001good evening good evening at 6 o'clock pm the Board of Trustees of the Brenham Independent School District is now convened I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present and I want to give a special welcome to Clay Gillan our Acting Superintendent welcome to the hot seat in collaboration with our families and Community Brenham ISD 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
002meeting these proceedings are recorded and I respectfully ask that you please refrain from talking while others are speaking thank you for taking time this evening to join us and for your interest in the Bram Independent School District at this time Bonnie brinkmeier will lead us in the pledge followed by the invocation given by Kelvin Raven flag United States andice amen we want to start with special recognition and first is our campus and Department Spotlight our Pride Academy and D Adrian Woods will recognize these students and employees Dr Woods good evening oh there we go I want to introduce the staff of Pride Academy never have I worked with with such a hardworking and dedicated group of teachers and parents in my entire career so please give them a [Applause] hand next we want to recognize
003the principles and deans of instruction and our executive director of leading and learning Christy Johnson will introduce them good evening president Lang Mr gillentine members of the board I am honored to be able to introduce our principls and academic Dean this evening I will ask them to come up when I introduce them and then I'll say a few words so Jennifer Griffin principal of Brenham High School Sarah Cook academic dean of Brenham High School Dr Adrien Woods Pride Academy Michael Watts Brenham Jr High Aon Tibido Brena Middle [Applause] School Michael OG Alton Elementary Steven seams Brenham [Applause] Elementary Jillian wilky crowy Elementary and Melissa bunker [Applause] eclc these individuals are the guiding force behind the daily operations of our school Schools they're responsible for ensuring the safety the well-being and the academic success of our
004students their commitment to um instructional leadership is unwavering and their impact is um immeasurable I am so honored to work alongside all these instructional leaders so our Brenham High School campus administrative team or Brenham [Applause] ISD we also want to recognize our teachers and staff members who worked on the curriculum management system um we we have a presentation on this later in the meeting but I know some of them brought family so we want to go ahead and recognize any anyone who helped with that if you could stand and come forward please [Applause] thank you all so much they work on the curriculum management system thank y'all so much for all the time y'all put in on that we appreciate you thank you thank you all so much next we have public comment this is
005an opportunity for citizens to address the board or make comments to the board in accordance with the Texas open meetings act the board will only listen without comment no presentation shall exceed three minutes persons must identify themselves and the groups 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 and we will have the time on the board and our first speaker is Brit cinter good evening I'm here tonight to bring something important to your attention that requires your immediate action when my teenage daughters visited the NY Carrol Roberts Memorial Library on a school field trip just a few weeks ago on September 26th the librarian showed them the teen room and
006said that it's in the works that this will be a room where no parents or adults are allowed in this room I discovered biographic novels showing pornography and many sexually explicit books inappropriate for teens or even most adults disgusting why is there even a teen room why is this in a teen room the library has been made aware that this is not acceptable and parents that I have shared this with have also expressed that they don't want their kids in an exclusive room to be exposed to perverted books in light of the Brenham Library Discovery and then search Brenham High School library catalog for the same offenders guess what I found a boatload of garbage and Brenham High School library is also in effect an exclusive teen room where teens and are in and parents
007are not even aware present when their kids are being exposed to this perverted quote literature these appalling sexual explicit books must be removed to protect our children I have an example for you all of some of them and I hope no kids are all in here Texas law HB 900 and hb65 will prohibit such books from being in the school library this V literature violates parental rights and undermines our trust in public school administrators excuse me studies show that children exposed to sexually explicit content can be negatively shaped in their sexual values attitudes and behaviors causing high-risk behaviors such as early sexual intercourse sex addiction STDs violence and intimacy disorders a list of sexually explicit books found in the Brenham High School library is here available with all the call numbers I have these copies
008for you all and I'll also email them they have links to the reviews and the exact excerpts from the books that are concerning study okay a list is here I will I have the hand out I will email you as well can we as parents trust our school to be safe our children please show us that you have our back and do the right thing and take action to remove these harmful books for the record are you in support of HB [Music] 900 to protect students if not then this is the type of material that you feel is allowable for teenage high school students he kicked me and I curled into a ball I want a [ __ ] he held his dick in his hand I've never before done it I'm a virgin put it in
009your mouth I kneel before him can I put my bra back on your time's up thank you and Clay gillentine will reach out to [Applause] you Tris Samora is she gonna leave that list with us or do you all have a copy of it okay I just want to make sure we don't if she if it was for us I want to make sure we got it thank [Applause] you okay I'm Travis sore Washington County resident I do work with the Cubs group and I want to hit some highlights tonight that's the main thing we do is kind of give a summary of issues we're looking at the citizens of Washington County and within the district District of the Bren Independent School District BISD do hold the school board responsible for the quality of Education
010discipline and financial Integrity of the schools within BISD the $5.8 million deficit is unacceptable and by petition we have over 700 signatures we the community are asking the state of Texas to conduct a thorough Financial audit of BISD lack of action to deal with real accounting of income and expense cost more money over time the community is willing to help its committee members and mentors for course correction to write this ship the BR Independent School District board has shown allegiance to tasby TCH Association School boards that has an ideology on teaching and administrative methods which are contrary to the values of the people of Washington County and living in the school district tasby continues to promote the use of videos in the Bram Independent School District such as Brain Pop shown the fifth grader ERS
011which is in effect CRT and Dei training Business Leaders are noticing that graduates of this High School have difficulty reading and doing basic math for business the BISD has slipped in ratings to near a c rating student enrollement is dropping for several reasons first including the bicd failure to maintain education standards BD is in competition with homeschools and private schools and I would say neighboring schools so we must be competitive to make maintain or growth of student population there are numerous reports of bullying physical bullying and threatened use of firearms that cause the students to be afraid to use restrooms no reports have been received of actual Firearms but students are being shown Snapchat fuddles weapons and verbally threatened there are reports of students leaving BISD for these threats there will be some loss of
012students if successful action is taken to reduce the intimidation and threatening environment some students are going to get expelled so you're going to have a loss in student population but we got to do that to uh reduce intimidation and threaten environment in school for students and teachers this may must be done considered in the budget planning as part of the cost of getting better education cannot occur in the threatening environment BISD has lost student population and reputation and this must be corrected for education to occur in the school the good news is we hold the school board responsible and this community stands ready to help the school board if you will allow through committees and business mentoring for course correction and BISD improvements thank you for your time thank you Rick flammer thank you for
013allowing me to address the board of TR trustees I'm uh a finance and business representative of the community and I'm very concerned as there are many the other business people about the financial trajectory of the district last uh SE this past September at a meeting the CFO came forward and announced a $5.8 million loss for the previous year the um there was some chaos amongst the uh the board as they seem surprised that this uh amount of money had been lost and in fact it was even further disruption as the superintendent said well you shouldn't be surprised surpris because um you approved those um those expenses so um also looking at there should be on the website uh the actual numbers and um the detail on that uh presentation uh as of the middle of
014last week it still wasn't uh wasn't up so um there is a um there's a concern that the uh leadership at this point is taking the position that well we are um going to tread water until either we get some money from the state or we get a new um superintendent and Lois Kor Senator Kor gave a talk here recently and said going to be working on getting you some money for security and we're going to get money for the teachers but we're not going to um help if you spend too much where you're not efficiently um using your funds the budget for this year calls for almost uh $400,000 loss um each month during the uh during the course of the year if we take that uh and look at what happens if we
015don't do anything until the new superintendent comes on maybe in January then we'd have a $1.5 million loss BAS based on that budget by um by January so um the question is why can't we act now rather than waiting until then there are um pieces of the budget that have been looked at and they um the overhead cost is substantial and um higher than most other districts have could be reduced the board has approved several new projects which um are costing more uh money and potentially could be the business Community stands ready to join you thank you just ask Suzanne [Applause] plammer at a recent conference in Austin um a new announcement was made about the upcoming education savings accounts soon public schools in Texas will be competing with vouchers that will equip parents who
016previously could not afford to transfer their students or to homeschool them or to um uh access private schools at also at this recent conference delegates explained three reasons why the state of Texas took over the various school districts in the Houston Harris County area multi-million dollar deficit spending including excessive administrative bloat was the number one reason number two was declining academic rates and Rising discipline problems number three was a continuing loss of experienced teachers and qualified administrators these three same three patterns of behavior have created the financial crisis and The Exodus of Brenham teachers and administrators who have witnessed to other districts their reasons for leaving BISD you have indeed exported your own bad publicity to other much broader audience than just surrounding school districts at the recent scarecrow Festival visors told us they had
017heard about the quote mess at Brenham schools and heard stories from local parents who have transferred their students to other school districts and enrolled them in private schools are most often have chosen homeschooling many parents spoke of the bullying on the campus you've already heard about this and the discipline problems in the classroom teachers say they left for all these reasons but more importantly due to the lack of support from the administration to solve these problems and prevent the chaos in the classrooms while BISD leadership complained about State funding and Rising inflation we heard complaints from residents of Burton ISD whose enrollment is increased by 20 to 30% due to the Exodus of students from the BISD district and now you're facing angry constituents that hold you accountable for failing to manage your superintendent your
018employer whom you hired from an outside c-rated district with half the population of the britam ISD is it any wonder that Brenham ISD is dropped from a b-rated district to almost a c-rated district under the direction of this superintendent what else has caused the continuing decline in academic ratings for BISD to elementary schools that desperately need those Essa funds to be spent on the interventions required by tea failure to do so will cause you to lose another million and a half dollars in funding thank you thank you Catherine Vander Catherine Vanderpool okay my name is Katherine Vanderpool I live in Washington good evening board first of all I want to say these teachers and the administration here work very hard and my comments that I'm about to speak do not are not directed at them
019they're primarily directed at you miss president because you are the leader of this board you've been the leader of this board for a long time we've served for 10 years and this board has declined it's in the performance of managing its superintendent and managing this District to it you are on record as saying that tasby is not Progressive and yet we know tasby is Progressive the president of the National School Board president National Schoolboard Association was a tasby president the attorney for the national school board still works for tasby and they're the ones that wrote the letter to President Biden calling parents domestic terrorists and tasby had that letter two weeks before it was sent to the Biden office tasby is the one that has the 13-point gender report policies tasby is the one that
020has the Title Nine policy which you have on your website which is illegal tasby is a president of this board apparently because you like them for the search firm and yet nobody showed up at the wonderful public meetings that you said that tasby was going to so well organize the one that I went to was cancelled I couldn't even get in the building wasn't even labeled where I was supposed to go I got in and they said oh the meeting was cancelled and I said well I would like to talk to somebody I drove 45 miles to get here oh okay well we'll talk to you and then other meetings I heard from the newspaper were also poorly attended that's tasby you have the option Miss president to join with te it's a no cost
021option I request that you all put this back on the agenda and reconsider T because if you truly are not a progressive yourself you would look at it because te is not Pol political and they would represent the values of this community far better now the next thing I have passed out some paperwork from your contract with the buses y'all signed a purchase agreement at least a purchase agreement in April you signed this without any specifications for the buses we could have bought airplanes with the kind of specifications here it's like you gave 5.7 million dollar said get me some buses why are there no specifications and why is there a bond issuance on this form you have it in your hands I've emailed it to you and my time is out thank you thank
022you Eddie Colter if you can say your name introduce yourself when you come up hi my name is Eddie Clint and I'm a citizen of the United States and Washington County Texas and thank you very much Board of Trustees for your your hard uh work and listening to all us uh today thank you and also president L this is meant to be informative uh for the most part because I don't think a lot of people know the the wisdom and profundity behind this to make this available to high school students one such book in the literature is called a Clash of Kings in the Brenham High School library call number fic c m a slender she was gracefully tall than most knights with full breast and narrow waist and a heartshaped face further he had
023not intended to disturb her but the sight of her was enough to make him hard he let his garments fall to the floor then crawled onto the bed and gently pushed her legs apart and kissed her between the thighs she murmured in her sleep he kissed her again and licked at her secret sweetness on and on until his beard and her [ __ ] were both soaked when she gave a soft moan and shuddered he climbed up and thrust himself inside her and exploded almost at once her eyes were open she smiled and stroked his head and whispered I just had the sweetest dream my Lord Tyrion nipped at her small hard nipple and nestled his head on her shoulder he did not pull out of her would that he never had to pull out of her
024this is no dream he promised her further seems to me I promise to [ __ ] you with it he took a step toward her ARA edged backwards sir you know we have students in the room so brave exactly this is for students they're prior reading it that's my point take it out now take it out immediately then right amen amen not so brave now what I'm Not In Chains are you I saved you she kept a good yard between him ready to run quick as a snake if he made a grab for her ohe you another [ __ ] for that seems like did urine pomp your CUNY or did he like the tight little ass better there's more and I have 30 seconds left but I have a copy of so much more do you really want
025your daughters or grandchildren have this available it's one thing to have it's one thing to have this stuff out there knowing kids are going to read it it's another thing to endorse it in your schools as normative thank you thank [Music] you Gilbert Chapel good afternoon name is Gilbert Chapel I want to thank the board for allowed me to come uh coach suan used to coach me and I'm alumni from brunham high school so I I'm hearing everything everybody saying I was kind of choked up hearing of what's going on up here and u i I work for hi been there for 24 years I work through hi Police Department I do all the drug searches uh for guns pills uh any sexual assault and I'm L on on campus if a teacher is uninfluenced
026or alcohol of anything like that so I take it seriously on preventing and the reason why I'm here we the we just passed Texas just passed a bill on vaping vaping is real big when we talk about discipline I'm hearing people talking about that came up talking about discipline if you don't have discipline in your school we can't go forward we can't go we can't go forward I've been in 24 years at one school Austin High School and I take it seriously I was an employee of the month twice 2007 and 15 first time in the history of hid I know it's cha is going on but we have to serve our kids and I went to the restroom we don't have no no vaping signs nowhere in the school it's a problem for adults
027and our children they got thousands of flavors you can get it online they got Vape cities 24 hours a day if you don't dress it it's going to be a lot of dead kids up here we need to have this in the on the website we need to talk to our teachers and our community about it because they they killing our kids and our students we don't have no I'm walk through the hallway I'm disappointed we don't have this on our buses because ecigarettes are taking over this whole United States and then I brought this this is uh noran y'all heard of fit off the pill the pills are are are killing folks if you touch it you will die if there's one pill here it's a th pills here they're all in Houston they
028come in all different form they perco set uh FAL Halloween is coming up somebody gonna die because of this this is a noran uh agent that reverses it so if our isds don't have it we behind if our public uh police department don't have these it's a n it's a nasal spray and you can't go wrong how many times if someone kids fall out you spread in their nose I'm G say this real quick thank you Cleveland ISD they got kids dying right now we F off thank you sir next we have our superintendent's monthly update thank you just want to bring a few things to your attention coming up in the next uh couple of weeks or so it is homecoming week which is always very exciting time a lot of uh lot of
029faces in town that maybe you hadn't seen in a while coming back for homecoming the campuses this week are hosting decades themed dress up days um the parade is Wednesday and definitely looking forward to riding the float with some of your board members on Wednesday that's a big hint Wednesday you in the float at the homecoming parade hope to see everybody out there um bring sacks because we'll we'll be throwing candy um so that's always a good time remember the game uh is against Rudder at 7:30 hope to see everybody there uh Brenham High School choir students in the choir program competed in Solo and Ensemble earlier this month 11 members were awarded excellence in Solo 12 students earned Superior in Solo the highest score possible and 23 students earned Superior in Ensemble or small
030group this was a massive uh success so congratulations to those singers coming up again uh the high school band um has got uh their competition um they beat over uh or beat out six several 6A schools and came in runner up uh for 5A and 10th overall um with their competition they performed um in the KD marching Festival but coming up they've got district and Waller at 11:45 on Wednesday that's always awesome to to get out and watch those kids um especially when we have weather like we had today and again Friday at 5:00 pm. they're performing so um that's at Waller if you have a chance to go see that I highly highly recommend you get over there um welding our high school welding series uh we had 10 members competing in cutting underwater
031welding and Welding uh Kenley Wellman placed first in welding level one out of 64 cons uh contestants again first out of 64 Corbin janner was six in cutting and seventh in welding level two out of 40 contestants six out of 10 members received welding certification so let's give them a hand too please that's a awesome and then for everyone that's in here uh community members as well if you haven't noticed back behind the visitor stands of our uh varsity football field we've got an A&M uh uh a trailer a mobile clinic it comes every Monday to Cub Stadium there on the visitor side from 9 to three um they they take all types of insurances um even if you just wanted to walk in and see it awesome to see that mobile clinic but that's
032in um partnership with A&M where they're here each Monday just for um ease and access to a mobile clinic if you're to need one so I encourage you to use it or if nothing else um check it out they enjoy showing it off um and I think I've mentioned all the upcoming oh be AEL era is coming up the mini bell Clinic um that's another exciting thing here during this October month where feels like everything is going on homecoming week um Red Ribbon Week school bus safety week um so a lot going on but the mini bills will be performing Friday at the the November third game always a lot of fun to watch the the little ones do that so put that on your calendars as well thank you next we have our legislative
033update um as you know the uh legislator is uh meeting for a special session right now and there are two bills um that impact public or could impact public education that have passed from the Senate um only one of them is on the agenda that the governor um created so and that one is for vouchers and then the second one um is for public school funding um but the governor said that he won't put that on the agenda until the voucher or Esa um bill passes so if if it passes um the the first one is well we'll start with the the public school funding one um it would provide funding for for various public education programs and incentives it would increase the basic allotment by $75 from $6,100 to $ 6,235 per student so
034that's a a 1% increase since 2019 where we've had 19% inflation there's still nothing built in that would um account for inflation automatically um it would also provide a one-time teacher retention bonus of $10,000 per teacher in districts with fewer than 5,000 students so that would be that would be great for districts of our size and then it also um includes uh increases to the safety School allotment from $10 to $20 per student and increases the per campus allotment from 15,000 to 30,000 so comes closer to um funding the mandates that were in House Bill three um so that would be a good thing so I'm um hoping that we can um if enough of us contact the governor maybe he will add that public school funding since that's uh required by the Texas Constitution
035that he will add that without tying it to um Senate bill one which is the voucher bill um Senate Bill 1 creates an education savings account or voucher program with $500 million appropriated um this bill would annually provide 8,000 for each aible student to pay for private school tuition and other related expenses so significantly more funding for the private school per students um versus the public school students that is based based on attendance the bill does not require private school students to take State administered academic achievement exams and that is something that um a lot of people are critical of because it's not a a Level Playing Field when you're talk about competition it would be all things equal um any questions on legislation I can you is it okay I I have some questions
036I that maybe you know the answer to like uh who is GNA monitor that has anybody talked about how the money will get into uh the I'm sure it's not going to go directly to the families right um from what I read it will be operated by the com controller's office and there will be some um controls there that are more limiting than some of the other states where you hear about you know them buying flat screen TVs and going to Disney and that type of thing um I I believe um the comproller would have um more control over how the funds could be used right and then have they talked about you know how long it would take for all of this to start if they did have the esas uh when they would
037be ready to start it up and then uh what happens what happens if uh students decide to use the voucher system and the parents decide to use the voucher system and then it doesn't work out how would that how would those students come back into public school then um I'm not sure that's that's a a big question in my um when when Lois came down and spoke I was there because I wanted to hear what she had to say uh to talk about this first she said this is running as a and she said it was only and it's quite a big number but it was only 500 million uh as a test to see how it would work for some of the um extremely lowincome um people uh and students and families to be
038able to have a choice uh targeted more towards inner cities and they were going to test it out kind of places more like downtown Houston area see if it worked and then go from there she did say that she has no idea how they're going to do the funding since it's taxpayer dollars for public education it it wasn't figured out yet that's why they're doing this as a test to figure that part out she had a lot of things that she wasn't clear on but she did say that they were going to try this as a test and it was be it was to be focused on low-income families any discussion do you know did she say anything about assessment for kids because we're going to need to know know if if the children are
039getting the same educa kind of education I mean if it's better quality I'm I'm all for competition but if you don't have some sort of a plan in place for the children for us test yeah she did not address it she said she wasn't a part of that bill she was working more on the cin Bill 2 which is the funding for the teachers and everything else right she didn't work on it she said she's not really a big fan of it to be honest um but wasn't sure about all the details right so well I don't think anybody's a big fan about star uh but you know there's got to be some sort of measure for student achievement um and so but was anything should be the same standards go ahead I was just
040gonna ask if there's anything in there that covered The Homeschool program yes no it no not the not the one that passed yeah the way the bill read now I thought it was originally for both but the way the bill reads now it just said for private school it's just for private school and there is not there the only way anything would be triggered that limits who could apply is if there are too many who apply then if it exceeded funding for that but if it could be someone in any um economic bracket unless there are too many who apply for it oh okay yeah but Jared you're correct it's funds can only be used for accredited private school tuition initially yeah it said initially in there and she was saying they they're going to
041try and expand it but the test was going to be just the okay the small it was going to be a very rifled approach and then it was going to expand out but again she said I don't know how the funding is going to work and I don't know how we're going to be able to monitor all that this is the test they want to see how it goes and I know 500 million is a lot of money but when it comes to the billions and billions that you know public education is I don't know how they're going to be able to get it successfully to make it make sense but let them test it out and figure out how they can and can't make it work so we can move on to C too
042we can make this thing work or I mean even in 8,000 I'm not sure how some of these how it's going to affect a private school because it's private school in Brenham is one of the cheapest you're going to get and it's a lot more than $8,000 yeah and we're very blessed to have the private schools that we have here in town and couldn't do it for 8,000 from the state by itself and why is it 8,000 when it's so much less for public I don't understand why it's not the test they don't have to test and they also are getting how much more than we are it's not it's not comparable it doesn't make sense yeah it passed we'll see what happens hopefully they'll get C Bill 2 in there and we can go
043on to school funding and get teachers a raise and we can get increase in our security and everything else she said she was going to try and do because everything she said um on cille 2 all sounded great it's not quite there and it's not enough but they were pushing it to the Limit from what I understood regardless of what happens it's out of our hands all we can do is continue to push our our rep and our Senators and get them to vote what's best for the community and the governor I mean and the governor everybody yeah he has to add he has to add Senate bill to or he has to add public school funding to the agenda regardless we need to manage what we got until we're going have figure comes in
044great but we need to figure out how to manage what we have for now vote Yes or I mean whatever votes we got to figure it out afterwards whenever the D settles it's on us well I just hope there's a lot of transparency at the time when we you do have some discussion and and some determinations coming from this you know legislature so that we know more about what those students would would have compared to the students that are in private school because what we want to do is be able to teach every child not just some children every child and that's what public school does I'm not so sure yet about vouchers I just don't know any other comments okay next we have our board no we have our finan update and Acting Superintendent
045Klay gillentine will introduce our interm CFO yeah it is my pleasure to introduce Robert lindman Robert do you want to stand up here Robert has been uh again Robert will be our interim CFO over the next few months will allow the new superintendent to hire their own CFO um with that I'm I'm very very happy to have Robert with us Robert's been CFO of a couple of different school districts uh retired as the CFO of the Region Center so he's had all of two days with us so I don't know uh that he has a whole lot of reporting just yet other than to tell you what he's been looking at and what he plans to bring with him uh Robert was with us Thursday and Friday was out today because he volunteers um a
046lot of time with FCA which is where he spent the day um again very very educated in the world of school finance and a good Christian man I'm glad he's with us right give us a little info about yourself well I want to thank the board for giving me the opportunity to serve your District uh like clay said I've been here two days and in that time period I've been able to analyze some of the financial reports I've CR some of the numbers I've talked to our Auditors uh they're coming Wednesday I am confident that with the United effort from all of us that we'll be able to operate in a black again so I just want to thank you welcome any other do you have numbers um on Ada or enrollment or anything else
047that you wanted to share for finance I just our numbers are are Trend in in the projected Direction this time um I don't have the the hard number with me other than I I did I got with pams earlier today I don't have the comparison right here in front of me but they are trending in what we projected um for enrollment I know Robert when we met Friday was very pleased to feel like we were on course with what uh was projected for student enrollment this school year thank you can you send us those numbers whenever we get them at the end of the week yes ma'am absolutely thank you okay next we have our board member reports and comments this is an opportunity to share about meetings or conferences attended including board training schools
048visited community and District activities new initiatives education programs and board member continuing education no action will be taken on any of these items discuss I can't remember where we started last time okay archery okay jar same I had a sick kid and did some traveling so I got to make it to the last home game and that was about the extent for me right now but um looking forward to homecoming this week thank you I had the opportunity to visit um BR Elementary on last Friday I believe I miss being an SRO I'mma tell you I really I really missed that that was outstanding St sing you doing an excellent job keep that up I also had a I I also had I don't know if it's opportunity but we had a scare in the
049schools about two weeks ago and I was one of the first officers who made location we formed the plane went in we we searched the school and I'm going to say this openly and and and confidently we don't have cowards in Washington County we went in there and we took care of business so if anybody has any reservation about not take care of our children don't worry we got our kids thank you thank you Bonnie um I I didn't do anything near as exciting or rewarding or heroic like he did but but I did go to the Washington County Fair Champion Drive which is a wonderful event uh for some of our special students who don't have have ever have the opportunity to show animals but uh it it's very rewarding for both for everybody
050who was involved in it uh also I got to visit with the high school principal and got to see the CTE program there um there are a lot of great things going on I know not everything is perfect we get that but there are a lot of good kids and they're doing a lot of good things and I got to see the culin culinary art class culinary arts classes where the vent hoods are going to be uh installed really soon we have a lot of kids who are interested in cooking and uh that's kind of a life skill and we have a lot of children who have uh uh decided that they want to learn more about that and so it's it's very very good for us to have those those things that that will
051make the school better and make the students a better cook someday because we might need all these new cooks uh Brenham uh Middle School had curriculum night one night uh the same night there was a community fundraiser for the senior center and uh our senior center is wonderful and we value those people so much and it's so great to uh have such such good people uh running that program too and and taking care of our senior our seniors in high school and our seniors who were seniors and uh also the pilot Club cat Drive Archer and I went to that uh we got to pick up a whole bunch of donated coats for our children there are some very very generous people out there uh who did that then I attended a play called trap
052uh it was a a very unusual play but it it was good we had some really good actors and actresses in this uh community and then uh many grants uh we'll hear more about that in a few minutes but uh our Brenham Education Foundation has done a wonderful job and has worked very hard to help our teachers this is money that our teachers get for the supplies that they need but can't can't afford and they are vetted by uh our committee but uh we gave away 90 about $96,000 worth of of many gr to our children and we and we got to uh get to visit the teachers and the kids to uh get to get to see them see what was was coming to their classroom because of the Education Foundation so and that's
053about it for now thank you Kyle you sure yes I'm sure whoa excuse me y'all didn't need to hear that um I've only got a couple things and I'll be uh semi brief uh I also went to the football game uh my daughter did the little mini cheer do cheer was quite entertaining so that was fun uh I really appreciate the high school cheerleaders doing that it's program and I know I appreciate it um it was really fun being able to watch her and then watch the game and um then have to go run and do some work anyway um I also did uh two different continuing ed classes uh one of them was uh human trafficking and I don't want to play that but the other one was student outcomes and improving student outcomes
054and it was eye opening um and it was kind of saddening as well because you do kind of the reverse math of well if you have 70 or 80% that are approaching well how many are not even at that level and then do the math and you can break it down to an actual number and there's over a hundred kids that are not at reading grade level and it just is like man that hurts I know our teachers are doing a a great job and we're improving but it that continue Ed was specific how to increase how to fix that and uh it was really interesting um to learn and to do some of those um at home tasks and and math and stuff like that so uh other thing I that I did was
055um not continuing yet but I talked to uh Chris Steinbeck who is lowest cold course uh chief of staff and he was is telling me about the legislative um legislative board budget whatever that is the audit you know we'll just call it what it is I asked them about it so I could learn about it and um I don't know if a lot of people have really read up on it and what it is and what it does but it's a legislative budget it's uh they do look at Finance on their audit but I think a lot of people think it's a true Financial audit and it's really not and so I want to educate uh I'm I'm all um here we go let's try this one and I think it's going to be good
056I got no problem with it but I do want people to realize that it's not a financial audit um if you do some reviews and you go online and you see some of the past audits they've done um I'm not sure exactly how many pages the last one was but the one they did for like kville was a couple hundred pages and and it was a quarter of one page that was Financial uh they really don't look into the finances they look into basically managing the school as a whole which sure let's take a look I really believe that we don't have um a massive spending problem uh we have a large Revenue problem uh but we do have maybe some Financial things that we can cut back on and maybe the the legislative budget
057board will do it but the first thing they told me is they can't start at any time this year it's a guarantee and when they do it it takes almost a year to do the audit so it's not a quick let's get the answers right now uh so I did get a lot of information talking to him I also talked to kassow and found out what they were talking about on their side of it so it is a it is a intense very thorough very in-depth audit and so I got to learn a lot about that on the legislative side uh but it's not let's open the books and let's dig into it with a fine tooth comb it's a let's take the roof off the whole school district and let's dig into that with
058a fine toothcomb so it's a little bit of a different way of doing it but um I I absolutely welcome it and I think it should be a good idea uh the only other thing I had that I wanted to talk about was [Music] um um well House Bill 900 I think is one that she mentioned I read up on that um also legislative update I I think it's a great thing and I think uh it does tie into kind of what she talked about I know slippery slope with what we're allowed to talk about with things like that but um we definitely need to get that addressed um that was scary hearing that and I think everybody up here agrees that was scary thank you next we have the consent agenda we can approve
059in one motion or pull any item for discussion thank you all I don't want to I don't want to pull anything I just want to clarify the two um where was it I'm sorry 9B and 9 C are just changing names because the internship tendent and the interim uh CFO correct so we're not changing anything we're just updating yes that's all I wanted to know okay thank you we'll need a motion uh I make a motion to approve this consent agenda as presented second okay we have a motion made by Jared kennick seconded by Kelvin Raven to approve the consent agenda as presented all in favor opposed motion carries thank you okay next we have consideration and approval of a minig grant donation for teachers departments and campuses from the Brenham ISD Education Foundation so
060I want to um welcome our director of communication and Community engagement Brook trean to present this good evening esteemed members of Bram ISD School Board administrators teachers and the community members joining us here today and online um I'm honored to stand before you as the district liaison for the brasty Education Foundation but before we delve into um the purpose of our presence here tonight um I'd like to take a moment to introduce um our dedicated individuals who represent this board um so our our leader and president Kyle meron vice president Anthony jinsky [Applause] Treasurer Amy [Applause] aert um secretary myself um along with board members Jenna lecker Katie Burch Matt Wellman Carl pra Bonnie brinkmeier Tina Henderson mallerie aert and Miss Natalie Lang um I would also like to recognize um a few individuals who've
061been uh instrumental in the funds and work that we've been able to do the last years who just rolled off of our board um Wendy ronz Kurt Alford and Joel Romo so at this time I'd like to uh invite our president up here to give you the rest of our presentation thank you Brooke um as she mentioned my name is Kyle Martin it's an honor to be here today um I can I can truly say that uh the times that we get to spend together as An Education Foundation board whether it's in meetings or um like we did a couple of weeks ago handing out over $96,000 and and Monies to our teachers and staff and students and faculty uh is definitely one of the most enjoyable times I have throughout the year and so
062you know I know that there's been a lot said tonight and and and I want all of you to know here tonight especially our staff and our students and our administrators and especially our teachers that there is a a a large consortion of people in this community that that really support um what Brenham is doing um I am the husband of a teacher and so I know the struggles that goes on in schools and um and I hear them and um that's why I do what I do here because I feel like there's a way that I can give back and this is one of the ways that I can do it and I think the education Foundation was established many many years ago for the sole purpose to go out and and help teachers
063uh do things that they can't do otherwise with the The Limited funds frankly that public education has had for many many years not just since coid and so we have an excellent board of directors that that comes each and every month with great and Innova innovative ideas for a community like Brenham to be able to raise almost $100,000 every single year that we can put back into our our schools in my opinion is is something to be celebrated and I think it's something we should give an Applause for as as I mentioned we just got done giving over $96,000 away a couple weeks ago and um when you open doors to teachers uh rooms with kids spilling out and drums beating down the hallways in the celebration and you see the tears in their eyes
064you know that you've done something good that day and I think that good is what we need more around here so that that we can move forward instead of [Applause] backwards in addition I want to also uh make an announcement tonight because For the First Time In in the Education Foundation history this year um we were able to also an endow a $25,000 scholarship with the Community Foundation of brazes Valley and so basically what that will do is is allow us to gain principle off that endowment that each and every year we'll be able to give graduating seniors from Brenham High School um further dollars to help move their education forward at technical school um any any kind of higher education and and so something brand new we did this year been wanting to do
065it for a long time and glad we were able to get it done so we're really proud of that opportunity as well and that we'll be standing up on that stage in May and being able to hand out our first scholarship that evening [Applause] so we have a big day that we're Eng engaged in a lot of people may have heard about it uh in the last couple of weeks it's called Uh brz's Valley gives um it's a it's a great nonprofit that helps all nonprofits in the brazes valley raise money for their different organizations and it's something that um we try to jump into each and every year uh within the community to try try and help raise additional funds in addition to the Galas that we hold and and other things um we
066have a chance to receive a two to1 match for the first $2,500 we raised through the BRZ Valley GI that means for every dollar you contribute the Greater Texas foundation will provide an additional $2 potentially granting our school district up to $5,000 through this grant program and I'll say that um you know through the work of a board and our community and our schools we've we've met this $5,000 and more every single year that we've been doing been a part of Brad's Valley giv so we hope all those folks that want to help really contribute and push towards the community and and the school being a better place that they'll step up tomorrow and and and get on our our website our Bram Education Foundation website and contribute towards this great cause um in closing
067I just want to say thank you I want to say thanks to everybody who uh each and every day walks through the doors of these these schools to the board for uh taking countless hours of your time away from your families I know I know that this isn't an easy job and I Know It Dang sure didn't pay a lot and um you know um it's it's easy for a lot of us to sit here and tell you what you're doing wrong but but we also understand there's a lot you're doing right too and and so we appreciate what you're doing uh I especially appreciate all these teachers back here that that do everything for my kids each and every day and that did things for me um there's people sitting at these tables that
068were principles for me and and and teachers for me whenever I was here and I'm just glad that I'm a part of a great organization like the Education Foundation that can give back every year thank you thank you [Applause] Kyle thank you and we will need a motion to approve go ahead B you and this is this is you yeah this is you you're on the board I make a motion to approve the $968 3.91 monetary donation from the Brenham ISD Education Foundation for the betterment of teacher classrooms departments and campuses as presented we have a motion made by Bonnie Brink Meer seconded by Archer Archer to accept a 96,3 N1 Min Grant donation from the Brenham ISD Foundation as presented all in favor I opposed the motion carries thank you next we have curriculum
069Management Systems presentation this will um mine was on okay we're good I don't I didn't know if CJ was introducing them or not but these are curriculum coordinators and coaches so I'll let them introduce themselves how about that good evening evening Brenham IST Board of Trustees on behalf of our entire instructional team we thank you for the opportunity to share the quality work that our Educators have done for our district I'm Amanda dismukes the secondary curriculum coordinator for the district tonight I will share the purpose of the curriculum management system Thomas Spa our elementary digital learning coordinator will lead how to navigate the CMS Chris Easter our elementary curriculum coordinator will explain the types of documents found in our cm and Chelsea best our secondary digital learning coordinator will share our next steps for the
070cmx CMS documents when bernham ISD began working towards becoming a professional Learning Community collaborative team time became a norm throughout the hallways on all campuses PLC is a process for teachers to discuss the essential standards our district should learn our students should learn misconceptions and shrinks of our students dissecting data from what students have been assessed on and vertically aligned content to strengthen instruction within a district during these PC's we need common documents for our Educators to reference that enhances collaboration and shows the hard work our educators are putting in one good thing March 2020 coid brought to us was the need for a culture of collaboration with our instructional material resources over the past years we have been working on writing curriculum documents we are now creating a more systematic process for our CMS
071a solid product as the result of many hours of collaboration with the hardworking and intelligent Educators in our district the consistent format that is now used creates the ability for our instructional stakeholders to not only support our teachers better but also enhances vertical alignment while giving autonomy to teachers during the creation process the added bonus for having these documents available for parents creates a collaborative tool that encourages partners parip with our teachers and parents hello so I'm just going to walk you through the steps real quick if you can follow along you can either uh do it on your computers or look up here so to get to or to navigate to the CMS you can go to brandom my.net uh when you are on the homepage it's over here uh from the homepage you
072can get there many different ways uh on the main screen we have the BR I the information Spotlight as Brian's turn us around on the information Spotlight we do have a button right there a hot button it's called the Kirkland management system also known as the CMS so you can get there that way I also want to let you know that the CMS also lives under the department page of leading and learning department and then we also gave it uh put it on the staff resources page so any of the teachers can get there going by staff resources it's right there and then for the ease and uh transparency for the parents they can also get it really easily by going to parent resources and we put it underneath parent resources as the curriculum management
073system as well so many locations that you can navigate to on the website to get there the main way that most of us get there is just by clicking on the button on the front the curriculum management system within the system uh we describe how the uh CMS is there and why we're using it uh to benefit the teachers and uh parents in our school district with the students involved uh and then below that we also have a quick button that describes the new standard-based report cards that we have um vertical aligned all the way from prek to second grade uh and then below that we start the actual curriculum documents with the eclc and then the elementary campuses Middle School junior high and high school all listed there um so if we just look
074on any of the dropdowns on the third grade these are all the current uh curriculum documents that are listed um we also created Family curriculum guides that are very uh user friendly that you can just check out and see which um which topics or units are being taught in that quarter so those are really easy to click on and just check those out um and then I'm GNA have chrisy talk more about the uh unit point so our curriculum management system consists of three primary types of documents and we have essential standards pacing guides and unit plans when we began this process teachers volunteered and were chosen to be a member of the campus curriculum design team this team of teachers works alongside curriculum coordinators and instructional coaches as they oversee and guide the process
075of creating revising and editing the documents and the curriculum management system so at the beginning our teachers determine the essential standards for each subject area Tom's going to pull up that document for us when determining what is essential they considered four guiding principles Readiness is it necessary for the next level of learning endurance is it a concept or skill that lasts over time State exams is it tested at the state level and Leverage is it knowledge or skills that are used across multiple disciplines this set of essential standards is the focus for Mastery and intervention all other standards are considered supporting standards in the CMS you will find a set of essential standards for every subject in every grade level next you will find a pacing guide for every subject in every grade level which
076gives an overview of the units and the standards that are taught in each quarter this serves as a guide to keep us on Pace throughout the year and ensure that we are providing opportunities for Mastery of the teaks the teachers have listed the unit name number of days spent on each unit and the essential and supporting standards that are taught the essential standards are highlighted in red for each of those units all right and finally in the spring of this year we began revising and editing unit plans with our curriculum design teams that were here earlier tonight the number of units varies depending on the grade level and the subject area however the format for each plan is consistent the unit plan Begins by outlining essential supporting standards that will be taught then the once
077those tis are identified for the unit teachers unpacked each essential standard into learning targets which address addresses how we teach those skills next they identified and defined academic vocabulary the following two sections focus on assessment summative assessments typically occur at the end of the unit and help teach teachers determined who has mastered the essential standards teachers have included question types or sample questions to help clarify what Mastery looks like at the end of a unit formative assessments provide a checkpoint along the way that present teachers with the opportunity to determine misunderstandings and reteach standards the final section of the unit plan offers a place for notes where teachers often list common misconceptions in prior knowledge as well as resources that may be utilized so so to recap and to explain where we're going next um
078we have long and shortterm goals for these documents a short range goal for these documents is that teachers in their grade level band Andor subject area will be able to review each unit prior to teaching in order to fully understand essential and supporting standards key vocabulary words and formative and summative common assessments teachers will also be able to to make small adjustments discuss how to teach various standards or add any student misconceptions or resources resources they might use they'll also use these documents to ensure instruction and assessment align for the long term each spring pacing guides and essential standards will be analyzed to determine if the flow and pacing are what is best for students again these documents can be tweaked during this time for example if state standards are being updated our goal is
079to be able to use these documents over and over and to be able to provide to all teachers whether they be veteran new to teaching or new to Bram ISD a strong curriculum framework for instruction in their classroom as well as Provide support for parents I would like to take a moment now to recognize our instructional coaches and instructional Deans that are here with us who have worked so diligently on these documents please stand and be recognized at this time Susan Maxwell from Brenham [Applause] Elementary and next to her is christe heny from Alton Elementary Arlene Gomez from crowy elementary Jana Whitner from Brenham middle school and then Sarah Cook again from Brenham High [Applause] School thank you all so much I cannot believe the amount of work and time that has gone into this
080and the fact that so many of the teachers contributed and volunteered that is just tremendous we're so thankful and it is that's an unbelievable amount of work and as a parent um that's uh going to be very helpful a very helpful resource for parents any questions or comments for um so I do like your idea of a pair at night um Tom pointed out earlier that we had a um curriculum um overview of the quarters so one and two are already posted um we'll definitely talk about hosting a parite because I think that's a great idea if we can bring in parents and showcase how to do it or even possibly post on like a YouTube channel for those who have internet access to view how to get there thank you all so much next
081we have our annual bilingual and ESL program report and our ESL bilingual coordinator Aid Salgado will present hello it's Taylor now oh oh congratulations I'm just kidding I'm just kidding hi uh Madame President uh Board of uh trustees and Mr gillentine I'm here to present to you our annual bilingual and ESL um education report um so as some of you may know some of you may not know Brena myy has an early exit bilingual program so that means that uh currently we are offering a bilingual program from prek until fourth grade um that is why it's transitional bilingual and early exit and so the goal of that program is to begin instruction for our students who are eligible for language services so for our emergent bilinguals um to start a foundation in Spanish and then
082as they move through this through the school years increase their English um instruction so that by the time they get to third grade they can begin the transition to all English instruction and then by fourth grade fifth grade potentially exit the program and then be able to be successful in an all English mainstream classroom whether in an ESL uh program or just as a proficient um English speaker um the the program is delivered by bilingual certified teachers so if you do not know that is a very very difficult certification to receive um not only do you have to know the content but you also have to be proficient in what ever the language you uh giving instruction so for example we have a Spanish transitional bilingual early exit program uh because we have more than
08320 students that speak the same language so if we were to have 20 Vietnamese students German students then we would have to look into providing a bilingual program for those languages um and so as you can tell in that presentation this model provides instruction in literacy and academic content through the use of the students primary langu language so in Spanish and that's for um crowy Elementary because that's where we Consolidated our bilingual program um every other campus has an ESL pullout program and so I know that can be a little bit confusing pull out just means that um they receive their language instruction in their uh English class or their reading class okay they're not pulled out of the classroom uh if anything we have teachers that push in So at the middle school we
084have misdeeds who pushes into classes to support our emergent bilinguals um and these classes are provided by teachers who are ESL certified so that means that they do not necessarily have to speak Spanish it just means that they are well trained and certified and providing instructional strategies that will help students develop the content knowledge as well as language um proficiency and so um if you guys are new we did do a realignment for our bilingual program so in in the spring of 2022 we actually had Region 13 come in and do a program evaluation over our bilingual program uh but they also looked at our ESL program and they used the uh bilingual program rubric that ta provides and they gave us pointers and told us where uh we really needed room to grow and
085where um what next steps we could take so that summer we actually spent time creating a programs handbook and so in that handbook we uh denote the different programs that we have the services how to identify how to provide the services for the students uh compliance strategies uh and then we have a language allocation plan for our bilingual program so each grade level how many minutes are provided in Spanish how many minutes are provided in English at each grade level and at what point we can transition those students because it's very important that we uh help them Reach a Proficiency in their foundational language and so their L1 in order to help them maximize that transition to English too we don't want to create any more gaps uh for them so um upon that creation
086of that handbook then we decided to um house the entire bilingual program or K through four at crowy so uh previously brunham Elementary and kowey were our bilingual CL uh campuses and so we move the teachers and students to crowy and so that allowed us to have teachers uh give them time to collaborate it helped a lot of parents consolidate one pickup uh be able to extend the program all the way to fourth grade because at one point we were only able to offer it to third grade because finding certified bilingual teachers is very very very difficult um and then the hiring of staff to extend the program through fourth grade so we did we were able to hire additional uh teachers and Paras and then last fall and spring we have the creation of
087our bilingual professional learning community that means our our bilingual teachers got together and they got to talk about the um vertical alignment of the students so what are they learning in prek what are they learning in kindergarten what gaps are we creating by or what gaps can we target how can we uh you know grow together we have PDS for them and then we also actually hired doendo uh Consulting to come and work specifically with our bilingual teachers to look at uh what instruction they're giving what strategies they're using how many minutes and how we can maximize that time for our students so through the coaching process so they she came and observed she met with them she gave them feedback she held PDS she helped our instruct our uh bilingual instructional coach kind of
088um in coaching her to coach the teacher so we're growing her uh so that we can once we're done with DOs sendos we can continue growing and then this last summer we actually moved our two bilingual classrooms that were at formerly at the eclc to crowy so now our entire program is at the crowy elementary campus and yes the prek classrooms are at crowy but they're getting to experience a lot more electives right so they're they're with Kinder they're seeing what the expectations of the bilingual Kinder classrooms are they're getting to experience Steam and music and art and so we've seen seen a lot of growth already in our Littles um they are walking in the hallway in a straight line they've they're they've got their routines they're doing great um and so that's that
089was the next step and so as we move forward we're hoping to see uh a lot of um positive outcomes for our teachers and our um students with that said we also have our grow your own program so we actually have two uh pair of professionals that are pursuing by lingual Education certification so uh they're getting that experience in the classroom they're from Brenham they're here um I'm a proud graduate of Brenham High School I taught bilingual Ed here and so I feel very very very um uh a lot of love for this program um you know uh when I was here we did not have a bilingual program and so the fact that I get to see this grow and continue to be successful um really really um brings me lots of Joy okay
090and so then for Staffing and recruitment like I said we do have teachers or a pair of professionals that are pursuing those certifications and so Brenham ISD is actively identifying and recruiting highly qualified individuals to meet the needs of our emergent bilingual students um and so we do have that grow your own program we also have uh eslm that we provide or that I lead um several times a year where teachers can come and get preparation material and uh instruction on taking the ESL 154 exam and then if they're pursuing a bilingual certification we do find uh either at the region centers or wherever we can preparation materials and PDS for those teachers and then so waivers an exception so if a teacher has an emergent bilingual in their classroom but they are not certified
091in ESL or bilingual then we have to uh file a waiver or an exception a waiver for our ESL teachers and an exception for our bilingual teachers last year we filed 16 waivers that means we had 16 teachers who were uh who had emergent bilinguals in their classroom who were not certified and then we had four teachers or classrooms of bilingual um classrooms that were not fully certified so they were either pursuing certification and were hoping to get it or um we or you know they were pursuing it didn't get it whatever um so on the right hand side we had three teachers who were part of that who got certified and then the zero for the bilingual teachers they left so we can't count them as you know having acquired their certification or they
092moved uh to a different campus to teach uh something else and then here are the number of students so this is the this is the list from last year okay so these are last year's numbers okay so last year we had 681 emergent bilinguals uh we had five 500 students who were in an who were being served in an ESL classroom and then we had 174 who were being taught in a bilingual classroom and then we have seven parent denials that means that we had seven students who were identified as emergent bilinguals whose parents denied all language services that means they did not want them to uh be in bilingual or ESL but they are still considered emergent bilinguals okay so our district Tass results so Tass is the accountability test that emergent bilinguals have
093to take so it has four domains it's listening speaking reading and writing and it's like an additional start test that they have to take Kinder and first is holistically rated that means the teachers give the students their rating in those grade levels it's very uh I I like it because the teachers are the ones that are with the students all day every day they really get get to see them in each domain beginning in second grade students have to take it online so that means the listening they have to record themselves the writing they actually last year they have to begin typing so they uh embedded the writing portion with the reading so if you know anything about second through fourth graders you know that yes they like to look at computers they love clicking
094but the typing is very very difficult a lot of them don't like to write to begin with um so imagine having to type so that was a difficulty um that we had but you can see uh in second grade we had um student most of our students were at the intermediate level um and third grade our Advanced got a little bit higher in fourth grade Advanced um got even higher and then at the high at the fifth through eighth grade level um our advanced in advanced High number numbers got uh bigger I will say though in order to reclassify so in order to not be considered emergent bilinguals students have to or had to uh receive an advanced High uh rating in each of those four domains so that was the highest rating they had
095to do it to even be eligible for reclassification so these students could be passing star they could be meeting mastering that but telp pass could be the one test that's keeping them still considered emergent bilinguals right so not English Eng proficient and then in high school um as with most students motivation takes a lot a big toll right so students uh regardless of what their topass ratings have to continue taking it until they exit so it doesn't B Bar them from passing to the next grade level it doesn't bar them from anything so we do have long-term emergent bilinguals that means students who have been here or who have been considered uh emergent bilinguals for six or more years right so in that that means that they've taken Tass for six years and at some
096point we do have a lot who um are not as motivated to do well it's one day uh of testing and then they go on and you know there's no uh true accountability on their end right like they still get to graduate they still get to go to the next grade level it's just a test that they have to take so last year uh what we ended up doing uh with the help of the instructional coaches of the Deans is that we made a really really really concerted effort to goal set with the children to sit there and say hey here's your level at each domain how do you think you can help yourself how can we support you and we did see a lot of growth and so this year we're hoping to do
097the exact same thing and then expose students to those four domains um in each of their classrooms and so I'll go into a little bit more detail about our professional development so student reclassification so as I said in order to reclassify a student must receive an advanced High status on all four components of tell pass right and on top of that they have to pass their reading star or their English one uh if they're in a testing subject with uh out any linguistic accommodations that means no uh content language supports no text to speech through uh elpac which is our language proficiency assessment committee um and then if they're in first second uh 11th or 12th grade then they have to take the Iowa form F the reading and language portions so last year we
098had nine kids meet each of those criteria so in sixth grade in first grade we had six students uh in fourth grade we had one in seventh grade we had one and in 12th grade we had one so I will say yes it looks like it's a a low number but two years ago we didn't have any kids exit at all okay so it it's taken small steps it's taken a lot of effort um on our part on the students Parts on the teachers part so um I expect this number to grow now that the spring 2024 tpass uh reclassification has changed so now it's a composite score of advanced High which will give a lot of our students that push that they need um a lot of them were missing reclassification by one domain
099whether it be speaking or listening and they were receiving that advanced high composite but weren't eligible because you had to have it in all all four domains so we look forward to this year's tell pass um having a lot more positive results uh comparing reading star across the grades um you can see that our emergent bilinguals which are the red are lagging behind our uh the rest of our student population but if you think about it they meet those at risk levels uh indicators at multiple points right so they're emergent bilinguals they could be economically disadvantaged they could be uh you know receiving uh other services and so they have a lot um that they have to go through and work with and so we are making an effort to continue to support them in
100the classroom so we have provided teachers with training we have um you know built our bilingual program to hopefully uh see more success and so what I will say is that in 2022 our English one so it's not on here but I do have the data from last year in 2022 our English one approaches was 20% for emergent bilinguals and in 2023 this last spring uh it went up to 49% okay so um I will say that uh Sarah Cook here and the high school teachers deserve a lot a lot a lot a lot of Applause and thanks because they worked really really hard and any idea that I had anything that we brought to the table they were yes how can we do it how can we support our teachers and our students um
101and so I do thank her a lot um for being part of this wonderful team and then for English to in 2022 we had 26% of our students approach and only eight 8% meet and this last year we had 33% approach and 13% meet and I know those numbers seem low and you're like wow I can't believe that we're celebrating this but you guys the previous years that that 20% and the 26% that that hurts right and so we want to make sure that we are we are celebrating our students that we are moving them forward and so this year we expect very similar results right we expect them to continue to grow if we are helping our teachers support our students then they're going to see that success and they're going to feel successful
102yes sir are they taking the same tests that the non-english second language teachers are they're taking these tests in English oh yeah yeah they're I just want to make sure that we said that this is not they're not yeah no this is the exact same star that every student takes um the only accomodations like I said that we can give them um is content language supports and uh text to speech which is those are two supports that a lot of lot of students receive so we are hopefully closing those gaps okay and then across the across the math you can see it's a little bit closer but we're still lagging behind um like we said we have a lot of professional development and a lot of goal setting with our students and just letting them
103know where they are what their goals are um and communicating that with our teachers where their students are um what their proficiency level is and what supports and Scaffolding they would need at each proficiency level because not all students would receive the same accommodation across the board um so uh administrative support so we have 143 students currently who are considered long-term emergent bilinguals that means they're they've been in the program for six or more years and so uh at the beginning of uh of the summer we actually had um our elpac admin and some of our district admin uh who were trained in the elps toolkit and so the elps are language standards that are statute that we have to provide for a student um and so through our training the L&L team was able
104to do a districtwide elps training with every teacher in the district every perah this past summer so they they did a wonderful presentation where we walk looked through what the elps were what are some strategies that teachers can incorporate and then we also have booklets uh where teachers can use that as a support um and then as you can see our professional development so we started with that elps toolkit training uh for our admin for our instructional coaches and then the elps training for everyone in The District in August then our admin because we can't ask our teachers to do something if we don't know what they're doing so the admin were trained in the elps observation toolkit so that means that they receive training on how to look during their observations for those look
105fors in the elps what visuals are you doing what uh sentence stemps are you using do you have your objectives so if we can add and be accountable for knowing what that is then that that supports the teachers as well um of course we have elpac trainings uh to make sure that we are in compliance and that we are identifying placing reclassifying um students and then we've had an elps in the elective courses so we're not just targeting our content teachers we are also targeting our electives courses right because all of our all of our students are language Learners um how can we provide support in the automotive class in the you know uh dollars and cents class things like that uh we will continue to have tpass training so giving teachers information on uh
106what that test is going to look like making sure that they understand where they're students are where they need to be where they should go um and how to support them there and uh we are continuing our relationship with DOs andos and now it's more of uh those next steps so which teachers need the most support uh those teachers that received support last year what are the next steps for them and so uh Miss wil and I um and Miss Gomez look forward to uh continuing that relationship and continuing to grow our teachers and then of course we have our ESL cies that we provide uh several times a year for anyone that is interested in becoming ESL certified and on a fun note uh so uh February and May of last year uh beram
107myy held parent engagement events to support families of the mergent bilinguals whether it was through strategies whether it was through helping them um help students with their homework and then of course in April we had our culture night at crowy the previous year was our first year that we had it and we had it at the EC um at crowy we actually had a huge turnout um last year it was super fun uh we had families from across the district come and then one cool part that we added now is that we have uh Community Partners so we had blind Athletics there and so they were they were they donated uh swag they volunteered we had blind admissions come to tell parents about that uh Second post secondary education and how to you know how
108to help their students who wanted to go to Blind we had Casa Wick Boys and Girls Club the library was there um just to give them information about what's available to them and what services we can provide in our community and so that was really really really fun um and then of course uh I threw some some of the volunteers that we had out there so like I said our blend Athletics our Avid students came KES teachers and admin uh Miss Wheezy poy from the Middle School school she um helped a lot Miss Raven from the junior high the Brenham bells and and many more and that event could not uh be successful without um all the support that we've had in the community so uh me and several other people went out and we
109asked and we advocated for our parents and our students and we were like Hey What Can can you help us out and we had so many yeses um and then during the event we had a ton of people come up and say hey next year I want to be part of this so hopefully we'll continue to grow it to where it's not just Hispanic culture night but it's just culture night so that we can celebrate all of the different cultures that we have here in Brenham and then I just included some pictures from it so thank [Applause] you any questions or comments I had one quick question yes uh do es do all the new teachers need to be ESL certified now or is it just a teacher Choice it's strongly encouraged that's that's what
110I thought yeah okay thank you yeah so when they take it online so let me start over Kinder and first grade teachers have rubrics so it's different characteristics that students would show at each level um when they take it online it's graded by a computer or another person using those same rubrics I just had something really quick yeah um looking at the star math scores I was super impressed with some of the numbers especially eighth grade Masters outperformed uh basically the English second language outperforms the the English main language so y'all are doing a great job with that and a lot of them in like fifth grade fifth grade algebra Etc y'all did a very good job across the board on on some of these um it's all of our teachers I just want to
111say good job yeah looks good to them hey wait wait wait over here I'm GNA what Kyle said I like to see the growth and I look forward to next year now that y'all have it built up at crowy where everybody's there I really feel like we're going to see big jump so y'all are doing a great job I had a question on the pullouts MH are they at the same level as the kids at crowy or are they on a different level as for where they are in the program uh so for our ESL students yes okay so at crowy is where our bilingual program is right and so any new student that is considered an emergent bilingual but who's parents deny bilingual or they accept ESL they can be placed at any of
112the other campuses and they're going to rece receive the exact same services but they're in with the they're in with the r oh yeah yeah yeah they're in they're in a classroom um ideally with an ESL certified teacher um who knows their proficiency level and who is supporting that were we why why are they not at in the same class in the same campus I guess that's what I just want to so our ESL progam so our ESL program is everywhere right because our bilingual program is just specifically for those students whose parents accepted bilingual Services okay that makes sense okay and then if you're an ESL um like after fourth grade we no longer have bilingual right it it goes to ESL um but if you're in an ESL classroom then that means that
113when you first registered your parents Deni either denied bilingual services or they wanted ESL service okay that makes perfect sense thank you next we have monthly reports for information Purp purposes and then we will go into executive session for the purpose authorized by Texas open meetings act Texas Texas government code section 551.071 consultation with attorney 551.074 Personnel matters and 55107 deliberation regarding security devices at 7:47 p.m. all final actions will take place all final votes actions or decisions will an open meeting thank youall thank you it's 9:07 PM we've now reconvened an open session if there's no OB