that we have to do. So, the more we can get out of every dollar we have, the better we off we are. So, thank you for your diligence for the year
015of doing this. So, really appreciate it. >> Absolutely. Thank you'all for the support. I make a motion to approve the district contribution of 20% of the total cost to upgrade our internal network connection with with the remaining funds covered by covered through support as presented. >> I second that. >> Kelvin Raven made a motion seconded by Bonnie Britmire to approve the district contri contribution of 20% of the total cost to upgrade our internal network connections with the remaining funds covered through support as presented. All in favor? I. All opposed. Motion carries. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Next, uh considering possible acceptance of the Texas Education Agency TEA Lasso Cycle 4 Lift Grant and PLC add-on grant. Our chief uh academic coordinator officer, excuse me, Sarah Bohart, will present. >> Yes. So, I wanted to
016let the school board know that Brennham was awarded um a learning accelerated support opportunity grant that will begin actually being implemented starting starts March 1st um and goes all the way until I think August 31st, 2027. So, one year. It's a three-year grant. So, if Bernamist D shows impact that we look for two more years of sub of subsequential funding for that. So the lift grant we were awarded $636,000 for one year. Then we were added on to that grant tea awarded Brennham a PLC supplemental award of $240,000 totaling $876,000. part of the funding that is received. Of course, when we receive state funding and participate in grants, that money is um has guard rails for specific uses and purposes that the district can use. And it really aligns and parallels to all the work
017we've been doing with job embedded professional development, building a highquality educator, using highquality instructional materials. So, it aligns to the work that we've already begun in Brennham. One of the grant requirements in the financial structure is that um 70% of our Lyft grant, which would be $444,200, must be contracted with one TEA approved provider. That same approved provider must be selected for the PLC supplemental. And 50% of those funds must go to that approved provider, which would be 120,000 of the 240. and then 445 200,000 of that 636,000. Um, and it has to be the same one. So, in looking through, we've spent a lot of time talking to our principles, our instructional coaches, some of our principles, some of our instructional coaches. Um, and NIT was already on the ground and has had over
01870 days inside of our campuses working alongside and training our APS, principles, and instructional coaches, and some of our teacher leaders. our campuses and district have built a strong relationship with the NIT um support specialists currently assigned to Burnham ISD. So really thinking through the consistency of their coaching, their understanding of our district context and the alignment to our current instructional framework are critical in the progress that we've made and will continue to make. um the the support specialists from NIT really understand our district context, our leadership expectations and instructional priorities. And so choosing a different approved provider at this stage would require us really rebuilding relational and implementation capital. So we felt like staying with NIT um for that consistency and continuity would be important. So, what I'm asking today is really for y'all
019to approve the contracted services amount that's consistent with that 70% allocation for the Lyft grant and 50% for the PLC supplemental funds going to the approved provider of NIT. Bottom line, the grant is um a huge asset and bonus for accelerating learning. Excuse me. And helping you help the teachers, the kids, and and do things better. And is there any I don't see any negatives here other than this is amazing. Correct. >> Correct. >> Thought so. >> I think that the reason that we are so lucky in this endeavor here is because we've got you. because it takes a a good leader to know what to do to get that grant in place and there's a lot of little parts in it too. I know. So, thank you. >> Yeah, for sure. >> It takes
020a lot of a lot of time. >> I was going to say that but people think I'm biased. >> Oh, yeah. I know. See, but I I am biased, too. She's amazing. I am biased because uh this these are hard grants to get. I mean, and you you have a lot of people you're dealing with on both sides. So, it's great. I think it's a good idea. I I just appreciate the entire team that Clay's built with everybody digging deep to try to find ways to improve the district without pulling from our fund balance with Britney taking the time for a year and everything you're doing and you know the the lunch program we have for the cafeteria. I mean everything that this group is continuing to do to strive to make sure we have
021uh a balanced budget to make sure we get as much money in the teachers pockets as possible. I mean this is it's just fantastic when y'all present us with stuff like this to just save money for the district. It's it's fantastic. We're headed in such a great direction and it's it's a it's a team effort from everybody. You're playing your part. Everybody's doing a great job. So, just >> thank you and anybody that's listening that's part of this district, you know, they're everybody's getting after it. So, we really appreciate it. >> It's not just the grant. It's somebody implementing the grant and taking care of all the pieces. So, thank you. >> Yes. >> Are y'all ready? >> It's team effort for sure. Takes all of us. I I want to make a motion to
022accept the Texas Education Agency Lasso Lasso cycle 4 Lift grant in the amount of $636,000 and PLC add-on grant in the amount of $240,000 and execute the required contract with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching also known as NIT is it >> NIET >> and the TEA a app approved provider to deliver instructional coaching, professional learning, com community support, and implementation services as required by the TEA grant. >> I'll second that. >> Perfect. Okay, great. Thank you all so much. >> Thank you. Bonnie Brinkb made a motion seconded by Justin Collie to accept the Texas Education Agency Lasso Cycle 4 Lift Grant in the amount of $636,000 and PLC add-on grant in the amount of $240,000 and execute the required contract with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching NIET as a TEA approved
023provider to deliver instructional coaching, professional learning, community support and implementation services as required by the TEA grant. All in favor? >> All oppose. Motion carries. Okay. With no more um business before the board, this meeting is adjourned at 12:17. Thank you all.