001yeah he's sick good evening good evening it's 6:00 p.m. the Board of Trustees of the Brenham Independent School District is now convened I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present in collaboration with our families and community brenia D is committed to providing an exceptional education for all students in a safe environment as the Brenham ISD Board of Trustees we are here to provide local citizen governance and oversight the management and day-to-day operations of the district are the responsibility of the superintendent this is a public meeting of the Board of Trustees Schoolboard meetings are open to all who wish to attend and hear the matters discussed audience participation is limited to the public comment portion of the meeting these proceedings are recorded and I respectfully ask that you please refrain from talking while others
002are speaking thank you for taking time this evening to join us for your and for your interest in the Brenham Independent School District at this time Bonnie Brink me will lead us in the pledge followed by the invocation given by Kelvin Raven I to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one na God indis andice for all shall we pray Lord we thank you for another day we ask that you give us the best opportunity to make the best decisions for our children in this District also Lord I pray for peace within the world that we all can get along as we go through this process bless you Lord I pray for those who are less fortunate in your son's name we pray amen amen okay
003we're going to start with special recognition our campus and Department Spotlight and our campus will go first it's Brenham Junior High our Junior High Principal Julian wilky will recognize the employees and students sorry I have a whole posy here tonight Madame President superintendent gillentine members of the board thank you for giving us your time this evening to highlight Brenham Junior High tonight Brenham junior high would like to honor one student group along with three outstanding individuals first off Miss sheer is going to highlight our AVID program and some of their wonderful contributions good evening thank you all so much for having us here tonight um we have started out thank you um we have I'm usually pretty loud I can usually get it um very um no we have started out a fantastic year and
004Avid this year um we've got a little over 60 um seventh graders who have joined us this year and added to the program and so they're getting right in the middle of being Junior High kids so they're learning um what deadlines are now and projects and all these things and so um we've taught them how to kind of backwards map so we've been working on History Fair and so when your deadlines are and what you need to do in order to be prepared for that so we've worked really closely with the um Advanced history teachers on getting them prepared for that and what those individual projects look like um we've worked on getting them ready for Focus notes we just finished a unit on Focus notes so learning I don't just take the notes in
005class I now have to actually go home and use them some more and when my teacher references something in class let me pull my notes back out let me highlight and make some additional notes so that it's actually helpful to me when it's time for me to take my test so um we've also checked in with some of our seniors that graduated last year um if you guys saw I sent you guys an email um from Juan's um presentation this past summer at the avid Institute um so he got up and spoke in front of about 3,000 Educators and did a fantastic job so if you haven't had a chance to look at that video um it's on YouTube now so you can actually go and see it um but he made us really really
006proud and so a bunch of our students are doing fantastic they've made it through midterms okay um I do have a few moms that are kind of sad I've got one kid that's in the core at A&M and now won't come home because he's loving college so much um so that's a great problem to have so thank you all so much for your support um I've got three eighth graders here that are going to talk to you tonight kind of about their experience so far and Avid so first we be Miss Marissa good evening my name is Marissa agad and I'm an eighth grader at bham Junior High I am now in my second year of avid and I'm the third person in my family to join the AVID program my sisters Anna and Amanda
007are Brenham Avid graduates and both attended blint after graduation being able to see the benefits they receive from being in this program has pushed me to be a better student I am a straight student was introduced into njhs last spring a volleyball player on a team a soccer player and was recently selected as The Duchess candidate for homecoming I am thankful to have the AVID program because it has taught me to be organized the extra support I received during tutorials has helped me to maintain Straight A's and grasp a better concept of the information thank you for having us tonight and thank you thank you for your continued support of avid um hello my name is Kai Ango this is also my second year in Avid um and I'm I am involved in multiple organizations
008at Brenham Junior High including National Honor Society my time in Abid has been extremely beneficial in ways I never expected I've always made good grades um but and Avid has pushed me to try harder and harder and made me try opportunities out way out of my comfort zone one of the biggest surprises has been tutorials and the skills I have learned through them the classes I in often require deeper and more in-depth responses or sorry more detailed responses tutorials have allowed me to bring questions and have more in-depth conversations with my peers and tutors I have also been more comfortable speaking in public places since I have to present my entire tutorial to my group I no longer get as nervous when speaking um in my other classes for presentations or projects another realization I
009have had is how quickly I can formulate response to questions when asked by other teachers or adults I communicate with I know these skills will be imperative when it comes time for job interviews so I'm glad I perfecting them now the skills are we are learning in Avid are lifelong skills that we will need far beyond our school years so thank you so much for having Avid as an opportunity for students like me my name is Maya Madison I joined Avid last year and the skills I have learned while an avid class are a pillar to my success I am an athlete and my schedule can be quite busy during volleyball and basketball Seasons I have learned how to organize maintain a schedule for myself and prioritize my assignment assments I am now more involved
010in my learning and understand how to advocate for myself I have also been able to use Avid class to make up test or assignments I missed when I left early for games I would not be able to maintain all a without these skills and support and support of the aid class so I would like to thank you all for supporting me and other Avid students at bjh because with wait because without the district and school board's support students like me would not be able to would not be able to grow in our learning and gaining access to New Opportunities I look forward to my next four years in Avid and hope to share with you the college and scholarships I acquire at the end of this journey due to our due to your continued support
011thank you from all of the Avid students in BISD okay next we would like to recognize our par professional of the month get up here come on her co-workers have the sweetest things to say about her things like she works hard to ensure that everyone has what they need she always lends a helping hand and always works hard to make sure everyone has sub coverage she answers any question and from what I can tell she's going to kill me for saying this she is the longest standing employee at Brenham Junior High correct I don't know about that for sure y she for sure is she is well- loved by all even when she corrects You by calling you baby our pair professional of the month is Miss Maddie Barnes at this time I would like
012to introduce our teacher of the month this man is a true leader he's always working hard and we literally had to pull him off the football field to be here for just a few minutes sorry he will help out in any situation with any student athlete or not coach Evans does it all he drives buses leads early morning practices coaches gam solves problems and has high expectations for all of the students he has a huge influence and truly takes the time to get to know each student on an individual level bjh teacher of the month is coach Brad [Applause] Evans lastly please welcome our student of the month he's not only a great student but more importantly he's a good person he's involved in many activities and participates wholeheartedly in every single one at bjh
013you can find him on the football field he's a member of the National Junior Honor Society and he's always someone who's going to say yes ma'am and no ma'am during evenings and weekends you can find him working in the pig Barn he's always in church or he's standing on the mound pitching for the batter box he's an excellent role model for his peers and he's growing into an exceptional young man students like him make being a principal the most rewarding job in the world bjh student of the month is Cooper [Applause] plin come theer e e next would like to recognize our citizens united for Brenham program and our chief communication and Community engagement director bro trean will introduce them hi good evening um Miss Billy Suzanne flammer the uh coordinator volunteer for Cubs to
014read is going to tell you a little bit about their group and then introduce the rest of the individuals up here thank you good evening on all right good evening I'm Christy Stern Elementary curriculum coordinator and I am here tonight to provide an exciting update on the volunteer initiative at Brenham ISD this initiative continues to Mark a significant Revival of the volunteer programs in our district made possible through the collaborative efforts of bham isd's leading and learning Department HR department and the local volunteer organization Cubs citizens united for Brenham schools and blind College last year we successfully piloted the cubster read program at two campuses but I am thrilled to announce that this year we have expanded the program to all three Elementary campuses this expansion allows us to reach even more students with targeted
015reading support thanks to the dedicated efforts of our volunteers and Partners at crowy elementary 30 volunteers continued their weekly efforts at Brenham Elementary about 40 blend athletes split their time tutoring students twice a week this year we're especially proud to include Alton Elementary where almost 30 students now benefit from this enriching tutoring experience our volunteers including blend athletes underwent comprehensive training sessions facilitated by the leading and learning department and the campus instructional coaches these sessions ensured that each tutor was well prepared for their role with a focus on reading comprehension strategies and engaging students I would like to extend a special thank you to our campus instructional coaches they're here tonight Arlene Gomez Susanne Maxwell and Christy heny for their incredible work in coordinating and planning the program across all three campuses their dedication has
016been instrumental in ensuring the success in the seamless expansion I would also like to recognize the outstanding efforts of our human resources department specifically delita Alvarez and Jennifer Griffin for their pivotal role in coordinating the volunteer signups and this year conducting orientation sessions focused on Bram ISD policies and procedures they behind the scenes efforts ensured that our volunteers were properly trained and equipped to support our students so we consider this year's program to be an overwhelming success and bramd looks forward to continuing and expanding these Partnerships in the future our goal remains to provide the best possible support for our students and we're excited to see the continued growth of these initiatives a heartfelt thank you goes out to these three ladies Miss Vos Camp come on up we've got Billy Fowler Suzanne flammer and
017Charlene Vos Camp um they have had tireless efforts in coordinating the volunteers at each campus their leadership and commitment to our students has been invaluable um without them we wouldn't have the Cubs to read volunteers program um but before I close I'd like to ask any volunteers who are present to please stand so we can recognize you and show you our appreciation thank you for your time and we appreciate your ongoing support now we'll hear from Miss flamer okay well I wish we'd rehearsed a little before that about half of what you said was part of ours but I would like to if you wouldn't mind P it to the side a little bit let's go this way with it whichever way you want to goe and I forgot my class we weren't expecting quite
018so many kind words to us we were here to give kind words to everyone that helped make the program possible this is quite an extension according to participants and tutoring at Brenham ISD prior to the covid shutdown the effort primarily consisted of two teachers with the added responsibility of supervising a small number of volunteers with limited instruction to read the book books to children today the tutoring program is dra dramatically changed at BISD with nearly a 100 volunteers which you've heard serving on three Elementary campuses but this time using high quality materials and processes we're here tonight to thank all of you for giving us this opportunity to express our appreciation for those who have done so much to help us serve you and our community Through tutoring at Brenham ISD elementary schools first we'd
019like to re introduce our volunteer coordinators who have already been introduced but coming up Billy Fowler for Alton Elementary Charlene boscamp come on up and bring your gifts and they will be presenting these um appreciation gifts to each person that that we'll be talking about uh I am the coordinator for Brenham Elementary I wish more of the athletes could be here but most of them are in practices and after school activities but they are a wonderful group and I hope that uh they're recognized or thank you for recognizing them uh D Denise Romo is not with us tonight she's my co-coordinator at at uh Brenham Elementary so as co-founders of this program Billy fer and I would like first to recognize the primary purpose uh persons who helped us from the very beginning in late
0202023 is Brena medical mid School principal here hello Miss Aaron come on up please thank you for your invaluable leadership during the creation of the basic principles and goals of the cubster read tutoring program your invitation to join your camp Improvement plan committee gave us insight into the needs for tutoring and your guidance of our team led to the initial testing phase in the fall of 2023 thank you so much and next back up here again Christie Elementary curriculum coordinator Christy Stern it's taking me that long to get your name right I'm sorry thank you for your leadership in the fall of 2023 that provided the key Essentials of the phonics program for Cubs to read and for the process for student instruction as well as the selection of curriculum you have since been our
021go-to person for finding solutions for any problems and we are always very grateful for your help your announcement last fall that one of the tutor students improved their score by 40 points really encouraged all of us thank you so much Christie and we give a big thank you to the director of the leading and learning Department chief academic officer Sarah Bart thank you for champing the Cubs to read program when you first arrived in early 2024 and for providing the broader scope of this tutoring project you have set high goals for academic performance at BISD and under your guidance we have seen many improvements in the quality of instructural materials and the processes we continue to depend on your strategic advice expertise and encourage that keeps Cubs to read moving forward towards your Higher Goals
022for academic Excellence at BD thank you thank you we especially want to re recognize again and thank the instructional coaches at eel military school who provide the training sessions each semester and then provide the weekly instructional guides and materials for Cubs to read tutors at each campus by actively monitoring each student's progress through the written comments from each tutor who report their interactions with their assigned student you are providing the individual hard word individualized instruction that assures the effectiveness of cubs to read we thank each of you please come forward Christy Hines instructional coach at Alton Elementary Suzanne Maxwell my buddy at Brenham Elementary instructional coach Arlene Gomez is she here tonight oh okay will you come thank you um she is the by literacy instructional coach at crowy elementary thank all of you so
023much we depend so much on you Cub Reed would also like to thank the elementary school principals for their fion when the patients especially this year when nearly a 100 tutors flooded their campuses um this fall of 2024 and for your help in many other occasions uh thank to each of you principal Steven help me Suzanne seems GL did I get it right thank you please come forward thank you for uh hosting Cubs to read twice for two semesters at Brenham Elementary thank you and especially the blend athletes thank you very much principal Jillian wilky we miss you at crowy but come on up Prince Jillian was at crowy elementary for the first semester and we wanted to thank her for that time um in the spring 2024 and you know Billy Missy what can
024I say that's what you kept telling us principal Sarah Cook at who is now at uh crowy Elementary want to thank you very much for hosting us this fall 20124 and principal Michael OG are you here thank you so much um who joined us also this fall 2024 in this BISD Cubs read tutoring thank you cubster would ALS thank cubster would also like to thank those in key positions in the administration offices director of operations and compliance Jennifer Griffin who for going the extra mile for us this fall by adding multiple orientations I don't know how many times you had to recite that over and over um at the L last minute to especially accommodate our blend athlete students um thank you very much Jennifer and Alita is not here Alita is not here but
025a special thank you to Alita whose extra effort to correct volunteer registrations required diligence and patience during the chaos caused by blend students due to later student registrations at blink college versus BISD so we greatly appreciate all of it and last but certainly not least we want to thank you Billy you want to go over there too okay superintendent clay team for welcoming us welcoming us with open arms by encouraging and supporting us throughout these past two semesters we thank you for providing the leadership and the spirit of community and cooperation that has made this CU cubster readed program possible we've made a lot of progress thank you but we still have a long way to go to achieve reading at grade level for all students at BISD thank you very much we appreciate thank
026you thank you all so much that was very very nice hey let me say something real quick thank you just want to publicly say thank you um I was just having this where's Billy at there he is just having this conversation with Billy and the hallway I you know my mission I've tried to make it very clear our mission is how can we be more involved in community how can community be more involved in us and we want to look for a way to say yes when when great people like you have great ideas is uh we want to look for a way to say yes and get out get out of your way let you do the great work that you do so thank you yeah thank you thank you oh yeah we'd love
027to take a picture if the volunteers and um and then the employees who were honored if if y'all will all come forward please yes yes that's not you sister yeah I'll find the CRA can y'all tuck can y'all tuck in right there a little bit yeah we can get you ready Cubs to [Music] read sorry all right who are we looking at here that's everywhere I don't think I've ever seen so many up there before yay yeah that's awesome thank you all so much for thank you thank you thank you tried to bring alls that's okay I love than so yeah I've got another copy just yeah next we have public comment the public comment portion of the meeting is an opportunity for citizens to address the board or make comments to the board in
028accordance with the Texas open meetings act the board will only listen without comment as items addressed may not be on the board agenda no presentation shall exceed 3 minutes delegations of more than five persons shall appoint one spokesperson persons must identify themselves and the group they represent at the beginning of each presentation persons who wish to participate in this portion of the meeting should have signed up with the presiding officer or design before the meeting began presentations and language should be appropriate for all audiences the allotted time will be displayed on the screen please stop speaking speaking when the time runs out thank you for taking time to address the board this evening and for respecting the district's policies and procedures and first we have Britt cinter and the time will start whenever you state
029your name good evening my name is Brick colanter I'm a a citizen of Brenham over a year ago I presented a list of 32 books found in the Brenham High School library that contained sexually explicit content and provided the excerpts that showed exactly what was in the books I read an excerpt from Alice Seal's book lucky page 11 it was cringe uh shall I refresh your memory no doubt it was not something that kids should be finding in a school library let them have to get it somewhere else you heard the excerpts and saw the other books excerpts that I gave you that night and by email multiple times these could have been easily removed immediately after a quick review of the contents I had provided however a committee was formed and they read every
030single book after 7 months 15 books were removed 17 books were remained of those 17 books 13 have pervasively sexual explicit content and are not suitable for minors and do not have educational value that's why I'm here these 13 books that shall remain available in the BHS Library include Lucky the book that I read and Lovely Bones both by Alice seble that that depict a brutal murder and rapes there are also 19 coling Hoover books that are young adult novels with steamy romance as the main story yes sex is the story it is not for kids they look so innocent don't they sweet but they're not don't be fooled another couple books that also had a sexually explicit content including bity why are these 13 books allowed to remain in Brenham High School library while
031the other 15 were removed and they are the same as these books they're all equally as explicitly sexual content the library has limited space it's about choices these don't meet the BISD criteria for books age appropriate content or educational value B SD's own policy states that the library shall not contain harmful material that is considered vulgar obscene or pornographic by the school board and the community standards so why is it that y'all insist on these books remaining no one has answered that question this is not a matter of banning books or a certain opinion or Viewpoint that's being censored what am I doing here today A person who has no kids currently in the public school district why do I care don't I have something better to do why yes I do but you don't
032this is in your control your job description and why am I here well why is porn in your library that is the question parents need to know that these books are in the library in their school library right under your nose and apparently with your consent as a taxpayer and president of Brenham I draw attention to this problem take the porn out of the library thank you thank you Carlo Monroe [Applause] hello everyone my name is Carla Monroe and I have a student at the uh brunham high school and I am also a taxpayer I am here for the same reason that Britt um spoke of and if these books are appropriate for the library then they should be appropriate for the ears I want a blow job um ma'am the books in the library
033require parent consent language and presentations needs to be appropriate for all audiences First Amendment right at the school board you can read he held his dick in my hand ma'am actually do you think that's do say in our policies that you need to refrain from vulgar language then why is it in the library it requires parent consent to check out those books will go ahead you are infringing on people's right because there are parents in here who have not consented to that language so if you would like to continue your presentation with language that's appropriate for all audiences we would like to hear what you have to say thank you thank you these books they they sit on the Shelf of the school library which goes on to describe in graphic blueprint layout these detailed
034acts just in case the words are not enough to pimp out our children the majority of these books come with Sketch graphic pictures to finish the job I don't understand why you are not fighting for the minds of our children for the minds of the youth by not adding to the infliction they already have to go through these books are raping the minds of our children stripping them of what innocence they have left I don't know when the public school system be uh began to feel that it's okay to allow our youth to be taught porn on its watch but every one of you should be uh deeply grossly ashamed for allowing these books to remain in the school's Lobby after being confronted on this issue a year ago the problem here is that we
035all individually reap what we sow when you stand before God will your conscience be clear from mentally spiritually and sexually harming the youth Matthew 18:5 but whosoever causes one of these children to stumble and sin that is whoever entices them or hinders them in right conduct or thought we can all agree that these poem books mess up the thought process of children the Bible goes on to say woe woe to the person on whose account by whom this temptation comes maybe you don't believe in God or maybe or maybe you don't believe in God but nonetheless he is holding us all account please respect the policies ma'am your time is up more than your time is up thank you Eddie cinter thank you Madame President and members of the board I I was here that
036year ago and you did cringe when she read from Lucky seol do you ever ask yourself do you guys lack the will and the courage to keep porn out of the high school library which is damaging do you want to play games you did mention that oh how nice after you guys went through the books you put 13 back that have no coherent substantial difference from porn you say in addition to these determinations the BHS library or monitor any books and labeled adult everybody knows there's adult books that aren't necessarily porn what I want you guys to do is have the courage and say we have porn in our library with taxpayer dollars and if your parent will agree to it you can check out that porn I think it legitimizes porn it makes it
037normative why don't you guys go buy them porn start your own little nonprofit porn for kids you know if the parents will okay it pay for it yourself maybe you guys don't have a definition of porn it's pretty straightforward this is Marian Webster the depiction of erotic Behavior intended to cause sexual excitement material that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement the depiction of Acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction any Outsider that's objective is going to say that the board including you Madame President maybe maybe principal Wells also lacks the will and the courage to remove porn from a high school library it has no educational purposes even if the parent agrees with it how could good conscience so I will definitely be a
038part of all those that want to remove porn from the brandham high school public library I also would like to see board members I raise your hand if you don't want porn accessible in the Brenham High School library even if it's called adult it's not adult it's porn I hope some of you are raising your hand in your mind anybody out there raise your hand we live in different times right where you can access porn and you have a school board that supports it finds a little wiggle room in language there it has no place Alice C bold I'm going to read it really fast you guys know what it says read it yourself is there anybody here from from uh brenon Brenan press last time they were confused on what was read here they
039said one book A Clash of Kings it wasn't here I have next is Mary Miller hi I'm Mary Miller I have two boys one's 12 and one's eight um they're not in high school yet but it's deeply concerning to me that they could access this kind of material and as a parent here in Brenham that's very concerning cuz my son is you know you know they're getting through that age you want to protect them and you know you can't do everything but you hope the school is a safe place and the library is a safe place and my kid loves to learn he wants to have an amazing education he wants to know he's well educated and I am concerned about the books he can or can't have cuz I'm careful about that and I
040I I think as a Schoolboard it would be awesome if I could just say you know what y'all do your thing and I know that that Library safe and so I just wanted to express my concern from what I'm hearing from my children so thank you thank you and next I'm not sure pronunciation so you can introduce yourself when you get up um Marshall Mr or Mrs Marshall good evening my name is Sarai Marshall I have three kids one is two are in high school one is a junior one is a freshman and one is now in the seventh grade I'm here to address hate speech for Jewish children this has happened on four different accounts my son who is now a freshman in high school was told to go back to the guas chambers
041four other boys thought it would be rather funny to say a hi Hitler to him in class homecoming night when he was in the eighth grade was shoved this was a few days after October 7th when the Israeli War started one boy said laughing you better watch out I'm Hamas another boy said get out of here you effing Jew we are a proud family of Jews we are a small minority in this community my daughter just the other day an October 8th the day after one year that the Hamas War started in Israel where over a thousand Jews were murdered raped and stolen she was wearing her mom so proudly for homecoming and her boyfriend's mom wanted to show Esther her strength and who she is and plac the Star of David in her mom
042and a young boy came up to her and said are you Jewish we have worn these stars in our family for 380 days in commemoration of the hostages and the Fallen Soldiers of Israel there is 101 hostages that are still remaining we as a community and I have addressed this from the principal to the Board of Education like I am doing with you now I have addressed this with Christina Johnson snow and everybody keeps telling me we'll do what we can and nothing is being done I have offered my own information my own research to teach our children about what is going on not only in Israel but what the Holocaust did to six million Jews I have not asked for children to be disciplined I have asked for Education thank you very much thank
043[Applause] you hey if I can just speak to some of the comments um again this is not none of these are posted agenda items so we cannot uh get into a give and take or even a board discussion however I can provide some clarification uh or even point us in the right direction with certain things so um I have a student at high school kids can be hateful I'm so sorry for your experience and um Mrs Johnson would you raise your hand she'll call you tomorrow and we'll talk about next steps okay um [Music] [Applause] again I can't get into discussion it's not an agenda item I'm not allowed to do that legally I would like to say um Mrs ganter uh when you came last year um there was a Review Committee put together
044and half those books removed I want to thank you for bringing that to our attention um I don't agree with the method or the tactics but I thank you for bringing it to our attention some good came from that uh the other books the committee uh took it upon themselves to go with that adult label comes from the publisher uh they took it as a practice to if a student was going to check out an adult book um that the committee allowed to to remain that it it took public or parent notification to do that so um in regards to you know any other steps with that um I can say policy was followed Lo uh there's a board policy in place for everything we do uh in a in a Review Committee request uh
045we are supposed to put a Review Committee together um by certain standards certain Personnel English teachers that sort of thing are supposed to be involved um the committee reads every book and collaboratively decides um what what remains so then you know the question I guess would be then what we've charged this committee which I want to publicly thank thank you committee for reading 30 plus books in that span of time and and making making a decision a professional decision that they that they did um if we're you know if we're unhappy with the outcome you know then what uh do we keep there's always going to be someone that objects to a book any book um I don't think the practice should be because someone um and I'm not saying I agree or disagree I
046again I'm I've never hid my faith never hid my faith and I'm going to talk about it this evening very publicly conservative person who Faithfully follows Jesus Christ and expects my my family to um I with that said I don't think you remove a book just because somebody asked you to I think there needs to to be some sort of professional Review Committee put together uh by policy we we have that practice uh and it was followed we may or may not like the outcome of what the the committee decided so the question would be then what um I can say as a principal I used to tell my teachers come to me with a solution and you have a 90% chance of hearing yes come to me with a solution you have a 90%
047chance of hearing yes so um I understand the the question and the complaint my response is is then what we we charge the committee as policy says to make a decision they've made the decision some may or may not agree with the decision then what so that that would be the next step this the board policy exists the board policy uh was followed uh Next Step would be is there a then wat with this with this board policy is there a Next Step within this policy currently there is not so again this is not a a an issue that's on the agenda one that can be discussed I just want to provide some clarification to the situation so thank you very much I I truly feel like there was some good that came out of
048uh of your visit last year there's some some things in place because of that visit um thank you thank you for that um moving on M president next we have consideration and possible approval of a greenhouse donation for the CTE department and our chief Communications and Community engagement officer broo Tran will introduce this item again um I'm going to invite uh Travis Gonzalez our BHS CTE uh coordinator up here with us um to say a few things but first I'd like to tell you how we got here which is um exciting some of you are on uh Ed foundation with us but last year for the first time we did a new exciting event called Min grants and action day um with the moving of our event to April we still wanted to provide an
049opportunity in February so uh we charged each member of the foundation to uh get multiple community members to get on board with us and come travel around the school district and see the grants in action um for those of you on the board you know we have a very wide range of Grants anywhere from basic supplies all the way to new innovative ideas is um and every Department Under the Sun and the school district benefits um so part of that day we had representatives from Brian and delos with us um and they were so moved by that event they ended up coming back and we're like hey how can we be a title sponsor like this is so amazing what yall are doing here we want to do more um but that clearly wasn't enough
050for them so they reached out to me again over the summer and they said hey we really liked a lot of the things that we saw going on in CTE through the Ed Foundation minig grants and what they're doing on their own um and we would like to support that so we connected them over the summer with uh Travis Gonzalez and he's going to tell you a little bit more about what we are accepting today all right so um want to thank everybody for being here thank uh Scott eert and Jenny vandorf for uh being here um brand has reached out to us over the summer and and they wanted to to do something to help us with our garden program and so when I started here in Brenham we didn't have one uh we
051uh have pushed that program and now we're almost in every school in the inside the district um and so they got to see those things on um um Education Foundation uh the day of action and so in doing that they have decided that they would like to donate a greenhouse for us our other Greenhouse got blew down from barrel and um but uh they're going to donate a greenhouse um it's actually being built right now but uh in the value of $ 13,44 so we really like thank them for for doing that for us would y'all like to we we'll need a motion to accept but we would love to hear from y'all if if you'd like to come up we will need a motion go ahead we'll just do it real quick I'd like
052to [Music] ahe yeah I make a motion to accept the donation of a greenhouse from Brianna's salad dressing for the CTE Department as presented second we have a motion made by Bonnie brinkmeier seconded by Jared kennick to accept the donation of a greenhouse from Banna salad addressing for the CTE Department as presented all in favor I opposed the motion carries thank you all so [Applause] much um I'm going to start I'm my name is Scott Eckert and I'm the president CEO of Delo Foods company owner of bana salad dressing we've been in business since 1982 and we sell over 23 million bottles of salad dressing at this stage that's enough salad dressing if you laid a bottle down in Los Angeles it would reach Philadelphia in one year we're the largest specialty premium salad dressing
053in the world and we're proud to be here in Brenham uh Texas and supporting the education of our children in this community I have to give credit to this uh initiative to Jenny van dorf uh many of you know Jenny and many of you may not but Jenny is the brain child of working with the school district and the school on this initiative we're really excited about it she came to me with this idea and she's like like you know this could be the first of thousands of these across the country and uh so U said well we got to fund all those too but um anyway we're really excited to do that partner with you here we're big Believers in education and we're proud to uh share this opportunity with you and we wish
054you the best with it and we can support you in any other way please don't hesitate to reach out want to say thank you I'll just say as a product of Brenham myself I think it's just so special to be able to have opportunities to give back to students that they're getting their hands in the dirt and just really seeing how you can't enjoy salad dressing without fresh vegetables so just see kind of the cycle so we're happy that we can support you and your team and the students and the school district here in Brenham thank you all so much we appreciate your support tremendously thank you thank you so much we appreciate [Music] you for green yes sir you're good you're good thank you thank you so much next we have the public hearing
055on the annual School First Financial accountability rating for the Brenham ISD and our Chief Financial Officer officer darl St Clair will conduct this good evening I just want to start out with a little information about the uh first report first we'll start with what the acronym stands for it is the financial Integrity rating system of Texas otherwise known as school first this uh rating is usually released from tea about August each year and it goes back to uh categorize and to give a review of the most previous uh audited fiscal year and I'll get to that here in just a second because it can be a bit confusing uh once these ratings are released to each Public School District and Charter School uh we have a two-month window of time to present a public hearing
056and to give the public this information uh just want to clarify that since this is over the most previous audited information we just finished the 2324 fiscal year in August a couple months ago that data has not been audited We've Just Begun the process of that audit and so the most previous audited data is the 2223 fiscal year so this is information based on what was submitted to Tea in January of 2023 no sorry January of 2024 get confusing so this is the 2324 rating based on the 2223 actual data so just keep in mind that all the information that we're discussing tonight uh is from a year plus old data not the 23 24 year uh before we get started a little context there are 21 indicators uh on the on the uh list
057this year I believe two of them are not being evaluated at all uh one of them I don't think was even evaluated last year uh so there are a couple of items that are not actually counting towards or against I think we just get full credit everyone gets full credit on those of these indicators two of them are worth Five Points maximum of Five Points most of them nine of them are worth 10 points and there are 10 indicators that are either a yes or a no or simply a what they call a ceiling indicator meaning that as long as you pass that indicator then that uh brings you to a certain certain ceiling uh allows you to get up to a certain score overall so there are a variety of indicators and they mean
058different things and we'll go through and briefly make some notes and some comments about each of these okay the first indicator is fairly simple and straightforward basically the district is being uh was is being scored on whether or not we completed our annual financial report and turned it into te a within the time frame allotted uh which for us since we are a August 31st fiscal year our time frame means by January the 28th of the following year and you either did this or you did not and the answer for the Bren my is yes we did get that turned in on time so that was one indicator uh the second one is similar uh it ask if there was an unmodified opinion on the annual financial report and that's given to us by our
059auditor each year uh an unmodified opinion is basically what you want it may sound kind of strange that it's unmodified but if it was a modified opinion it would mean that there was something that they needed to report that would be negative and so an unmodified opinion is what we want and that is what we received again this current year and basically if you'll notice on the slides uh we're comparing the 23 24 ratings to the 2223 ratings okay next up number three uh was the district in compliance with the payment terms of all debt agreements at the fiscal year end basically this is just a question to not whether or not we paid our creditors as scheduled and we did there was no non-compliance on that issue so again we received a yes just
060as we did the year before number four did the school district make timely payments to the TRS teacher retirement system the Texas Workforce Commission the Internal Revenue Service any other government agencies and again this is either a yes or no and again for the second year here that we're comparing we did receive a yes on that we were in compliance with that all right starting with indicator number five things get a little more complicated a lot of these are based on calculations uh where data is pulled from our audit from our 2223 audit and then tea does uh has formulas that they use to do calculations to determine if we pass or we don't pass and in some cases there are scaled scores so you can get between zero and 10 points usually on a
061twoo uh increase and so there are a range where you can get some but maybe not all of the points that were available so for number five was the total net position in the governmental activities uh greater than zero and that covers several things these are some technical accounting terms net accretion for interest for capital appreciation bonds net pension liability other post employment benefits basically these are uh indicators that we have in our audit each year mostly dealing with liabilities and assets of the district and so as long as they add up to a number that's greater than zero and ours added up to over $26 million then you get a yes so we definitely pass this score or this indicator and this was a ceiling indicator by the way okay number six was the
062average change in assigned and unassigned fund balances over three years they go a three-year period of time less than a 25% decrease or did the current years's assigned and unassigned fund balances exceed 75 days of operational expenses and we did receive a yes on this or cealing P our uh decrease in fun balance was only 14% which was well below the limitation or the threshold of 25% so we receive full credit on that one number seven was the total number of days of cash on hand and current investments in the general fund for the school district sufficient to cover operating expenditures basically they're just checking here to see how many days of cash on hand that you had uh you needed this is a scaled score you needed to have at least 90 days cash
063on hand to get full credit we had 71 days so we received six out of 10 on this one I will say that the what the cut off for six points versus eight points was uh less than 75 or greater than 75 so with just a few more days cash on hand we could have gotten two more points we were very close to getting eight out of 10 on that one okay number eight the measure of current assets to current liabilities that's just the ratio of those two values and just to make sure that everyone can understand here there are total assets and total liabilities but then in this case we're looking at current current meaning assets and liabilities of the current year so a year or less not long-term uh liabilities or debt and
064not long-term assets such as building property values so for this one it's just again another fairly simple ratio of assets to liabilities and our indicator number calcul to be 2.6 which earned us eight out of the 10 points it had to be greater than three to get all 10 points so we were pretty close on that one as well number nine did the school district's general fund revenues equal or exceed expenditures and this is done not counting the facilities acquisition or construction so not counting Capital outlay had we purchased a building or built a building or purchased land that would not be included Ed uh we had a calculation again of uh 71 days of cash on hand which was also one of the indicators or one of the ways to get credit on this
065if you had greater than 60 days cash on hand so we did not have the the revenues exceeding expenditures but we did have enough cash on H to get full credit on this one because of the 71 days versus 60 required so we receive full credit on this one number 10 was the first of the ones we'll see not being evalu valuated and everyone just gets 10 points for that so number 11 was the ratio of long-term liabilities to total assets for the school district sufficient to support long range excuse me long-term solvency so now instead of just current year assets and liabilities we're looking at longterm so basically all the the liabilities and all the assets uh as presented by the audit and on this indicator we received eight out of 10 our score
066on this was 60 and it had to be less than 60 excuse me 608 it had to be less than 60 to get full credit so this was the one we were even closer on getting full credit and we just had slightly different numbers okay number 12 was it what was the correl or what is the correlation between future debt requirements and the district's assessed property values this is looking at only our Debt Service uh tax collections our ins interest and syncing Collections and basically comparing those collections to the property values and on this one we receed full credit uh we had to have a score less than or equal to four and ours was well below that at 1.16 1.11 so we had plenty of room on this one to get full credit number
06713 was the school district's administrative cost ratio equal to or less the threshold ratio tea has a scale again that they use based on the size of your district and different size districts have based on your enrollment uh they have different Ratio or different ranges and you can get partial credit or full credit on this anything from zero to 10 points and increments of two we receive six out of 10 and basically this is a comparison of administrative costs in certain fun functions in functions 21 and 41 of our budget as compared to direct instructional cost which are found in functions 11 12 and 31 and so they just do a simple ratio calculation and it has to fall within the range that they have specified number 14 did the school district this one's a
068little bit worded a little bit strange did the school district not have a 15% decline in student to staff ratio over three years okay we did not have a 15% or more decline over the last three years mean 20 22 22 23 year and then two years back uh our decline was only 6.35% so we received full credit on this one darl do you want us to wait till the end for questions or question however you however you'd like to do it question on on 13 I know you've explained this um already to to a few of us but um can you can you explain a little bit of how that's been corrected so we won't run into that next year for the how we got six out of 10 points for the administrative yes
069okay so like I said we had functions 21 and 41 of our budget that's the the numerator of this division problem um we have reduced staff significantly especially in function 41 uh I'm not sure about 21 specifically at probably a a slight amount uh there are we in fact we did just spend several meetings over the last month checking all the salary codes the payroll codes that we use to charge different employees salaries we did find that some of those probably were coded a little bit off we've making adjustments to that going forward and so between making sure we have our coding done correctly on salaries and other expenses and also making sure that we don't overexp in function 41 which is basically Central office administration uh that's that's the biggest part of these this
070these two 21 and 41 mostly it's 41 and so in function 41 we do need to be very careful uh that we code things correctly and we're definitely taking a very close look at that I've been trying to keep up with that and make changes when I see that they're necessary uh since I've been here uh I have found a few things that were miscoded probably and we've been trying to correct that going forward so that we don't have what seems to be an excessive function 41 expense uh we can also of course spend more in functions 11 12 and 31 uh with in the limits of our budget of course uh and that would also help uh keep the balance where that needs to be one of the examples that he gave us for
071the coding um issue was the copying ma all the copying was being charged to his office which would impact this rating because that looks like administrative cost even though that's all for all the different SPL between each campus and Function 11 mostly in Function 11 so yes something like that would definitely have a negative effect on this this rating um in layman's terms can you explain what the functions mean for people who don't know what 21 and 41 mean first of all go ahead I'll let you do that first function 21 is instructional leadership so these would be expenses for managing directing supervising and leading uh instructional staff so teachers teachers Aid excuse me teacher aids uh so instructional supervisors coordinators directors but not in District administration so more administrative than teachers but not quite
072to the level of administration of a central office function 41 is basically central office so superintendent's office my off excuse me my office HR department all of those highly District High Level administrative positions so those are the ones that are the ones I guess that you could say count against us if we spend too much and then Function 11 12 and 31 that would be direct instruction teachers uh students expenses uh 12 is the library function so anything in the instructional media the library falls under that category and function 31 is guidance and counseling so that would be your counselor's functions so and again this these this year this score this rating is for last year so common sense years ago actually 22 23 yeah it's for a long time ago so bottom line is
073the next time you're here speaking about this it's probably going to be an opposite number because our Administration numbers have dropped significantly I'm just making sure we're on the same page okay got it for 23 24 it should be I finally caught up and for 2425 this year it should be even better still so and the coding will be corrected to darl really explained a lot to us about the coding and how just because a certain Department buys something does it mean that it actually gets needs to be coded so if the uh technology department buys computers that doesn't go to the technology department that's actually for instruction because it's for the kids right so we just have to be real they're being extremely diligent and thorough and he's piling through these things to make
074sure that everything's coded which is going to help us out long term so he's he's found a lot of stuff that's really going to benefit us that just simple things that they just always did so but it may take a year or two to get there yeah but he's getting there okay so I think see 15 was not scored that was another one that's not scored this year uh number 16 this is a very easy one to understand and a very uh one that we do very well that did the comparison of public education information management system otherwise known as pams data did the pe's data compare how did it compare to the school's annual financial report so again we have the audit that data gets reported to tea by the end of January every
075year for the previous school year and then the Auditors actually submit the book the book that y'all will get that we'll review here in a few months uh they they submit the actual book from the auditor we submit our data from our software through pems and the two need to match up so as long as they match up pretty closely and their their criteria is within 3% then we get full credit on this and just so you know we were not only 3% within or within the 3% range we were actually within uh one one 100th of a percent of matching so almost precisely so very very very precise coding and data matchup between pems and our AFR so definitely full credit on that one okay number 17 did the external independent auditor report that
076the AFR the annual financial report was free of any instances of material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting and compliance for local state or federal F funds and free from substantial doubt that the school district's ability to continue as going as AO concern basically this is wanting to know did to asking the Auditors to say to tea was there anything that appeared to be a material weakness in our internal controls the auditor gave the opinion that there was not so therefore we get full credit on this and it's a cealing past indicator so this is either you pass or you don't okay number 18 did the external independent auditor uh indicate that the AFR was free of any instance of material non-compliance for Grants contracts and laws related to local state and federal funds
077similar question number 17 but this time focusing mainly on compliance with our uh regulations according to our grants that we receive any local state and federal laws that we have to abide by and again the auditor indicated that there were no no instances of material non-compliance so we got full credit on that one number 19 did the school district post the required financial information on its website in accordance with government code local government code and Texas Education Code and Texas administrative code and we did do that the again the Auditors checked that as well to make sure that we're posting things correctly and that was a fiveo indicator so we got all five points on that one that was the most you could get on that one yes I had to ask a question about
078the one was why everything is a 10 and then this random five out of five so it looks like we did half of it but we actually got all account for I have no idea why but anyway so five is Max we did good probably because they want everything to add up to 100 so they got too many indicators some of them have to be five points that's my only answer for that all right number 20 did the schools did the School District administration and school board members discuss any changes Andor impact to local state and federal funding at a board meeting within 120 days before adopting the budget so as long as we discussed at a board meeting and have it documented in the minutes that we discuss property values and their effect on
079our funding and we have to do this within four months before we adopt the budget in August then we get full credit on that and again the auditor reviews the board minutes to make sure that's that's in there and we got we passed that and then the last one did the school district receive an adjusted repayment schedule for more than one fiscal year for an overpayment excuse me an over allocation of foundation school program funds because of a financial hardship uh there are districts that have to deal with this uh basically they are either overpaid and have to have their payment schedule reduced or re changed in the future year I believe this also can affect districts who are in recapture and have to send money back to the state and so again if you
080don't earn enough and you have to send money back then they have to make an adjustment to your scheduled payments we didn't not have that problem in either of those scenarios so uh we have not had an adjustment made as far as I know ever and so we passed that cealing indicator as well why was why was that last indicator not evaluated um for previous years I'm not 100% sure but I believe it's I I think a couple of these that have not been evaluated is because after covid there was a whole lot of upset in finances in general because of the state of the economy and the state of School finance and the fact that kids weren't here and there were a lot of things going on so I think they started putting a
081a halt on some of these indicators so as they so they would not negatively impact school districts for things out of their control I I think we're far enough now pass that to where they're bringing these back now are there any other questions oh I'm sorry so our final total score of all the indicators uh that actually had Point values was an 88 out of 100 which is a b above standard above standard achievement on tea scale are there any other questions regarding the first report thank you next we have our superintendent's monthly update there we go all right thank you uh yeah just uh to make a few quick plugs and get us moving through this meeting uh I want to quickly say the Ambassador Academy that I've I've uh spoken to at a
082few meetings now that's live on our website I would encourage anybody that's uh interested in that please reach out to you can reach out to me you can reach out to Brook Tran Aon Tibido are both running point on that for me uh again this is built um around the idea of of community and and just cultivating dialogue collaboration among our community members uh the idea is for the academy uh to be a program that provides citizens of our community with a better understanding of our Public School operations come in and look behind the curtain if you will meet with um my different cabinet members and directors I look at the operations of the the district and how we run things and uh we're seeking input from you too you're all masters of your your
083own skill and trade and and what you do out there in our community um how can you help us be better uh we are a Community Driven business and we want to lean into that so very excited about that and hope to see people apply um quickly I want to say as Educators I've plug this uh several times in my FYI uh we model responsible citizenship especially to to our kiddos so um for anyone that's not paying attention to all the commercials across your TV elections started today early voting start today so how you vote is completely up to you I do encourage you to please get out and vote uh last couple of things um I'm very proud of our fellowship of Christian athletes initiative uh that started back up during this October shocktober
084as we call it in this business all things seem to be going on in shober in including FCA which we're very very excited about um hosting meetings uh this year at the junior high as well as the high school so we started at the high school last year um now alternating weeks between junior high and high school um just had uh the Fields of Faith at Cub Stadium um sort of a big roll out of FCA if you will um was this past Tuesday really appreciated the attendance there and we love to see people involved in that initiative any questions at all please please reach out to me Mrs wilky Mr Watts any of the coaches can talk to you more about that uh there is uh athlet uh in that acronym but it is
085open to all students we want to see all students that are interested in being involved to please be involved with that so again proud to partner with uh Jacob damus and FCA lastly uh I happen to be on the Brenham next board uh we are very very proud of uh our our relationship with Brenham next and uh their summer program here um in our um ISD um at the high school this past summer they host their um what I hope is a annual dinner this Wednesday October 24th this Wednesday evening um is our fundraiser SL dinner um again a big initiative um I feel like with this community I'm so looking forward to leaning that did I say something wrong Susan Thursday the 24th Thursday the 24th thank you um any interest that at all
086please please reach out to me I can get you more information on that that's all I've got thank you okay next we have board member reports no Bonnie the only thing in case you haven't heard there's an election going on and we started today and I was going to go vote uh at 2 o'clock because I thought by that time things would have died down the people were out the door of the annex so uh those those of you who like to vote on uh election day don't forget that's not going to be at the end ex it depends on what Precinct you're in but uh please go vote I'm actually going to say the same thing I did go vote today I was able to stand in line for a little bit but um
087just to reiterate to the community I mean School Finance is a huge thing right now so when you're casting your vote please make sure that the candidate you're voting for is going to help the school districts out in Texas so we can make sure we get the teachers what they deserve and the students so just please keep that in mind I'm not telling you who to vote for I'm just saying do your research and make sure you're vote for somebody that's going to do right by the school districts where's your I voted sticker I just said I'm giving you time they heard me thank you Raven Archer I just want to thank Suzanne flammer Billy Fowler and everybody that's involved in the Cubs for reading program it's fantastic loved it from the very beginning thank
088you to Clay for latching on to that and letting them do it I really hope that we see some increased litery rates amongst our little ones and that's where it leads on to the next grades and the next grad and then they start taking star and you can see it in their star results so it all starts there and I just think you guys do amazing work so thank you for stepping up and helping our kids thank thank you next we have our consent agenda we can approve in one motion or pull any item for clarification I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented second we have a motion made by Jared krck seconded by Kelvin Raven to approve the consent agenda as presented all in favor opposed motion carries
089next we have our finance update our c o darl stclair will present the financial update all right uh before we get started with the uh the actual slide information I did put an updated uh 2324 uh close of the Year estimate I'm definitely not calling it final because it's not final till the auditors says it's final but I did include an updated information uh we are a bit closer uh we still have some outstanding bills that we're working on paying some invoices that we're tracking down uh we still have most likely some uh some details uh some miscoded information that we're working on trying to get corrected I've started sending or we not me we my office have started sending reports to the Auditors uh they're getting started on the process and as soon as
090we can get all these other last minute things caught up we will send them updated information and they will continue on the process from there for the rest of this fall most likely uh just wanted to let you know though that we have posted quite a few August uh bills that we did get paid in September we're talking about September now with our financial reports tonight so right now uh it looks like we're instead of being at the 4.6 million over budget deficit budget that was adopted in 2324 right now our EXP are showing we're closer to 4 million so we're running about 600,000 better off than we anticipated for the year again nothing's final yet but that's where we are that's about $100,000 difference from where I told you last month so not a
091huge change uh that's in the general fund uh in Food Service uh we're looking at about 334 thou yeah $334,000 increase the fund balance which was pretty close to what we were expecting uh last time it's a little bit we did get some more uh last minute Revenue that we received in September but it was for the last school year so we had post it back to August so that increases the uh the total revenue of bit for that that fund and then our debt service fund our 599 Debt Service fund is uh looking at about the same thing I told you last month right out a million dollars uh being added to fund balance which uh we can certainly use to pay down the debt sooner like we typically do when we get to
092uh next August next July or August any questions about the update for 23 24 no questions just thank you again for the hard work I mean I know four million is hard to stomach but I mean but yall worked extremely hard to cut back what y'all did cut back so your office and everybody just thank you for diving in it's it's been yeah it's good news but not the best so I need thank you you're welcome okay so current year we um have go to the next one we have our pretty much the same format we've been reporting U till we got to August and it was kind of a very special month um so now we're kind of getting back to our normal format we have our local uh Revenue estimates ex approved budget
093and amounts and then the collections we've had as of the end of September again everything is this past month we have state program revenue and then again what we have budgeted and what we have actually seen come in and then our federal program revenue and just to be clear this is for the three funds that y'all approved so this is for the general fund food service and for Debt Service all combined so all the things that uh that require your approval U so right there you can see we have received our first tea state aid payment in September and we should be receiving our second payment I believe late this week early next week and then we don't get any more payments from tea until next August because then it's time for our tax collections
094to kick in so uh those will begin ramping up as we get closer towards the end of the year and we're still ahead on Ada from budgeted right yes that's actually on this next slide okay um not just that but that's part of it uh we budgeted for 4500 Ada and right now we are sitting at current enrollment of 4,863 which is but that's not Ada no that's not Ada but if you notice on the chart up there uh 93% of 4863 is 4500 so our attendance has been running significantly higher than 93% ever since school began so right now I'd say we're probably in the 95 to 96% range for the the year as a whole so keeping that in mind if that holds true and if our enrollment stays where it is then
095we should be able to see significant increases to our state revenue more than we budgeted for so that's always a good sign of course we keep monitoring that day by day week by week month by month so uh we can notice if there's a change in the trend we'll we'll pick up on that as quickly as we can any questions about that information okay all right then uh back to our current year budget uh again this is general fund Food Service Debt Service all combined so you see our in the green columns our total revenue uh projections our budget and then our actual expenses so far in the yellow columns uh per function and so you can see that we basically spent just over two and a half million and I will point out because
096you'll probably see this jump all of a sudden next month so I'm go ahead and tell you ahead of time why one thing I think I brought this up back in August uh we have what are called August acrs so uh any of our staff that's paid on a that works on a 10-month basis but we're all paid over 12 months which mainly would be our teachers and our teacher aids uh those people we have to acrew the salaries and post them in the old year for what the time that they work in August because when they start back to work in August they're not getting paid their first New Year check until September but according to our our requirements by law anything that's earned or even debt that's earned has to be booked in
097the year that it's earned so we book that payroll data and that expense in August but then when we get to September when we actually pay those people now we have to give a credit back to the current year because it's been charged to the old year so when we credit the August cruls back to the general fund and Food Service fund it creates a negative balance so then when you have September regular September payroll hit it looks like you really haven't had much in the way of payroll expenses for the month of September because you have that credit from the previous year that's been done so that kind of deflates our expenses for the month of September but as we go on that won't happen again that that credit has been posted so it's
098only once a year and so from going forward now our expenses will look more normal because typically our payroll runs about two and a half million a month just for payroll so yeah uh but anyway so there's the expenses as they are right now and again you'll I noticed a significant difference when we get to October any questions about the expenses and the budget okay all right our investment report is next uh not a tremendous amount of change from last month so this is our September balances ending balances as of September uh we do still have uh significant amount of money for the ins fund if you'll notice in Texas class the middle number and then in texpool the middle number those are excuse me our ins or our debt uh revenues that we have
099Sitting uh earning earning investment earning interest as an investment in the pools uh we do have uh less there we closed all of our CDs out I mentioned that last month we had to liquidate those back in August we did just today move some of our excess Revenue to Texas class since they have the best interest rate currently uh to again start building up our interest capacity for this year uh we'll be looking when we get our next tea payment next week hopefully then we'll be looking to see to uh move some of that in out of the bank account the local account to probably one of the pools to again try to earn as much interest as we can any questions on the investment information all right and then our excuse me finally our
100tax collection information and again I would like to point out it does say it's current 2023 tax year as of September any tax money that we're collecting is still the 2023 tax year the notices I believe just went out maybe last week or this week or we week last week or so for the 2024 uh tax collections that now are due at the end of December so once we get to October data next month we should start seeing uh tax Reven for the current year and we'll change that to 2024 so not much was collected as you might guess because most everybody's paid their taxes for 2023 already we do still have some delinquent uh Revenue coming in but for the most part uh most everything's been paid so there's not a lot of change
101on that from the last last month any questions about the tax collections okay okay thank you you're welcome glad you have your job [Laughter] okay and you want to go ahead and go into the budget amend next I believe okay we do have uh a few proposed budget amendments this month uh when I was reviewing the information I noticed that two of them are kind of similar and the other two of them are kind of similar in a different way uh so basically you have uh four amendments there proposed a b c and d and uh as I put in the agenda notes items A and C are simply moving money from one function to another not increasing the budget just shifting the funds uh so that the accompanying expenses can be posted to the
102correct functions uh so basically we're looking at moving $35,000 from function 53 over to function 51 53 is technology 51 excuse me 51 is maintenance and operations the the only reason for this is we have some utility expenses that have been budgeted in function 53 but all utilities should really be function 51 expenses so we need to move the money that we budgeted to pay these expenses to the correct function so that we can start paying it out of that function so we just need to re basically reallocate yes is it just a typo that it says u a is 35,000 C is 25,000 on our sheet it's going to be just 35 from one and 35 to the other correct um I think it's the two different No actually they're two different completely different
103topic different oh he said A and A and C are similar in nature I'm sorry I thought they were the same that's why I was questioning where's the extra 10,000 no no it's yeah they're they're separate items so that's that's the first one sorry if I didn't explain that well good um then uh item C we'll just going to skip down to that one item C we're we're requesting to move again $25,000 more dollar from function 53 this time over to Function 11 uh and this is simply because when uh Brooke and I were discussing the Education Foundation minig grants we were thinking that there need to be money put in function 53 technology so that when that Grant uh that uh donation money came in function 53 technology would be spending that money and
104they will be spending that money but they'll be spending it on instructional uh supplies for the classroom so this is a case where that really should have been put in Function 11 to begin with so just need to move it over to the correct function so we can spend the rest of that money there so those are the two where we're actually taking money we already had and just moving it to a different location any questions about either one of those okay then uh B and D are different because we are actually asking to increase uh fund 199 the general fund uh because we have more money come in than we thought we were going to have come in which is always a good reason to have a budget amendment so again with the minig
105grant donation uh for the Education Foundation donations we budgeted for $100,000 we actually had 13277 that needs to go into the non-activity accounts into the general fund so we have posted the money we've posted it as a cash receipt it's showing up as Revenue but we can't spend more than 100,000 because that's all we budgeted in the expense category so to be able to spend the other 32770 we need to move it into the budget that would increase the budget which requires your approval that's something that I cannot do without your approval so that's just increasing the budget for the extra money we got that we didn't know that we were going to get at the time and then item D is a similar thing other different circumstances uh this is Insurance uh money that
106was paid to us by our insurance for vehicle repairs so again we didn't anticipate that we didn't budget for that but we have the money we just need to put it into the expense part of the budget in function 34 so we can actually use that money to pay for the repairs that we need so those two are actually increasing the budget but not because we don't have the money we already have the money which just need to be able to spend it properly any questions on those we will need a motion to I'm really glad I'm not an accountant I move to approve the budget amendment as presented second okay we have a motion made by Kyle hner seconded by Kelvin Raven to approve the budget amendments as presented all in favor I opposed
107motion carries thank you very much next we have our our um campus and District Improvement plans and our chief academic officer Sarah bohart will present this yes so I'm GNA also be presenting with Christi stado and Aaron Tibido and they'll be helping contribute as well um Amanda dismukes was supposed to be here tonight but she has a sick little one and then Chelsea best went home this afternoon about 5:00 not feeling well so they're they're not with us but um they were going to present as well so what we decided to do if you remember in the September board meeting that the board was able to adopt the board goals for the district Improvement plan as well as the performance objectives and so what we decided to do tonight was just kind of step out
108and expand a little bit on some of our goals and strategies that are in action and in play right now so the picture that you see before you um was taken this summer after a two-day training where we trained teacher leaders um to lead the PLC process through Texas lesson study so do I just I don't let me this I should bring my own clicker you know how you just get used to Brian I wasn't pay attention Sor okay here we go thank you the picture I know the picture's great and it's it's great we blocked everything they go all right so the purpose um for the district Improvement plan again I think what's important for us to remember is that beram ISD does receive SAA title funds through that and we are required to
109make sure that we have a district Improvement plan that allocates where those funds go it also provides for us a strategic road map for how we're going to enhance student outcomes across all schools in our district the summary of the goals that were adopted in September um you know we talked about really just increasing student achievement fostering student engagement a safe secure environment positive High expectation culture building Partnerships with local organizations and maintaining that fiscal responsibility those those are their summary of the six goals that were adopted in September so tonight we're going to talk a little bit about goal one and how it really this year in bernham ISD through district and campus Partnerships we are working to increase um effective instructional practices to increase student achievement through engaging um engagement and highquality instructional
110material so I'm going to let Christie explain goal one performance objective one and and strategy one all right so performance objective one focuses on kindergarten through second grade students um and increasing their growth goals and so the strategy for that is to provide tier one phonics instruction through the highquality instructional material called reading Horizons in grades K to2 um IT addresses foundational skills in the te to ensure students read on grade level um it has systematic and explicit teaching of phonemic awareness phonics fluency vocabulary and comprehension which are all critical for early reading development which in turn positively impacts academic performance across the district um because strong foundational reading skills are directly um linked to overall academic success all right I'm also going to talk about performance objective two which focuses on our um students
1113 through 12 that take the star or EOC test really um 4th through 10th if we're talking about growth and so strategy three is implementing high quality instructional materials which are aligned to our te that ensures every student demonstrates measurable growth on assessments and the slide is going to show all of our high quality instructional materials that we have throughout the district so just a couple notes on high quality instructional materials they provide on grade level content with appropriate rigor they're rooted in our research-based instructional strategy IES fostering effective learning um by reducing instructional variability and ensuring consistency across across classrooms it guarantees that all students receive Equitable high quality instruction they also alleviate the planning burden on teachers allowing them to focus more on how to teach and meet student needs rather than what
112to teach okay back to Sarah all right so the next uh strategy has to do with Texas lesson study PLC and that the picture that y'all saw in the very beginning were our PLC facilitators that were trained in Brenham Middle School through Brenham High School part of that is they engage weekly um in conversation really around the work of teaching using the highquality instructional material so they're working on internalizing lessons and units um identifying student work samples exemplars um comparing data so it provides a structure um and so you can see that is actually a teacher practicing lesson rehearsal in her PLC where she is kind of modeling what she's going to teach the lesson so that the other teachers could look at what is the teacher saying and do that's effective um so that's
113that you want talk about PLC all right strategy five focuses on plc's um where teachers Implement data- driven practices by analyzing specific student responses to identify learning gaps and they also engage in collaborative peer observation like Sarah was talking about and high impact instructional strategies um it allows teachers to tailor instruction to meet the diverse needs of their students and fosters that collaborative environment where they engage together promoting continuous professional growth and by using that data to refine instruction and sharing best practices teachers are better able to support student progress ultimately leading to improved academic performance okay so this goal is our ccmr goal and we are really focused at the secondary level um at college career and Military Readiness so by the time that our students walk across the stage and the Integrity of
114the diploma says that they're ready for the future that they themselves the students want so part of strategy 6 under goal one has the secondary ccmr leadership team meeting regularly um looking at those indicators and then making decisions to help support the students in reaching that the next is I Exel which some of y'all probably have heard about I Exel it is that personalized pathway that allows students to practice skills that are just right for them so for example our students getting ready for the SAT it has an SAT path for them or if we have a third grader who needs to work on repeated addition before doing multiplication I Exel allows that personalized digital path at this moment you can see we've answered almost um 1.5 million questions this year our students have and
115if you look at our Mastery we have mastered um over 22752 skills are already showing mastered just from the use ofl and so when I really summarize for y'all goal one because that's what we decided to kind of expand and ex um on instead of every single um 70 pages in The District Improvement plan um things that our teachers are working on is they are effectively preparing for instruction by shifting from planning to internalizing and rehearsing so it's no longer about just planning but I'm really stepping out on key pieces of the lesson and how we're going to increase engagement in student mastery and we're working to effectively deliver instruction by teaching the curriculum with Fidelity at the level of rigor of the instructional materials and standards that was a big thing that we worked
116on together with you the school board and this spring is really looking at instructional materials that could help streamline that process and make sure that we had grade level content in every classroom um and then teachers are continuing to work on how to effectively respond to data I think what's important is we're not just looking at District progress measure data and we're not just looking at summi of test we're actually bringing student work in each um you know each PLC process and looking at student work to analyze for student misconceptions and determine the rete so um one thing that was really exciting is um we have curriculum design teams that come in and we were working on something called exemplars and christe heny the instructional coach stopped me and said they immediately transferred that into
117their PLC this week success criteria and exemplars and um rolled it out and so it's really exciting to see the teachers owning the process um through PLC and and these are the things that we're working on through goal one so then we have Texas lesson study facilitators and instructional coaches and this year we're very much so focused on helping develop their skills effectively lead teachers in collaborative planning um facilitating lesson rehearsal there again is that math teacher and you can see she is showing teachers and modeling for teachers and she's a teacher herself that is a facilitator of PLC and she's stepping out in reing that lesson so teachers can see the critical attributes about what's going to make that lesson transfer in their classroom for them um as well as facilitating a process for
118practicing a key learning moment um so that when we get in front of students for that first teach it's the best teach um and so this lesson rehearsal allows that so I'm going to let Erin tipido kind of St I you want to skip and go to that slide next CH I thought you were going to do that y she's GNA so I'm going to share with you how the district Improvement plan connects to the campus Improvement plans so uh the when you look at a campus Improvement plan on the website which they're all there they're posted and um or actually after you approve the updated ones which you'll see now is 23 24 um one part under the goals gives you a set of reviews on the far right which has periodic reviews this
119is an ongoing process so we actually start conducting our needs assessment early in the spring so around January February so last February um when Miss bohart started uh I think it was probably her first week here and we were doing some instructional rounds in our campus and I gave her a quick text and she showed up and so she went around with our classroom and uh I'm thrilled to see us get to use this in a way that I think is more impactful than it's ever been in my experience in teaching and the reason is we are really using what's there um in my experience uh way back being on campus Improvement committee or a district Improvement committee sometimes we I felt like we were showing up and being told here's what we're going to
120do and we said great and then we never looked at it again and um it was part of that thing that check mark that we had to do and that's um part of a lot of good goals a lot of things that we put into place the state puts into place because we need to make improvements um and they're all great with intentions but then real life happens and they fall by the wayside um that February as we finished our our rounds I was able to say to miss bohart here's what I'm seeing and here's what we're thinking on our campus is an area we need to grow one of those was teacher leadership because we created um space because the previous year in our February time with our guiding Coalition our teachers said um
121we need to change something in our schedule we need more time to collaborate so we started in February and we visited campuses um in other districts to look at how they carved out time for their teachers we did that so we created PLC time for our teachers for the first time on a daily basis then we saw that those those things were not working very well because teachers were spending all their time Gathering resources and talking about what's the next thing and making the next test and creating all those things and all the things that we talked about that we identified as problems Sarah said oh I have a solution for that I have a solution for that and so we worked through and this summer now I can go back to that slide with
122administrators we brought that's when she brought in the Texas lesson study idea that's when she had the um the training for us as Leaders so that now we are focused on instruction um I know that there was a time when a lot of um administrators were focused more on discipline and management than on leading instruction and we're carving out a space now for us to be those truly um instructional leaders so that is she's taking time to grow us our principal PLC times have lots of built-in professional development so we spent a lot of time this summer and we've been following up with that with our plcs we're not just getting together and talking about the day-to-day activities and things that are going on but we're growing as Leaders together and being able to transfer
123that to our campus so an example of um those goals and how they are impacting ours so you'll see that my goals on my campus Improvement plan as if you check any of the other ones are aligned with the districts I picked goal four since they had taken goal one and a lot of those things were um very similar so in our cultivating positive culture and promote that promotes High expectations well-being engagement and success of students and staff one of our performance objectives is to ensure that our teachers are receiving that high quality ongoing professional development and we are doing that by creating time for our teachers with that PLC time our teachers are going and observing each other um our students are seeing getting used to lots of adults in the classroom being used
124to being questioned by adults and we're questioning the engagement and the practices um in fact I'm going to correct something on Sarah's picture when she said the facilitator that was in there modeling a lesson that was actually not our facilitator our facilitator had already done it and she had done it well and so now another teacher was stepping out and she was modeling um and so that's what was different so the Improvement cycle I can attest to in my few years at Brendle middle school because our first year we had plc's four days a week and they were um inconsistent in what we did our my second year we had plc's every day but teachers weren't really getting to collaborate and grow together and this year we can see that we are really practicing bringing
125in student work and we're seeing um big changes and it's all incremental but it all matters so the process is continuous which is why we will have those check marks throughout the year um that is also the time when Miss flammer um I hooked up with her after she had some questions at a board meeting and invited her to be part of the process and so that's all part of um the continuous Improvement cycle so it's different for me I think it's different than it has been in my experience in the past and I'm thrilled to be a part of it and I think we're doing some great things and so now just questions question it's it's very exciting to see these like you said incremental changes but these plans are more thorough more detailed
126than they've ever been and they're so specific to the needs of the students and the teachers in the district and I just kudos to you all it's it's very exciting to see the changes and then to know that the fruits of this labor will be I mean we have to wait for that part but it's coming yeah I want to also say thank you to Sarah team the principes U Mr too for uh M too for presenting today um you know I've said so many times I think as Aon said I've seen in districts uh in many years past it becomes just a box you check uh Sarah has really made this A playbook a living breathing Playbook that we change as we need to to um just attack the coaching of the classroom each
127and every day and um I appreciate her just running with it because she absolutely runs every day yes well and it it's not possible without the campus principles as yall know supporting the work um and when you look at the campus Improvement plans they were very strategic um I want to shout out our superintendent every Monday we start the morning together walking at campus and you can see he's in a classroom today um with me first thing and it's because what happens in those classrooms is absolutely pivotal to the success of our students and so each one of us are putting classrooms and learning at the Forefront of what we do um so much so we start our Monday mornings together in schools in the classrooms and beside principes so it's a good thing this
128is this is why we hired you well thank you thank you well thank you it's a gift it's a gift to be in Burnham ISD it is a gift to be part of such an amazing team and so um it takes all of us you know all of us need each of us and each of us need all of us and so it's it's all of us together so you're the leader and now you've created other leaders and that's great I love seeing that on on every campus now you know that you can see that going on because it's all always about the kids yes always about the kids and we appreciate that thank you yes yes so we just need someone to approve the dist ready for the instead of kissing up all right
129I move to approve uh the campus and District Improvement plans with the ability to up update as needed okay we have a motion made by Kyle Hafner seconded by Archer Archer to approve the campus and District Improvement plans with the ability to update as needed all in favor opposed the motion carries thank you all very much next we have our annual bilingual and ESL program report and our ESL bilingual coordinator Aid Taylor will present good evening board last but not least here is our annual report um over our bilingual and ESL program so every year um before November 1st uh we have to report to you guys um the progress that our emergent bilingual students have made through the past year so the that you see is from last year but the information in terms
130of professional development and um what initiatives we started take part last year and go into this year I forgot there was there we go so just a little reminder we do have an early exit transitional bilingual program that runs from prek to fourth grade um it is currently in the third year of its restructuring so last year we added prek to also be um at the uh crowy Elementary campus so now our entire program is housed um on one campus um and we are able to successfully um staff that program now from prek to four uh in starting in sec in first grade our teachers are departmentalized so usually first grade is a self-contained grade um but with the need that uh emergent bilingual students have in terms of literacy in their first language and
131in English we decided to departmentalize First grade so we have a teacher that teaches um uh Spanish language arts solely to both classes and then we have a math science teacher um in addition like I said our prek class um is housed there so those students see the the expectations of kindergarten they're exposed to uh more specialist classes things like that last year we had 19 students in two classes this year we Consolidated our preap program and they're up to 20 students now um so we're hoping that that prek uh class will continue to grow um at crowy um again this program our transitional bilingual program it begins where students are receiving the majority of their instruction in Spanish and then every year it adds on um English uh dependent on what grade level so
132prek K are 9010 first grade 8020 until they reach a certain level of Spanish literacy where they can translate that to um English and so then by third grade um ideally they would be doing all English small group instruction hopefully exiting the program um by fourth grade and then going on to Middle School um our current third graders are the first students to receive um that um concerted um in-depth uh instruction in that first language so we're hoping that they will show um the fruits of the labor of the teachers and of the restructuring of the program um we also have our ESL pullout program that's from K through 12 um that doesn't mean that the students are pulled out of their classrooms that just means that uh the reading teacher or the English teacher
133is the one that's ESL certified and that's where they would receive the majority of their language instruction um but that doesn't mean that they're the only class we um our all teachers are language teachers and so in in science math social studies they would still be receiving those second language acquisition strategies um but for State purposes and for coding their English or reading teacher would be the one that's ESL certified um for our self-contained teachers at the elementary level we have content-based because they only have one teacher um that's what that program would be that means that they receive all of those all of that language instruction in their one class so um that's a difference between between our pull out and our content-based um in terms of Staffing and recruiting um as you guys
134know bilingual Ed is a very high needs um content area so bernham istd is actively identifying and recruiting highly qualified individuals to meet the needs of our emergent bilingual students um currently in our grow your own program we have three teachers at crowy who are going through that um they're going to school while being in the classroom and they are dedicated to eventually receiving their um bilingual education certificate um they are from Brenham they live here um and they want to continue uh supporting our program of course we uh provide ESL prep uh coursework in the summer uh dependent on the need and then of course our HR department is actively trying to recruit teachers in uh universities with high bilingual graduates um last year we um for waivers and exceptions so just a reminder
135um teachers who have emergent bilingual students in their classrooms but do not hold an ESL or bilingual certification must have a waiver or an exception placed for that school year um last year we had 17 teachers who we pulled um ESL waivers for that just means that they had um emergent bilingual students in their classrooms but they did not hold an ESL uh certificate and then we had four exceptions same thing it just means that the teachers that were in the bilingual classroom uh were not fully certified and so using our bilingual allotment uh we were able to provide uh professional development eslm to those teachers um for the exceptions three of those teachers are still going through the program and it's going to take them a few years because they are going through the
136grow your own program in terms of the waivers that we are pulling um this year we started a or we've entered into a contract with Region 4 and so I'll go a little bit more into detail on what that entails um to help support those teachers who have emerging bilingual students but do not hold that certification um these are our numbers from last year so um in the green we have our ESL numbers from prek to four I mean to 12 and so you can see we have 514 students last year and then in our B program we had 210 um as you can see denials that means that a student was identified as um someone that qualified for language Services either through their home language survey or through um their lost links which is
137the language test that we do for initial identification um and so once those were recommended by the lpac the parent decided to deny all services so that just means that they're still um receiving whatever supports they need um but they are just not actively participating in our ESL or bilingual program but they're identified as emergent bilinguals so they still have to um meet all of the criteria for reclassification for Tel pass star um Etc last year we had 681 students in our ESL and bilingual programs and then currently we have 692 active student so our numbers are growing um we are getting more students who are newcomers at the secondary level so finding supports for them um has kind of been um a goal of ours um just because at the secondary level um with
138the amount of classes credits things like that um it becomes very difficult for a student that's you know 14 15 16 starting High School uh junior high even um not only as a newcomer learning the language but they have to learn how to navigate the school system right you have eight classes seven classes worry about um credits and graduating and things like that so we're really looking into making uh an effort to support their teachers because it is hard um as a teacher to find gaps but also have a language barrier when you have you know um 20 25 students in your class um then here we have our our district tpass data from last year and the year before so the blue column shows you where um our second through fourth graders were at
139in Spring of 2023 and our green column shows you where they were last year as you can tell um our numbers are increasing um just a reminder about what the uh tell pass reclassification criteria was previously students had to achieve an advanced High rating in each of the four domains so starting in second grade students start taking telepath completely online so they have to speak into a microphone they have to read on grade level text without any sort of accommodations um so if they were to get uh something read allow to them they don't get that on T pass um they have to listen to directions based on grade level uh criteria and then um they have to write and just like on Star they have to type so um last year uh we did
140see a lowering of the numbers in the intermediate level and then if you can look at third grade third grade um our last year our students made that growth right they were more advanced level students and that means that they're getting closer to that grade um great appropriate language ability that there they would need um some support but not um as much as an intermediate student and so they would be getting closer to um reclassifying and then for fifth through e88th grade you see that um our fifth graders and our sixth graders did really really well to move um students to Advanced and then to Advanced High um in a little bit we'll talk about how many students we classified but you can kind of see that we're making an effort um last year we
141began the program Summit K12 which focuses on building uh language uh skills for the students so it it follow follows uh the same concepts of of Tass of listening speaking reading and writing uh students take a diagnostic test and it puts them on their own personalized uh learning plan so if the student is rated as a beginner it starts them with beginner level work and tries to push them to that next level um I would like to say kudos to uh Miss Ido um at the middle school because um as you'll see in a little bit you'll see the effects that the students continuously being exposed to that has on their uh tell pass ratings um and then for 9th through 12th grade I could not get the 11th grade and the 12th grade uh
142data I don't know it wasn't pulling up on aoria but um at as the kids get older um it does become more cumbersome to get them to come and take a test um Tel pass doesn't bar them from graduating it doesn't bar them from going on to the next grade level so trying to um make an effort to make it something important to them um so something that we started last year and hopefully will continue to grow this year is having uh grade level talks in terms of like why are you in the program why is tpass important why is it um you know why your level is important why you should come take all parts because if you come for the day that we have uh reading and writing but you don't come for
143listening and speaking you're automatically going to get a beginner rating so even if you are mastering star you're in AP classes you know you're on your way to being really successful um according to the state of Texas you are a beginner student in terms of your English proficiency um and now to like the real highlight of this presentation is the number of students that have reclassified so in order to reclassify students must achieve a composite score of advanced high on T pass so like I said previously students had to um get an advanced tie in each of the domains last year uh ta changed that to now they just need a composite score so if they get two Advanced high scores and two advances they meet that criteria if they're in grades um 3 through
14410 um if they're in first grade second grade 11th or 12th grade they can take the Iowa um exam for reading and listening um as you can tell last year we had 33 students reclassify prev previous year we had nine students so that change um in the Tass composite score really made a difference and it also helps students be more able to achieve that um that criteria the speaking portion has uh for a long time historically been the hardest part um students just do not want to talk into microphones right they'll talk to you all day you hear them in the hallways but when it comes to speaking into microphone in a small group of students um it becomes very difficult and then to add to that those students that in St grade uh levels
145or in STAR testing grades they had to pass their reading or English um star test without any accommodations so if they took their Algebra 1 EOC their biology we could provide the designated support of text to speech or uh content language supports but they could they could not receive those through elpac from uh on their reading or English in order to reclassify the state of Texas finally realized that students may just be struggling readers and that those supports do not um denote their language ability right that they may just need those and so now it's been decided that students can receive those two designated supports on their reading or English stars and it does not bar them from reclassifying so I'm hoping that that uh 33 is going to go to a much higher number
146next year sorry I catched my breath um in terms of star uh you guys can see the comparison between all students and then our emergent bilinguals our emergent bilingual students are still um lagging behind um um all students in terms of their outcomes and like I said we're we're working hard to support the teachers and support the in supporting the students and not only language acquisition but in that content knowledge right because they have to be able they're doing two types of learning at the same time they're trying to gain that academic vocabulary um and then trying to translate that and apply it to um the content right so through that u high quality instructional material um hmh we have uh purchased that for K through two in Spanish to build that really really strong
147uh foundation in their first language so that our students are reading really well in Spanish so that they can use those skills to translate them to English so we're not just um you know trying to peac meal things for our bilingual students so we're hoping to see um a lot of success with that um in terms of reading you know reading is very hard for all students um but it's especially hard for our mergent bilingual students so we're making a uh a concertive effort to support those teachers in helping our students um and their outcomes on their reading stars and eoc's um math um it's a little bit closer um you can see uh math is universal for the most part there's not a whole lot of reading involved um so students do tend to
148do better as you can see in algebra um the state average for approaches was 80% and our students or 81% and our students did really well on that um and then our emergent bilinguals were not too far behind so we're going to continue to support those teachers at all grade levels with those strategies um to hopefully move those students from that meet to that math to that from that approaches to meet and eventually have more students who are mastering um and then of course emergent bilingual professional support or professional development support so we're committed to providing professional development opportunities to teachers of emerging bilinguals to ensure that they have the tools and resources to meet the academic and linguistic needs of their students so like I said they not only have to get that content
149knowledge they have to um receive that language support So previously at crowy we did have uh do sendos Consulting come and help us restructure our language allocation plan um that's when we made the decision to consolidate the program and through um her her support um she provided um observation modeling and coaching for our bilingual teachers um and in that she also modeled those same skills for myself and for Miss ZZ who's the biliteracy instructional coach at crowy um and so once our contract with them ended we're still able to continue that work um and then in her training she was able to include metall linguistic strategies cross linguistic connections and then targeted vocabulary instruction to ensure that students um are gaining that knowledge and making those connections uh of course we have professional development sessions
150throughout their year that include compliance training so for elpac um who can be part of the committee what does a committee do things like that teaching strategies and then other ways to support merg of bilingual students across the content areas uh myself and the L&L team will continue to support teachers and staff through the plc's and the professional development sessions that will be provided um throughout the year um so then you kind of see a list of what trainings we um have provided are going to provide their scope um and then the audience so that just kind of shows you that we're we're doing language support we're doing compliance um and then we're hopefully being able to have more teachers feel comfortable coming to the ESL Academy and then taking that test um I've heard
151that that test can be very um scary to some like they're like oh I it's very hard so hopefully they can uh feel comfortable doing that um and then for our big plan so uh using uh our allocated uh bilingual education allotment funds we have entered into a contra contract with Region 4 um to provide tailored in District supports for teachers who currently do not hold ESL or bilingual certification and provide instruction to our bilingual emergent bilingual students so this contract includes elps training so those are your English language proficiency standards so that teachers understand that those are uh mandatory language essentially language standards that have to be provided in every lesson uh CBL which is content based language instruction so if you've heard of shelter instruction it's pretty much the same thing so it's
152how do we provide uh those Lang those comprehensible input to our students those language um strategies built into your lessons um and then they will come and they will do observations modeling and coaching with our teachers as well um and then again like I said in addition to those trainings over CVI and the elps this contract will also consist of observation and coaching cycles for our elementary bilingual teachers because the ones that are in our growe own program um they have previously been either in their very first year of teaching or they're going to you know be alternatively certified so they're not just learning how to teach bilingual Ed they're learning how to teach in general um so through that support um they will um hopefully learn teaching strategies but also just feel comfortable with
153um our program what we're trying to do um and then this is a year a year-long contract aimed at increasing teacher capacity and and student outcomes for our emergent bilingual students so hopefully by the end of this um we will see those star scores uh get you know closing that gap between our student the state average and then our emergent bilingual student um and then of course um every year and well not every year for the last couple of years we've had our um our Hispanic culture night um it was held at the EC and then at at crowy and that's just where we bring many families from across the district and we have culturally diverse activities food and then we end the night with a game of loia um which is like bingo with
154pictures um and what we have introduced in the last two years is having Community Partnerships so um last year we were able to bring in the Boys and Girls Club um blend college admissions so uh Miss Carol Bourne comes and gives families informations about um what programs does Blen offer you know what's their admissions um and then she brings little goodies um we actually um uh met Dr Washington Maron who is a pediatrician at uh Baylor Scott and White and him and his family just moved here and so he actually wanted to be part of it and so he and his daughter came and had a little booth and she taught everyone about Ecuador cuz that's where they're from and so she had a little presentation and some goodies and it was really awesome and
155then of course we had the Texas Workforce Commission and then tat um tchat and the Workforce Commission were really awesome um additions to our um our Community Partnerships because uh Texas Workforce Commission of course uh gives students many opportunities to find jobs training things like that and then te tat um is a uh program from A&M that focuses on uh mental health so um they were able to come and give um some information to our families and that was really awesome and then of course we had blink College athletics our Avid students are always volunteering our teachers and administrators and then um shout out if you've not watched the uh Brenham High School Folklorico um the uh their dance club that they've made um they are super fantastic it was a student initiated student created
156student run everything um Club um and they perform beautiful dances so if you ever get a chance go check them out it's a little plug for them and then here's some pictures of just of on the top right you'll see um there that was last year's um Folklorico team club um and then this year at the Hispanic uh culture program they had a much bigger turnout so they they are growing and they're doing a a wonderful job at um just highlighting their culture and their abilities um and then last but not least we have have to provide a summer school for all incoming prek and or sorry incoming Kinder and first grade students that are actively in the program uh last this last summer we had two classes one for our ESL students that was
157taught in English and then one for our bilingual students that was following the allocation plan in Spanish we had 29 students register and we had 27 who came uh regularly and we had it in two sessions it was here at Brenham High School um there were some difficulties but overall was very successful um High School doesn't have a a playground but the the the plants in the courtyard are great they they found all way to play um but yeah that's that's our our bilingual update do you guys have any questions what what did you say then I know these numbers are from last year and the total was 733 what is what is the total for this year so right now actively we have 692 students um we're still waiting for some elpac meetings we
158We are continuing to get new student um so I expect that number to be much higher so between 15 and 20% of our students are ESL or bil yes and are they mostly Spanish-speaking students yes mostly are Spanish speaking um we do have a few that speak uh Vietnamese Burmese but the majority are are Spanish speaking thank you any other questions good thank you for everything it was very thorough thank you very [Applause] thorough do we have okay okay okay we we will go to the quick close session okay we um we have monthly reports for informational purposes and and then we will go into executive session it's 8:21 p.m. according to authorized by the Texas open meetings act government code section 551.071 consultation with attorney and 551.074 Personnel matters and section e e e
159it's 9:13 p.m. we've returned to open session with no further business before the board we will adjourn at