Brenham ISD Board Meeting 9-18-2023

001thank you good evening it's six o'clock P.M the Board of Trustees at 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 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 school board 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 are

002speaking thank you for taking time this evening to join us and for your interest in the Brenham Independent School District at this time I will lead us in the pledge followed by the invocation given by Bonnie brinkmeyer and to the Republic for which it stands one nation please pray with me dear God we praise your name and thank you for our many blessings that you give us As We Gather here tonight let us remember that we are here to do your will not ours please guide us in our discernment and decision making and keep our children teachers and leaders safe bless our families and our entire Community as well help us all to work together to provide positive learning environments and awesome opportunities for our children's achievement and growth and May the peace that passes

003all understanding be in our hearts and Minds amen first we have our campus and Department Spotlight and we will begin with Brenham High School principal Jennifer Griffin will recognize their student and employees of the month but they're coming I'm sorry is that good okay you're welcome good evening Madam president Dr Chaplin and board members I'm super excited to stand here with our teacher of the month student of the month and para of the month um for September for the high school so we're going to start with Miss Niemeyer so Ms Niemeyer started with us the end of last year um she quickly became a staple on campus Because she makes copies which a lot of people love she's also one of our assistant principal secretary so she works really hard every day with students who

004come to her maybe not in the best of moods or attitudes and yet she's always willing to smile help them calm them be a place for them to kind of give their grievances but also help them understand what they need to do to kind of um get better so one employee said about her Miss Niemeyer is a go-getter she has multiple roles and does them with confidence and a smile also Ashley has been extremely helpful during this first month back to school she works with teachers and makes sure that all student needs are met she has a true asset to our campus so we love Miss Niemeyer foreign next we have Mr wiser our teacher of the month so Mr wiser came to us and was going to do some Project Lead the Way um

005and some AV Tech and then he kind of learned he was gonna have to do some computer science and then maybe some Robotics and a whole lot of different things and in every one of them he said yes what else can I do what else can do you need me to do what else can I learn what else can I grow so last year he did a lot with the AV Tech program and really had this desire to build this morning announcement program and I was like yeah let's do it um and he was wanting to do it like live and I was like um but we scheduled it to try to do it live and the way the schedule didn't didn't quite work this year so he's kind of doing it every day and

006it's one class second period is on one week and then third period is on the next week and our teachers have just loved it and our students love they listen way more to the announcements now that it's their friends on the announcement so um you know that's what most of the teachers were super excited about to nominate Mr wiser but the biggest thing they said is that they love the very positive addition to the school day and they know it takes so much work and organization on his part and they think he does a great job so way to go Mr wiser and then lastly as our student of the month she's a little shy um danesia holiday this is her first year on campus as a freshman she's in multiple honors classes including AP

007human geography and which is the class we embarrassed her in when we awarded her with her award um but principles of exercise science is one of the like electives she's picked up this year and she's really just jumped in with the training type things even as a freshman and so usually freshmen aren't that active in that program but her teachers say she's just gone above and beyond so they said she's eager to learn she does a great job in anything she's asked to do she never complains about anything she's jumped right into the program and continuously strives to do better and better and better and goes above and beyond to volunteer for extra events to help her fellow students so we are super excited to announce Tunisia holiday thank you [Applause] congratulations congratulations you're good

008they don't they don't want to see me anymore there you go thank you congratulations thank you thank you every time thank you next we want to recognize our assistant principals and assistant superintendent clay gillentine will introduce thank you how about are we there thank you Miss Lang Dr Chaplin members of the board it is my honor to introduce our assistant principals I get to work with these guys all day every day they're in such a unique Lane of uh working teaming with their their principals to him with with me and being such a servant leader to their teachers um if I could introduce them have them stand up here and then I'm going to say just a few things about them I'm not sure who's here or not so I'm going to introduce them all

009from the high school Kelsey Lopez Jessica Toliver and Aaron Smithers [Applause] from the junior high Kirk steel and Courtney Mason [Applause] from the Middle School Pam plagens and Karen Brown [Applause] Krause Elementary Tony Ortega [Applause] Alton Sheridan meloda Brenham Elementary Natalie James [Applause] eclc Alan Colvin [Applause] and Don Sylvie from our pride dap [Applause] so I've said several times before these these guys are such I mean they Define boots on the ground when it comes to school management there's no larger servant leadership position in my mind than these guys right here racing around all day long solving problems working with their teachers and students they should all be wearing running shoes because that's what they do all day um I get the pleasure of sitting down with them every other week just like we meet

010with our principals weekly we sit down with them every other week and learn together grow together and it's uh such a pleasure to learn and grow with this team I appreciate each one of them so very much again please give them a round of applause [Applause] thank you [Applause] thank y'all so much thank you glad you're here thank you yes okay next we have the public comment portion of the meeting this is an 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 as items addressed may not be on the board agenda the public participation section of the meeting is usually limited to 30 minutes but we had more people sign up we haven't had this happen

011before so we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to speak so everyone will have that opportunity no presentation shall exceed three minutes delegations of more than five persons shall appoint one spokesperson 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 designee before the meeting began they allotted time will be displayed on the screen please stop speaking when your time runs out and um it's up there and we will move as quickly as possible so everyone has an opportunity to speak we will go in order of how you signed up when you came in so the ones that came in first will go first thank you for

012taking time to address the board this evening and for respecting the district's policies and procedures first is Dale Ramsey and the timer will start whenever you're ready to speak okay thank you thank you for this opportunity and I want to thank all the teachers and the people who want Awards tonight uh I am a resident of Chapel Hill and a business owner for 31 years in Chapel Hill with the Bluebonnet house don't have any children don't have any grandchildren but I do care very much about Washington County and our reputation I would like to ask I'm learning a lot of this right now so um I would like for you to open up your spokesperson next to the parents you make probably some of the most important decision in our children's lives I would like

013for y'all what little bit I could understand of what I am learning is I would like for you to look for another organization to be your guide and to look at that because you have so many people in the community that are stepping up now they're coming they're taking interest that's the biggest accomplishment you can have because without these people you don't get the tax dollars and you don't get their children I would like to say most of my education was in private school I loved it but my whole life opened up when I went to public school it's a whole different thing and I would love to see that for Brenham to be one of the top schools in the state of Texas and there's no reason we can't be that's y'all's job let's

014pull it together and let's make us one of the best thank you [Applause] um next we have Macy I don't have a last name what's your last name hi I'm here as a concerned parent I want to first thank you for your service to our school district and Community I ask you to look at what has happened in BISD in recent years under Cosby leadership BISD is one point away from a c rated School District we are almost 5 million dollars in debt fiscal responsibility is out of control teachers are leaving at an alarming rate twice as many as five years ago the top reasons are given one chaos in the classroom two ethics of the superintendent and three low Pay Teachers and staff are moving their own kids out of BISD 35 percent of

015teachers salary budget is used for substitute teachers academic scores at all levels have declined many students are not at grade level enrollment has not rebounded postcovid there are over 200 less students today than in 2019 which further impacts funding discipline remains a major problem every parent and teacher I speak with expresses that these and many other factors point to failure and decline at the hands of tasbi policies and the decisions they promote in our district therefore I am asking that you please do the following one buyer tasby higher T I understand there are contractual issues involved but T has offered a waived fee first year contract that can be used concurrently there is no good reason not to take advantage of this offer except for insurance issues all other services could be obtained through T

016and the district could work toward completely severing the tasby contract later two hire a local superintendent I understand there are two or three highly qualified individuals who are interested in the position it should be a top priority for the school board members could it really be that difficult or time consuming to interview three known highly endorsed and qualified candidates who do not use BISD as a rung on their ladder to Higher Goals three be truly transparent stop parsing words changing changing language to hide or deny what you have allowed in the curriculum here when you received pushback on CRT you immediate immediately removed it from your website instead we now have Dei and SEL might sound better less divisive but we all know is the same as CRT it all promotes low achievement attitudes in

017the students the above stated performance statistics attest to that lastly I ask you to think and make decisions like a Washington County resident who values the quality of life we are fortunate to have here thank you thank you [Applause] Walt Edmonds Walt Edmonds foreign good evening thank you board for your service I've lived in Brennan for 30 years now with four adult children the product of schools and family our schools have been a rated but now under tasby's guidance to our board we're nearly at a sea so what's being measured can our kids read write and do math basic skills we were taught but of course sure our kids aren't to our school board respectfully and pragmatically I've got three recommendations one get rid of tasby two hire a local superintendent three try T that

018is Texans for excellence in education public education's goal research says so all Texas kids receive a quality education to achieve their potential and fully participate in the social economic and educational opportunities of our state and Nation if she or he can't read write or do math that goal won't be reached these are the cake of students education anything else is icing teach a person to read write and do math and they'll discover what icing they want in their life to be successful in life is the purpose of public education as a business owner I have no success I'd have no success without the ability to re easily read write and do math each so I can learn and consider the written thoughts of others and then make smart choices in the Bible we read that

019due to the wicked work of previous leaders King Josiah's people were unable to read and hear God's word for many decades and they had Lost His blessings for failing to follow his instruction afterward because they can now read something of importance in their lives they make Corrections and were successful in life as a Christian I read and study my Bible receiving wisdom comfort and Direction and how I might how I ought to live before God and others I can't imagine not easily reading God's word we've gotten away from the important basics of Education I know of our state in Nations freedoms because of what I've read and learned our nation's goal has been that all men and women should live peacefully United and equalize before God and each other our kids should be able to

020read and write about this too as I said we should get rid of tasby when something is new and failing try to fix it but after years of academic decline under tasby's guidance it's time to toss it that's what the huge Dallas Carroll ISD recently did under tasby's guidance our district has greater debt and fewer of our children at academic level it's taking more money to get poorer results like our federal government we pay more we get less hire a local superintendent not long ago our schools excelled under a local superintendent David Jager we don't need another Outsider through tasby though when we have not when we have capable local persons who share our values and love our kids like Dr Heather thielmann or Dr Sarah beauhart a snook both of them say they would

021love to be superintendent I recommend we try T Texans for excellence in education this organization is committed to helping our board deliver to all children in Texas a high quality education focused on the core competencies of math science reading and writing all at a greatly reduced cost over tasby thank you [Applause] next we have a Symbian Vanderpool I'm sorry I can't read the first name how do you say it Sebring okay thank you I know my writing may not be the neatest my hands don't work anymore okay so uh due to the previous people's comments I'm going to change what I say a little bit um I'm a Washington County resident uh taxpayer so the deficit in the schools is a bothersome thing because somebody's going to have to pay that money I really don't

022want to because we have some failing schools here and I I knew that because in our small RV park we had some children who went to Brenham ISD and they were supposedly doing just fine although when you talk to them and try to get them to read or anything they couldn't do that so they were not doing very well so after looking at this and now we have a chance to change this the last two superintendents came either from tasbi or recommended highly by tasbi so everybody knows what the definition of doing the same thing over and over means so it's time to change that hire somebody like this head local we have some local people that may not be in the superintendent Circle but uh they're qualified and they can get the certification that

023they need um the same thing is I used to have a my own business and in that business if somebody said they were going to quit next week usually that was the last day they were working because you didn't keep them and that's the way all big businesses work and that's the way small businesses work so that is another thing that y'all can think about so you know maybe it's time uh for somebody who's leaving and you have to think about hiring somebody who will leave in the middle of the contract which is what you'll get with another superintendent so why would they want to leave where they are if they're doing well in the middle of their contract so we'll get some people are not in that position maybe they want to do it

024and that that would be a better thing and so that's my recommendation is you know look outside of tasbi look at T you can join T like I said it's free to first year and you know let's do something different and fix these schools thank you Ed malkowski good evening my name is Debbie mikowski I've been a substitute for the past 10 years two of those years in Brenham I'm here tonight with all due respect to voice my concern about the academic performance of the students in Brenham ISD which is and has been a huge problem in our education system in general for many years and getting worse I want to start at the top in stating that we currently have a government that does not uphold the constitution in which this country was founded

025there's a trickle-down effect that's infecting our communities as citizens of this community we want a superintendent that shares our values knows our kids and our community that will make decisions for the good of the students in academic performance and a school board that strives for the same goal from there we need to hire principals that will establish rules and enforce consequences for bad behavior which is running rampant in our schools I personally know substance substitutes including myself who refuse to sub at the Junior and high school levels because of the behavior problems then we need good teachers there are many good teachers quitting at an alarming rate like the other lady said we need good teachers that want to teach the fundamentals of learning such as Reading Writing math science which is vital for a

026strong Educational Foundation that aren't told what they can and cannot teach due to political agendas education is not about lgbtq it's not about Dei it's not about CRT or any of those acronyms and it's adversely affecting our youth they need to be taught how to critically think for themselves and we need to instill morals and values into them for a healthy thriving lifestyle for their futures I've experienced the classroom firsthand and I've seen daunting and unhealthy behaviors and I won't go into any of them at this time kids can't learn effectively in an unstructured undisciplined environment we need to be our teachers best cheerleaders encouraging them and helping them so they can effectively do the job they are called to do our students are the Crux of this movement and that's why we're here and

027we will not rest until we see Improvement at every level in summary we want and need a superintendent who is familiar with and shares our values and goals and shares the goals for our youth and we need a school board who will help Implement those goals for the sake of our kids it's not about us it's about them and their bright future thank you thank you was Ed that was Debbie is Ed going to speak yes my name is Ed mikowski I've uh I've worked as a substitute in Brandon Maya Steve okay closer I've worked as a substitute in in the schools in the junior high and high school and middle school I've served as a math tutor at college level and I'm currently a part-time College instructor so I'm here to offer my support

028to the uh to hiring a local superintendent if at all possible and also to end our relationship with TSP tasp and hiring tea and now I'm going to elaborate on that a little bit I'm going to look at it from the standpoint of the connection that tasby has on up to uh through the organizations like the Texas Nasa nsba and TSB and n-e-a-n-t-e-a I've spent years as in my career following regulations on EPA and TCEQ so I know how things happen and we've seen that the federal agencies when they they want something to happen they know the public will not vote for they shove it they put it into policy and it ends up being do this if you want money do this if you uh they figure other state and local boards will end

029up doing it because they want as part of it's mixed in with a bunch of other stuff so uh I'm all for disconnecting with that because some of those things on the federal level are the indoctrination things not the education things foreign also you know the subject of student learning is important the performance of our students what what are how are they trending Nationwide and compared to other countries as a substitute I've seen um when I came in there it was kind of heartbreaking sometimes to see uh the kids that wanted to learn overwhelmed by the Rowdy Bunch they didn't have enough to do sometimes I've seen I commend the teachers though for uh the work they did and the support I did get but uh and one thing I will say is cell phones

030if you can get a principal to get a handle on cell phones so when they walk in the door they put the cell phone until they leave at some some classes they do that yeah some classes they do that and the classes that didn't they weren't enforced it was chaos and as a sub I couldn't really enforce it that well if you have classes where the cell phone goes away it's amazing what they can uh comply with and learn but when they have the cell phone it was a struggle and adults had that struggle too so anyway get good principles I hope and I trust you have a good one right now thank you Tom Notch I'm sorry if I Slaughter anybody's name alrighty uh I'm here as a concerned taxpayer before I begin uh

031let me acknowledge the fact that trustees put in many hours uh on school matters I'm appreciative of your efforts and the time you spend acting in Your Capacity as trustees also as a trustee your fiduciaries a fiduciary is an individual in whom another in this case the community has placed utmost trust and confidence to manage and protect money or property the relationship where in one person you as a trustee has the obligation to act for another's benefit what assets have we entrusted you to manage and protect you've been elected to manage our schools the children the teachers the administration the buildings and the district's money the beneficiary of this fiduciary relationship is the community not the children the teachers the administration and certainly not tasby the results of your efforts have fallen short because you've

032not served the community but the agenda of the superintendent and the hidden agenda of tasby first you made a decision to bring our transportation in-house which was forced us into an expensive outlay of capital at a time when our income was clearly clearly going to decline secondly made a dischoice to a decision to underwrite two attempts to raise money for a bond issue that elect transparency was rejected by the community you serve you started down the road to form an in-house Police Department yet another expensive decision again in the face of unknown unknown decline in revenues you've adopted a deficit budget which appears to have grown to almost 5 million dollars this jeopardizes our school's financial standing and credit worthiness finally you support and defend tasbian organization which lobbies against the school's financial interests by

033supporting the recapture or Robin Hood plan which siphons off large portions of our local tax dollars to poor districts I ask you to do the following hire someone local as a superintendent the last two individuals who were supported by tasby have led us to our current position you have the opportunity to fix the problem second fire tasby the third higher t as I understand T has offered you their first year free and other people hadn't said too the second year at half price I mean such a deal why not make a sound financial decision and eliminate the organization which is done as harm and cost us money finally I would like to commend trustees Archer and Hafner who voted and acted as true fiduciaries to the community and I'm doing this as a tag team

034with Tim Andrews sincerely Tim Andrews thank you very much thank you [Applause] Travis Samora [Applause] thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak I'm Travis Samora I'm a resident of Washington County and now you can hear me and I'm going to speak quickly on tasb Texas Association of school boards issues related to transgender students and the the online legal e-source about that with tasby the 12 points and 13 pages on the legal issues related to transgender students posted online those values represented in those 12 points have nothing to do with that enhancing the education of our students and represent the imposing of political will and not engendering good education this is all a distraction it's just more unnecessary talk this disregarding the basis of Education which is the teaching of Reading Writing arithmetic science

035Technical Training and Fine Arts sexual activity and preferences of children should not be discussed in the school setting and should solely be under the purview of the parents no teachers should be probing the children on what they think about their gender preferences children can make up their own mind about that is their capacity to reason about such things matures with age and certainly not kids in school all teachers administrators and the Brenner management School District should sign an affidavit stating they will abide by the laws of the State of Texas and not discuss influence or engage students in discussion of sexual preference CRT or Dei diversity Equity inclusion and this is another example of why the Brenham Independent School District should function as an independent school district its name implies and no longer associate with

036tasby Texas Association of school boards and remember the Brenham Independent School District is one of three education systems in the county the other two are home schools and private schools don't complain about the loss of students unless you make yourself competitive I would recommend that you print as a predicate for a contract for services superintendent of Brenham Independent School District you include contract Provisions that have selected to be superintendent that person will be required to show a minimum of five percent Improvement in grade Scholastic achievement per year and show discipline Improvement or if they fail to meet those objectives they'll be terminated and forfeited any contractor salary after that year I think together as a community and with some forethought putting the right things in contracts we can move forward thank you [Applause] Mary Robinson

037get her um everyone will have the opportunity thank you Pat Peters good evening good evening do you hear me okay yes ma'am first I want to thank you for allowing me three minutes of your time in order to express my god-given constitutional right of freedom of speech in the matter of the selection of a new superintendent the superintendent that is chosen is going to report to the Board of Trustees and not the other way around and the Board of Trustees report to the citizens parents and taxpayers of Washington County and Brenham ISD and not the other way around my concern is that the voices of we the people will be overlooked and that a few board members will choose a superintendent based on the recommendation of tasby and ignore the best interests of the students

038and their families thus hurting our community in the long run I believe we need to select a local superintendent who knows the will of the people and are Community minded with the students in mind there are at least three highly qualified local candidates who are local community members in my opinion has be should not be enlisted they should be voted no I also believe that there are other service providers such as t-e-e and their Texans for excellence in education that excellence is what I'm looking for I'm also looking for Family Values I don't want to be overlooked in my family values that is a god-given right some of those Excellence I'm also looking for is to increase the teacher morale and to eliminate some of the staffing issues especially all of the substitutes not all

039not eliminate all of them but uh lower it lessen it I'd like to see the academic performance raised and increased from almost a sea just at least a b and then an a I'd like to see ma Financial funds managed in an appropriate manner so in order to do this I'm suggesting and that you hire a local superintendent and as supported by Senator Cole course and by trustees Hafner and Archer and one last point the schools are here to assist the parents not to replace them thank you thank you [Applause] Bob Davis what's my volume is it okay yes okay good uh good evening trustees Brenham is a conservative City in the conservative County in a conservative State located in the Bible Belt so I think it's fair to say Brenham values are predominantly judeo-christian

040values it clearly the values driving education and Brenham are not they are tasby values it has to be supports the lgbtq agenda the CRT agenda in the transgender agenda just to name a few these movements reflect secular values these are destructive divisive values oddly you won't find these values listed on the tasbi website but if you dig into their training and guidance documents you'll find tazapi's true hidden values but these are not random values so why am I here I'm here because rather than being flat out rejected these tasks these tasbi values have at least to some extent become Bas BISD Board of trustee values I suppose that's somewhat understandable after all all your training and guidance comes from tasby and I could find no guidance whatsoever from tasbi about how to uphold judeo-christian values

041trustees do not be deceived we are facing the Wiles of the devil evil is on the March Ephesians 6 12 says for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities and Powers against the rulers of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the Heavenly places it has be is but one manifestation of that evil but it's a powerful and influential one in Job 28 28 we read this profound truth and to man he said behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from Evil is understanding board members I urge you to depart from Evil to depart from tasbi I encourage each of you to vote against renewing our contract with them now I'd like to turn to a separate but directly related matter item

042number nine on tonight's agenda gives you the opportunity to join an alternative to tasbi it's an organization called Texans for excellence in education I would like to encourage each of you to vote to do so finally I'd like to address the search for our next superintendent we need someone local with a commitment to our community and someone who shares our values my understanding that there is that there are multiple candidates that meet both criteria all else being equal I encourage you to hire a local non-tasby superintendent thank you for attending your attention this evening I appreciate the time you've given me thank you Billy Fowler sorry I'm not yelling at you Billy hello trustees thank you for allowing us to be here and share with you our thoughts and comments in all due respect I

043am speaking um that Natalie was at a meeting that was held at Calvary Baptist Church on Saturday and heard a speaker from Innovative excuse me Innovative teachers for Texas her name is Melissa [Music] how to blame Martin was an easy name I'm so sorry uh she was expecting and and had planned on being here this evening so I'm reading her her speech because she had an unexpected situation she lives in Deer Park and couldn't make it so these are Melissa's words and I thank you for listening I am speaking up on behalf of your members who teach in the Brenham as well as all Texas teachers who have Traditional Values I recently attended a community event where I heard your board president claim that tasby is not a progressive organization this is concerning as she

044either does not understand what the progressive agenda entails or is maybe being intentionally deceptive with her community you have all seen the evidence where tasby has undermined parents and disregarded the opinions of the voters the of the community as as an education and a voice for many teachers in our great state who have Trend Traditional Values I must point out the damage of that is being done when the relationship between teachers and parents is destroyed paying for advice and suggestions from an organization who promotes the destruction of mutual respect and trust between parents and teachers is a direct assault on our profession as well as the success of our students parental involvement is the number one indicator of Student Success and the relationship between teachers and parents play an integral role in the quality of

045Parental involvement affiliating with an organization who slow walked the break with the National School Board Association after they labeled parents as domestic terrorists speaks volumes about the tasby attitude toward parents in addition the guidance of tasbi listed in legal issues related to transgender students directly contradicts the values and convictions of many parents teachers and community members thank you okay thank you all thank you thank Tracy Roark all right thank you board members for your service I appreciate y'all taking your busy time out of your work schedules uh I come here tonight my name is Tracy Rourke I'm a Brenham alumni I'm a mom I'm a Washington County citizen a business owner a Christian that loves God my family and my country I'm also the Washington County moms for America group leader so tonight I stand

046before y'all as a spokesperson for the parents and the business owners that are concerned about what's happening in this community but they're afraid to get up here and speak against it for fear of retaliation what would happen to their student in the classroom or their business in the community my concern and our concern is what seems to be a disregard for our state senators comments at the last board meeting where she asked y'all to hold off and maybe look at different different options for superintendent search um out of the the majority of the board members that voted to go ahead and hire tasby that night the question is what was the hurry what were the motives and what were the reasons for for going that fast that quick that's something that that's a question that

047that I don't know I haven't heard that so if Mr Archer or Mr Hafner if one of y'all would please put that on the agenda to please find out what the motives and the reasons were for voting that night to go with tasby versus looking into the alternatives and why the board chose to spend an additional eight thousand dollars to push it through so quickly thank you for your time thank you David Jancy okay thank you Dusty Robinson I don't know how this is going to go all right good evening Dusty Robinson Public School educated and uh all four my boys have gone here to BISD um I'm here today as a show of support for BISD there's a ton of negativity in the community which makes everyone at bisd's job so much more difficult

048I feel like in times when social media is so prevalent it's easy to point out problems but disconnect from the personal relationships that bring about a real change as you go forward with your search for new leadership I challenge you to walk the halls and look at the faces of this BISD students employees who will best serve those faces who will be able to best lead those kids and those employees who will uh it's not about checking a box to appease somebody about the people that will directly impact and those will be the faces that you see when you walk those Halls my parents are both in public education for 25 years so I look at things a little bit differently I've seen the power of education and how experiences can change a student I

049don't see vent hoods in a culinary class as a negative that might ignite a passion for cooking in a student but I don't stop there how are we going to give those kids a full kitchen to learn and not just vent hoods in a converted classroom oh I don't see a weight room as a negative I see an environment where a child who's struggling with their self-confidence can grow and build more than muscle declining test scores there's a real person with unknown circumstances that goes with that score in a teacher who's worrying every night about how to reach that student I understand physical and personal responsibility let's use our energy for the kids in the classrooms not attacking perceived problems that have no bearing on our BISD students thank you for all the employees and

050all the work you do here today and and making the best for our kids every day on a daily basis thank you thank you [Applause] Sean Koontz good evening good evening thank you for letting us have these two minutes and 58 seconds left my name is Sean Koontz and I have the best job in Washington County I'm the executive director for the boys and girls club since July 17th and I came here to say thank you thank you to the BISD thank you for not just the collaboration but the support of all the young people especially the ones that tend to fall through the gaps the ones that you're spending extra money on to make sure that they're able to get right in their scores the ones who don't quite get it that you're leaning

051in heavily and we appreciate that specifically thank you uh for the spirit of collaboration and the support and this is rare support that Boys and Girls Club of America receive I was at a Southwest leadership meeting uh just a few weeks ago and when I told them what was happening in Brenham they say Sean that just doesn't happen well here it does so thank you for loving these kids thank you for supporting us allowing us to be in the facilities and to lean into the kids in the after-school programs to support the kids that come from all different sorts of backgrounds but also for Lending your advice and lending your wisdom the assistant principles are so apt that there were tonight honored have been incredible resources for us and just I'd like to name some

052names real quick folks just in my last few weeks that have been incredibly uh helpful superintendent chaplain thank you so much leaning in uh clay austenbach with maintenance and what you do at the club uh clay gillentine and Joel Merkley safety and helping us be a safe place so every kid can come and Thrive there and leaning into our safety team that way Mrs Wilkie at Krause Mr Olga Alton Mr seems glues I'm sure I killed that name at Brenham Elementary Mr Watts at Brenham Junior High Miss Thibodeaux Brennan Middle Miss bunker at eclc Mrs Treyon the promotion of Boys and Girls Club Mr Archer thank you for coming out to Boys and Girls Club the other day to look at our facility and say okay what could happen here that so that every kid

053despite their ability is able to come here and Thrive and find a program that can be part thank you for your time and your Insight and input um Miss Mitzi Davis game changers Miss Cassandra Davis with nutrition our kids having an after-the-school snack you've all leaned in our Direction that's what a community does and I'm grateful for that and while no one person organization or group has all the answers if we do lean in the same direction and we do collaborate we do work together despite some of our differences we can all rise together now this is just as a dad I have a daughter she is in the Brenham public school system and I have another daughter who's coming I've seen how teachers haven't gone above and beyond and on Beyond and also even

054prayed for my daughter at times when she's having an incredibly hard day thank you I'm grateful for that we support you and your individual efforts and we pray for God's wisdom as you go ahead and we cannot wait as we try to sort out these complex problems together so guys God bless you thanks on behalf of boys and girls club thank you [Applause] Dale Ramey oh okay that concludes our public comment portion thank you for your patience thank you for everyone who participated and for your passion about our district and our community okay go ahead I don't have your I don't have a form thank you thank you I'm here on behalf of Catherine Vanderpool who couldn't be here so I'm reading her words nothing good in the past that tasby has done or is

055currently doing outweighs these facts they support the agenda of the Biden Administration they support the sexualization of our children they encourage districts to spend recklessly they believe the voter is a necessary evil they have been known to show cartoons at trainings making fun of parents and citizens and calling them cavers which is citizens against virtually everything they are a taxpayer-funded lobbying group Tassie has lobbied for Brenham ISD and other districts to be robbed by the state they ignore good legislation such as HB 1776 Constitution Freedom week and HB 1605 that allows isds to implement a classical traditional curriculum in other words they act contrary to the wholesome education of our children and against our financial best interest last month I provided the trustees of Brenham ISD with written evidence former tasby president of the nsba

056president called parents domestic terrorists and demanded federal agencies intervened to assist local law enforcement the tasbi 13-page report detailed recommended policies for students who don't identify with their biological sex a video showing tasby trains trustees to disregard voters up to this point except for trustees Archer and Hafner you the remaining five have shown yourselves incapable of thinking independently though we are not and though we are an independent school district you follow the superintendent and tasby to the detriment of the students academic physical emotional and spiritual well-being not once but twice you recommended Bond issues for the ballot that were shown to be over inflated the voters had to defeat these measures from sinking BISD financially in an unrecoverable debt your votes reflect your beliefs you have a chance to redeem yourselves tonight amend your motion

057to rejoin tasby make it clear you'll be on your way out and join t-e-e tonight we'll show whether you support remaining with a compromised and corrupted organization then you can defend your vote to the voters in the next election in addition I would like to ask a question it's come to my attention that there is a seventh grade junior high class for science that has no teacher they have had a substitute every single day since school has begun is this best for our students should they have a substitute in a Core Curriculum class every single day think about that that is not what's best for our kids thank you again that was for Catherine Vanderpool thank you next next is our superintendent's report okay I want to appreciate everybody being here tonight y'all hear me

058all right thank you for everybody being here tonight I appreciate the uh interest in BISD and our kids a couple things really quickly just to celebrate this past couple of weeks this last week we had Grandparents Day on Wednesday I wanted to make sure I pointed out Cassandra our principals and our APS that I'll put that day together to allow our grandparents to come and eat breakfast with our with our kids we had a great turnout so again Miss Davis I know she's in here somewhere thank you for all the hard work of you and your ladies in the Child Nutrition department also last week we had a completely student ID Idea LED produced performed Hispanic heritage program at the high school if you had a chance to go to this program it was phenomenal

059the kids came to miss Griffin last year and said hey we would like to do this to honor and recognize Hispanic Heritage Month so again thank you to them those students our Marine Corps Junior Hall TC did the stating of the colors our choir saying the national anthem we had an alumni Karen canelis who spoke and her greatness going through the program and now as I believe a nurse in our community so again great job to our students who who put that together in those families who attended that event at the high school last week also Mr OGG standing up in the back if you'll stand for me please that's right Alton Elementary couple of weeks ago was honored by a solution tree for being a promising practices school we know for a long time

060Brenda's been trying to build a professional Learning Community among our teachers in which they speak to each other try to find out what little special needs each one of our little kids and our students need so they can meet those needs of the students and our students can be successful Mr auger approached me a while back and he said we would really like to apply to to solution tree to be a model PLC Community campus and I said all right I'm not a real fan of that because we don't do things to get a flag we do them because they're right for kids and uh if you go to Alton you see as well as our other campuses they do what's right for kids those teachers work together they collaborate on what each individual student

061needs and they put together a plan for those students needs so they can meet those needs so again Mr OG thank you and your and your staff there at Alton for that [Applause] towards the end of August we had a great opportunity a partnership between our uh Special Olympics BISD and the Blue Bell Aquatic Center and we hosted the region swim meet for our Special Olympics athletes we had a great turnout not only from our athletes athletes from other places but also volunteers to help those athletes create a memory so again thank you for our partnership with blue blood Aquatics and all those volunteers who came out to support our athletes if you haven't had a chance to go to a Special Olympics event or a unified event if you're looking for a way to

062help young people those are great opportunities and I guarantee you that it will fill your bucket and make you feel good on that this next week we know we got Washington County Fair so I know it's probably some sleepy eyes in the room from getting different things ready for the fair so good luck to all of our students our families our staff I know that have that event coming up this week if you can mark your calendar everybody that's in the room who wants to support Brenham ISD put this in your phone 10 30 Thursday morning Champion drive if you want to see what Brenham ISD students are about you're going to be our special needs kids coupling with a buddy an able-bodied person to show animals two and a half hours of nothing but

063that that's what we're all about right there that's all I have thank you next we have board member reports or comments this is an opportunity for board members to give reports regarding meetings and conferences attended including board training schools visited community and District activities new initiatives education programs and board member continuing education no action will be taken on any of these items and we'll start with you this time Archer oh stand up again you're my hey everyone he's my canvas I'm the Ambassador for that campus so proud of you guys way to go way to go [Applause] so last month I attended the annual Special Olympics swim meet hosted by Brenham unified team and bisc Coach Angela Moore athletes from around the area competed in team and individual events and I had the honor of

064handing out medals to athletes alongside First Responders from Brenham fire department and Washington County EMS but little did I know that the Wardrobe was the place to be there was a wide range of emotion from winners and losers but there was always the spirit of sportsmanship with a consoling nature but what struck me was a complete inhibition of the athletes they put their hearts and souls into the races and wore their hearts on their sleeves I left there pondering what it would take for me to live with such wild and unguarded inhibition and I decided I may never have it the way these athletes do secondly I would like to say America was born out of the dark desire for differing opinions while trying to escape by dictatorship where only one opinion was valued the

065founders wanted to foster a nation of independent thinkers the 13 colonies that lived under the dictatorship rose up and fought against it because of them now we have the freedom to live with our differing ideas have we the Board of Trustees begin the search for new superintendent it is important for all seven of us to remember that we are each one person one individual with thoughts and unique perspectives we each have the god-given freedom to have an opinion with that said I believe it is only right and honorable for each of us to remain true to who we are who we represent and what we believe we are called The Board of Trustees which means we have been given the awesome responsibility and privilege of entrustedness from the public there is no need to hide

066the fact that we may not agree and in my opinion the board and the superintendent are in a way married let's start this marriage with honesty and for rightness the superintendent should know who he or she is truly working with before they agree to join anything else would be a lie as we go through this process it is okay if we are not on the same page with each other what governing body is I'm not going to feign Unity for unity's sake and neither should any of us I want a new superintendent to know what they are getting if we are honest with them they're more likely to be honest with us finally let's not hide who we are thank you thank you Jared so I I just have two small things uh one I

067did I now have a high schooler which is terrifying to me but we did make it to fish camp for the first time got to walk around with the kids and everything and we did that last month and I just remembered I didn't talk about it but it was fantastic the interaction between the faculty and the students and to see the wide-eyed as those high school kids as they walked in that door realizing they were going to be there with all those kids it's quite terrifying I'm not sure if it was more terrifying for them or for me knowing mine was going to be there but uh my son is the one that does the announcement so I love that program it's absolutely fantastic the students love it everybody loves it so if you haven't

068had a chance to go to YouTube and watch the announcements you can so please take the opportunity to see what our students are doing because it's fantastic also I get the uh this the unity theater Gala so I thought you were going to say this one the anchor Club was there helping out with the event and the students did absolutely fantastic uh walking around all the all the people in there and so I just want to make sure I tell them thank you and thank you thank you thank you for being there and helping us out with that event it was great great we loved it we aren't we made a lot of money for really great local theater that does wonderful things for this community so thank you for the anchor club and the

069product club for being there and doing that so I just want to make sure I said you you won within you yeah I was a Christmas present Archer that was a Christmas present I'm sorry there have been so many great back to school activities this year one of my favorites every year is the anniversary luncheon where we induct alumni in for Brenham ISD and that was a joy to attend it always is thank you to everyone who made that possible Brooke um and and again congratulations to all the inductees um the other one that um that I attended last week was the Education Foundation meeting and that is an organization that donates money to classroom teachers and our campuses and District to supplement for things that the district can't afford and that was we took

070three hours to go through those Grant proposals and um and we ended up I think it was just over ninety six thousand dollars that we were able to award for those grants so we're really excited about getting um to get out in the classrooms and the campuses to to give those and if you are interested in being a part of the Brenham Education Foundation we are always looking for more supporters and make sure you mark your calendar again for the gala this year it's arts and appetizers but it will be on a larger scale and it's April 11th and we also have the um the get what is it called day of giving coming up so if you want to designate the Brenham Education Foundation as the recipient for that we would really appreciate it

071thank you tell me well I don't have much to say this time the last couple of meetings we've had my church we gave I don't know why everything always happens to me the last couple of board meetings we had my church gave scholarships to different students in Washington County and surrounding areas but I would just like to say I am a brat I am a proud running cub I attended High School here graduated from Brenham High School and like Natalie said earlier the celebration we had at blend last week was outstanding one of the young ladies that was recognized with one of my classmates uh uh Beverly Hamilton uh and uh we was classmate great friends and it just it's just an honor it's just it's it's hard to help to see these people come

072back and give that story it is amazing and I'm just so glad and happy to say that I'm a brother cub we have a job here to do and it's not an easy job we all have different uh opinions you know but always this is what I do when I when I have to make a decision I I think the first time when I when I raise my right hand and I'm going to do what I feel like is best for our student because that's what was this what this is all about it's about our students what can I what can we do to make Brenham and our students to be the top students in not only in Texas but in this country but it's going to take not just the board it's going to

073take all of you guys sitting out there it's going to take this whole town and community to make this happen and we have to be a team we cannot be divided remember that we have to be a team to make this happen and make this work thank you foreign I got an opportunity to go to the Brenham Junior High pep rally where they honor the local fire department and police department before September 11th and uh Mr Watts and uh Miss Mason they did an excellent job it was very loud in there and it brought me back to Memories when I was at the junior working as a police officer there uh outstanding work outstanding work second thing is I'm still eating at the cafeteria and I'm loving it I'm loving it and doing very well

074with that so I appreciate it thank you thank you Bonnie um in case you didn't know we are each assigned a campus that's part of our job not only to be trustees but also to go on the campuses and visit whenever we can and whenever there's special events going on we can go to any of them and that keeps us informed about what's really going on in the schools and we love it and I was lucky enough because I've got three grandchildren in the district I was able to go eat lunch at Alton it's pretty good food too and my my husband ate with my grandson and then I went over to Brenham middle school and a well not ate lunch I sat there and watched my granddaughter eat lunch so I was able to

075visit that campus and Brenham Middle School is my assigned campus so I had an opportunity to sit down and visit with uh Miss Thibodeau who is the principal there she has so many great ideas her students were very well behaved uh grandparents like me were there we loved it because we got to see our kids sit down and visit with them we got to see how children behave in the schools and unless somebody threatened to beat them or something I think they were very well uh I mean really my my granddaughter's in sixth grade and she loves it there and and I just want you to know you hear so many negative things please don't listen if it's not something you know for sure it's much easier for people to criticize and argue than it

076is to try to work together as a team and build something and so I want to you know give a shout out to to all of the principals certainly I've been a principal it is not an easy job and we have some really good people here in place they got here and and are doing what they do now because they love it they love kids and they want to do what's best for all of us and so I'm very proud of him she mentioned some initiatives and I ran out of paper when I was listening to her talk she had a publishing party that day and that was where kids who had written they were they were writing on a topic then they each had to share their writing with others and they were given

077glowing reviews of each other's first completed writing piece and the whole room was dark and the kids were all wearing what do you call those things glow sticks thank you glow sticks so they had glow sticks and it was really good they were learning they were writing they were listening they were talking to each other about their writing I mean and that was just one class we have a little change of of scheduling for fifth grade versus sixth grade our fifth graders have three teachers for their main subjects math English language arts and social studies grade six has electives So It prepares our kids for junior high and high school and they just do a beautiful job with transitioning it it very very nice in you know a place to be to learn and the

078kids are happy they're happy there may be some that maybe they were hiding the bad ones somewhere in a closet somewhere but I don't think so and I want to give credit to all of our principals and assistant principals that's a hard job and we we love you all we really do um also Dr I think it was Dr uh chaplain who mentioned the champion Drive great great opportunity for you to see what it's like when our kids who are showing animals at the fairgrounds actually have a buddy who is from ours can I say special ed department and they they work together working with animals and it's a win-win for everybody uh the the kids who've raised those animals and the children who get to show the animals with them uh it's a great

079event I've done it I've seen it before and I can't wait till Thursday morning to go back and see that um oh and all by the way uh Miss uh Thibodaux did mention to me they have all kinds of clubs like Garden clubs and yoga and everything so coming up uh Constitution Day I don't know if they celebrated it yet but Constitution Day is is recommended and not only recommended but recognized here we don't forget and they will have a see you at the poll uh event on September 27th that's coming up so there's just a whole lot of things going on now the boring stuff uh completed Texas Public Information Act in case you're wondering yes I have got my uh my I've completed that from the Texas Attorney General's office it's good to

080know these things sometimes when you're not in the school business or you haven't been in school for a while uh you don't realize what all is expected of us in the schools and that includes the students they work hard and our scores don't always look as good as we would like them to look on the other hand the tests are very difficult and we might want to make sure that all of our children get everything they need to be successful and we will continue to do what we can to build them up and help them to have the achievement whatever it is whether it's showing animals making A's in math or whatever we we really do love being around our kids and thank you to our principals and teachers for making them successful thank you

081next time you're getting a three minute clock um I'm gonna keep it short in the interest of moving this meeting along I started some uh continuing training with ITT and I also visited junior high for that pep rally man that was loud like loud loud I've never been to a pep rally that loud including the ones that I went to at school here and there when I was in high school that was ridiculously loud that was amazing it was a blast and it was also fun to see the football players even though the officers and the Troopers and I believe they had help from was it EMS or firefighters the Junior High guys beat them in tug of war the football team made him look bad they did a great job it was a talk

082[Laughter] my eyes saw differently but we'll call it a tie um it was a it was a lot of fun I've been in that campus twice now uh work has me pretty busy so I haven't been able to go by there but I have enjoyed every time and I want to thank Miss Ali salheimer for walking me around and showing me around and showing me some of the stuff going on got to visit a couple of classrooms but junior high is uh those those kids are learning they're doing a great job so it was fun being able to go and then also see them at the pep rally I had a blast that's it for me thank you okay next we have our consent agenda and um I know we're going to be pulling um

083the budget amendment are there any other items that need to be pulled before we consider the consent agenda okay we will need a motion and you can just exclude the budget amendment okay um I make a motion to approve the consent agenda so what is that word so I'm gonna try this again I make a motion to approve the consent agenda minus 7c the budget amendment uh as presented second okay we have a motion made by Jared krennic seconded by Kelvin Raven to approve the consent agenda minus 7c the budget amendment as presented all in favor all right opposed emotion carries okay and we will let our CFO dad Lasseter come up for the budget amendment okay um I'll I'll let you go there wasn't any memo attached for the budget amendment so if you

084can just present it to us as okay information so you you did see the attachment of the amendment though the amendment that without any um any explanation there was no memo attached that explained what it there's a uh uh an explanation sheet at your table now yep yeah so you you want me to just go down each function and well I just am wondering why we're just now getting this is to um to close out the last fiscal year and why the amendments are just now being added whenever most of these are things that we knew of um so why was there anything new and if not then why are we just now doing the Amendments when so yeah the on the expenditure side the Amendments look a lot like uh very very close to

085the uh numbers that uh I presented to you on August the 8th on that uh projected 22-23 so I'm I'm doing a lot of cleanup of accounts reconciling uh payroll accruals uh all that entails between functions sometimes so yes these were my projections at eight eight now they're they're solid numbers uh and that that's uh just cleaning all this up for the auditors the revenue on the revenue side uh we were still hoping that those uh numbers that we were looking at were going to come in uh the final on the near final summary of Finance uh more in line with what we had budgeted but as you see uh that ADA and the CCM order numbers were uh those were way different there and I understand that one because it's we're waiting on the

086state for those and I know that those are I understand that one but for the other ones in the future when we make the amendment as soon as it's adjusted I would like for it to be presented at that time instead of waiting until the very end whenever it's something that we did have hard numbers on and until we get out of the whole financially I would prefer if our budget amendments were in the regular agenda and not in the consent agenda so that we can look at everything and that's are we good with that I have no problem with that any other questions or comments on the budget amendment probably I'm still making my way through this because first time I've seen it right um I do I do have a question can am

087I loud enough I do have a question about the uh the one that's on here if if I'm reading this correctly is it correct that we are now projected at 5.8 instead of last time we had a meeting at 4.8 is that is this 4.6 I'm sorry now we're at 5.8 of a deficit this is the 22-23 this is closing out the last fiscal year not the current year budget okay so so on in in that uh meeting on the 8th uh that number there you see was the what I was projecting again we were anticipating or hoping for those better numbers on the near final some year summary of finance of the revenue side uh projecting there at 3.6 now we've we've gotten uh near final summary of Finance uh we received that on

088September 13th and these These are the ending numbers on that 44 47 Ada and that uh CCM order number is 28. so did y'all did y'all approve a deficit last year going in yeah so projected enrollment was higher so it was so the adopted budget no the answer is no is the first column we didn't do it I didn't think Gil did but so we have a deficit of 5.8 million from last year plus a projected deficit of 4.6 this year and and my am I hearing this right I want to make sure some of the deficit stuff comes from decisions that were made to pull out a fund balance to get us rolling in different things the startup on the transportation that was that was a pull out of right balance the 1.4 for

089Safety and Security pull out a fund balance some of those things that you see listed on the right hand side we're on this one or this one uh hold it up the landscape that one right there if you look on the right hand side it shows the plus or minus of where we are right and the reasons for that so some of that was approved that we knew that we were going to pull out a fund balance Safety and Security 1.4 uh the buses and different things there's also um the fact that the revenue didn't come in where we thought it was because the students we didn't have the students that we projected we would come back based on not where we thought the trend was going but the demographer's trend that was going so

090that one hurt us ccmr we've adjusted our College and Career military readiness Pathways for our students so we can increase the number of students who are graduating with one of those certifications that increases funding so that we've already corrected but this last year right now we're sitting at 28 and we're going to continue to look at that number to see where that is because because I think that's worth taking a second to look at so so additional tax revenue we received an additional 2.9 more than we expected but then we got 3.6 less from the state than we expected and federal was 35 Grand so this Revenue was 1.1 less than what we expected it was actually state revenue was actually 4 .00 state revenue but I'm just reading this yeah three points 3.6 from

091the Ada and 1.35 oh there's the additional 1.3 so it's 3.6 plus 1.3 from the state that was less than we projected based on Lower enrollment than we projected from Matthew yeah thank you so what is exactly our deficit right now we're looking at that that number of 5.8 5.8 okay that's before we even talk about 23-24 that was we that means that we closed with a budget deficit for the last fiscal year that we were not that we did not go into approving we we did approve some of that spending during the year right but not this is 5.8 more than what was expected this was not 5.8 but a lot well I'm assuming y'all didn't plan on it yeah exportation the um there were some but not five points I was under the

092impression we had a lot of the whatever please be respectful I don't remember what they're called the covet funds Sr is that what it is that's your funds I was assuming that there was a lot of that funding coming in that was covering a lot of the deficit is how it was I guess I was understanding it or it was presented um was that am I missing that can you give me a minute yes sir go ahead and president can you please remind our audience today we're trying to have a professional meeting here we're praying from talking please thank you if you would like to discuss you can go outside but we respectfully ask that you please refrain from speaking during the meeting thank you I lost my thought uh no you're good Esther funds

093I went away it was like 12 million that came in or something like that right if my memory is correct wasn't that a lot of that was being reallocated to cover some of the negatives that we were expecting and then no harm and all that stuff but this seems like uh a big shock to me I mean I had no idea I was expecting this it's it's almost kind of like sky's falling situation here um am I missing something you know we talked on August 8th uh and gave you the projections that didn't look good right we were hoping that the numbers we got from fsp would come in a little bit better they did not right there was some stuff some items that were approved throughout the year that we knew at the time

094we were going to pull from fund balance okay the the enrollment piece not coming back and rebounding from the enrollment that we projected we thought was going to be there that uh the temple demographics one of the best in the state projected to be there wasn't there that that's the biggest chunk of it right there so Esser funds were expended as outlined by the way they were supposed to be expended but it it doesn't offset the loss of the revenue and as we've discussed uh going along there are steps I mean uh we're to a point that anybody leaving the district uh then that that position needs to be looked at and Justified every uh every person that's hired there should be justification right but it's not just the it's not just those positions it's

095some of the things that are listed in here that were not budgeted that went over on and we need to look at every single thing and that's agree I agree everything everything has to be scrutinized so that we can get back to where we need to get so again I would like for any amendments to be made as soon as possible and for them not to be in the consent agenda so that we can see them and not have any surprises like this ever ever again Natalie May I ask that we have a recurring sort of budget Overview at at least every evening meeting going forward is that something that we can do it at least that's an update at least once a month right yes yeah yeah I like seems like we have a

096big Revenue problem yep but what is the problem we also I I'm still new here but we've got a spending problem too and I don't know where else we need to cut spending but we've got a revenue problem for sure I just want to point out a couple of things on here if you look at the bus thing alone we've got down at the bottom 906 thousand dollars pull out a fund balance to do your first bus lease payment right long run we've talked about this that's the smarter Financial thing to do in the long run and we knew that going into it you look at the startup Department of a brand new Department because we broke away from from Durham that's four hundred and four thousand dollars so right there we're up to 1.3

097million you have the 1.4 million dollars for Safety and Security in there right we're almost to 3 million you look at the difference in the revenue based on the the lack of of students in the Ada where where we used every um aspect we could to project what enrollment was going to be and it's a projection to from from our trends that we see to having one of the best demographers in the state of Texas say this is what it looks like well we missed it on that he missed it on that you take away that lack of Revenue you add in the almost 3 million they're is your thing there's your your balance of your five now we've talked about previously that every position that comes available we look at is it something that

098we can we can absorb this is something that we need to replace is it something that we can we can disperse among other places right where is that position in its need and we've taken action to start correcting that is it going to correct 22 23 it's not going to correct that right we all we can do is correct this moving forward um help me out here on the uh security um I remember the SRO program was 690-ish and then we approved for more to be spent but I thought it was around 900 the 1.4 has nothing to do with sros okay it's changing all the locks across the districts and all the campuses I didn't know what that was okay bullet resistant film all of that stuff and nothing to do with sross I

099thought the film was paid for when that part of some type of a grant or something we got part part of it yes yeah yeah the concrete the the guard shack that was put up front was part of that the concrete bricks that are in front of the high school to stop vehicles from coming up on the curb all the fencing at the uh every school pretty much got it I think updated the key cards like there was a lot in that one yeah it's in that 1.4 okay thank you uh excuse me I'm scratching my head here I don't like surprises and and I think we need to do better this as far as how long it is a surprise because I hadn't seen it so I hadn't seen this and it's embarrassing I

100appreciate what you're what you're saying it's higher than what we anticipated but we had a meeting on August 8th in which we reviewed these numbers they don't they're not where we thought they would be we were hoping they would come in a little bit more with our financial fsp but it didn't happen I I think probably the most important question we all need to ask this is what's the resolution internally we can't count we can't count on anything anything or anybody or any entity at this point what what do we need to do here as a board to make sure this doesn't happen now obviously we know that ADA was big now we've we've adjusted very conservatively for the Ada for next year so that won't be a surprise on the enrollment but where do

101we go what do we do I mean how do we how do we get this number down I just I don't have the answer so I'm like I'm asking similar to what we've talked about 83 percent of our budget is personnel and we've talked all the time we can talk teacher supplies all day long that's not the right place to do it and it's minimal impact uh the impact is in personnel and so every position that comes available we look at it and we scrutinize to see is this a position that we can replace so we can move somewhere else or we can absorb so it just takes some time any idea how much time I can't answer that it's that you know we're in a situation where we absorb as teachers leave we're not

102in a situation where we've declare Financial exigency so we we absorb as teachers lead I I met with Personnel leaves I should say no I'm sorry that's that's not teaching's personality I did meet with Senator cohorst a couple of weeks ago after our our last meeting and talked to her about the prospect of the special session that we anticipate where they will address school funding and um she did not think that there was going to be a a big increase in the allotment but she was hopeful that there would be some help coming so we we can't count on it we can't put that in the budget but but we can be hopeful and we've talked about previously Natalie did a good job the last time commenting about 19 inflation since 2019 right no increase

103into the basic allotment we're still a 61.60 for us to be able to bring this where it needs to be needs to be over seven thousand per student right and and still fiscally sound and responsible with our our personnel I know you have you start doing this can you keep us in a loop on which positions please yeah if you can do that that'd be great thank you I I completely agree with Raven this is a surprise and I was shocked when I saw this when I opened the attachment up I was hoping I was looking at something wrong and I don't like big ugly nasty surprises and I agree with Jared uh there is not going to be much relying on anybody else I mean if this was a home budget it's time to

104get a second and a third job we need to find a revenue stream somewhere we need to find Extreme Cuts somewhere we need to reinvent the wheel we need to think outside the box we need to do something that is uncomfortable we need to do something that's unfun we need to do something drastic because this is unacceptable like 5.8 million dollars is just stupid excuse my language but that's there's no other way to describe it that's ridiculous and we've got to fix this we've got to fix this I don't have an answer right now um I I'm that's not my job to come up with the answer right now but I I can just express my frustration this is this is shocking and it's it's it's wild [Music] it's gonna make our uh classes a

105lot larger too now and that's one thing we really don't need I mean we know I've been a principal and you know the elementary level with 22 students and you you can cut it down maybe it's 17-18 students that makes a big big difference so right now we're looking at something there that we're gonna have to go more several years that we're going to have to have probably you know bigger you know classes you know and that's not good for our students so we I know we just I know I'm just well we really need to be keeping a tab on it every month and making sure that we're looking at everything especially attendance we need to find ways to build attendance and because enrollment is nice but it's it's not what they're looking at

106they're looking at attendance and so if we we we need to see every month what the attendance is what's going on what's coming in what's going out that's what you do in in a home environment yeah we have to approve this don't we I mean it's got to be amended to close out the budget from 2020 to 23. this hurts we have to close the budget we can't have the budget open it's it's it's done for that last year we're on the 20th yeah not approving it doesn't mean it wasn't spent budget approving sorry come on microphone proving you're not improving it doesn't change the numbers I mean it's it's there um I'm assuming we're not going to get any more surprises coming um because I remember a couple meetings ago it was we were

107off by a million dollars oops that was just oops we missed it off by a million dollars on that are we going to get any more of these I mean what's next this is the same meeting that we're speaking of that you yeah on August 8th that's correct are we waiting for any more information is this is this all the information that is going to be collected to close out the 2023-2024 budget no this is 22 20. I mean 22 23 Excuse me yes are we waiting for anything else because I'm just reiterating on what Kyle we continue to look for areas that we can find some stuff we're not we're not washing our hands of it we continue to look for areas that we can we can uh pull in especially in this case

108the ccmr stuff so oh no I've just been like are we waiting for information from the state or waiting for us to calculate anything else to see if there's it's going to be a big chunk like this because I'm this was off of the the Ada and things we had to make the adjustment so are we waiting for any more of that big information now hopefully we can find some places to put body mother back in but yeah the the data and information has been submitted we continue to look and massage on our side to see where we can find I I see if there's any discrepancies go ahead okay um this I just thought of this is there any way I've said this before is there any way that we can bring some outside

109fresh eyes onto all of this and really scrutinize everything scrutinize every penny that we're spending where it's going why it's going there because I've said this before again we get crusty eyes with this budget I know fan does because he works hard on it I know Tyler does because he works hard on it I just feel like it would be helpful maybe to have some sort of external auditor come in and maybe I'm crazy maybe it's just something out of blue but we need some help to get this going in the right direction because we're not going in the right direction and we need to we need fresh eyes and we need to be more critical about where we're spending and I don't want to be the bad guy but I will now I agree

110with you it's one of the reasons we went out for a different auditor this year than what tradition in the past because that will be fresh eyes we'll go through and apply a different system than what we've had in the past to see and if there's any areas that we've missed it we're open for that outside entity and and when does the audit begin is it December uh I think I think no they'll present in December right I mean I'm getting them uh stuff right now for in end of year audit stuff we've already been through some interim work in July so they'll be on site for final in October and then they give the report to the board in December and then they'll report to the board in December so my question as soon

111as I'm not Mike is really that I need to back up um we had additional tax revenue and then we turn around and send that to the state right is that correct am I following am I speaking correctly here we get tax revenue that comes in and then we sent it off we're the additional 2.9 we don't we're not to a level of all right they're not recapturing anything right now we keep everything so we we don't we don't pay capture what it what what happens is for the districts that are property wealthy right they send it back in but we don't send anything but our what we pay dollars is higher if you have a district who has less property wealthy than Washington County than the state pays more of their of their balance

112where our locals since we're property wealthy it comes more local and we get less from the state does that make sense you don't get back it's that they don't give us as much because we get more on our property values because values are higher in Washington County than a lot of states and a lot of counties got it I was going to say we don't let's just not send them a check that would be nice I mean there's another school district that just did it and I thought it was a great idea they um took a page out of my book and flew a yellow flag on the schools they come and take it and they're not sending it I was like man that is awesome I just thought that was cool but uh we

113don't have the money for them to not take I just thought that was really cool I was like man that's a great idea and it just popped into my head when I saw it maybe there's extra money there but I guess that's not an option um okay so let me ask one other question I know that um Mr hacker and Dr Chaplin and maybe this training and some other people had a meeting recently about um scoreboards and yeah that's not on the agenda though so that's not right but that will be on the next month agenda okay I'm just asking the question that was the leading is that is not that but is examples like that have things like that been explored of other Revenue opportunities outside of just replacing and finding those positions because

114it may take a little while for that to cut the muscle but there's no promise that it does and so yeah we explore all revenue options grants those a lot of different things yes the budget I make a motion to approve the budget amendment a juried clinic seconded by Tommy Sullivan to approve the budget amendment as presented all in favor aye opposed motion carries thank you okay next we have our presentation from tasby and the taspy executive director Dan Troxel will present this information welcome um Madam president members of the Board of Trustees I'm Dan Troxel I'm the executive director at tasb uh thank you for having me here tonight and also thank you to the members of the staff who are here working late after a long day as a former teacher myself I

115know what that entails I also want to thank the members of the audience who are here there's no better form of representative democracy than people coming to board meetings and speaking to you as a former superintendent myself I always appreciate that tremendously at tasb we are all about local control and we believe in that more than anything else that is our Cornerstone principle so hearing from your community and your parents is one of your really primary responsibilities so thank you for taking the time to listen to everybody in the audience at tasb it's where our mission and our members lead and it's really important for you to understand that our members are providing the leadership for this organization we are a member driven organization I want to talk a little bit about if we go

116to the next slide doesn't look like it's advancing there we go a little bit about tasby we were created in 1949 of talk about that in just a moment why that period of time was so important in the history of the state of Texas but we were created by board members for board members because in 1949 the voice of board members was not being heard in Austin and at that time and since we really have two primary missions one we advocate for our members at their Direction our number two we really work on lessening the cost of running the operations of a school district just listening to your budget conversation that's really important that you keep that in mind as you look at alternatives for the pricing and the things that you're going to get

117that you may have to come up with if you do not have tasb services so let's talk a little bit about that if we can but I want to begin first with our governance structure there's two primary parts of our governance structure and they're very important the first is delegate assembly that happens a week from Saturday actually at our annual convention in Dallas and every District in the state of Texas there's 1025 members of our association every school district in the state of Texas is a member of tasby in spite of what you may have read or seen and that's important for you to keep that in mind 1025 members each can one representative to go to the delegate assembly so Brenham ISD has the same way to voting as a Houston ISD or a

118Dallas ISD and what do we do at delegate assembly well we do a couple of things first we enact our bylaws that's how we operate that's our standard operating procedures that many school boards have in the state of Texas secondly we elect our board of directors you would elect our board of directors and we'll talk about how that operates we elect our officers and then finally we look at how do we advocate in Austin what is it that we take to the capitol or to our State Board of Education meeting that comes from the delegate assembly that comes from our members from you it's not me as a former Middle School teacher and Middle School assistant principal and principal coming up with the ideas of what we're going to advocate for it's our membership telling

119us what we're going to advocate for the second form of our organizational structure is our board here you can see our 43 board members 43 board members are a little bit different because they get elected across the state and why they're different is they serve in their local community and then they serve on the tasby board as well so they bring that local voice to Bear our six officers are at the top and you can tell this is our last year's officers we'll be electing new officers this next year of the four officers four of them serve in districts random size or smaller and that's really important for you to keep in mind because your voice is heard loudly at tasb we'll talk about that in just a moment now these are your two region

120six directors because you're in region six Beth Pickrell from New Caney ISD and Trista Wegman from Conroe ISD they're your voice form this region but I must say that all 43 board members represent you they really do they want to hear what you have to say what you want our organization to carry forth both in terms of what we advocate for in Austin but also in terms of the services we provide to school districts when we go forward I want you to know that Tabby membership reflects Texas and that's really really a critical part of how we operate 838 districts have an ADA the same as brown at about 4 500 or less I know it fluctuates from year to year but about 4 500 students or less so when you look at our board

121they over uh whelmingly represent that type of voice both at our meetings but also up in Austin in our delegate assembly where we come up with what we're going to advocate for in Austin more than 50 percent of the delegates who actually show up for that meeting come from districts that are the same size as run them or smaller so what we advocate for in Austin comes primarily from rural Texas from smaller districts not the large districts they don't have the votes the people are advocating at that delegate assembly for what they want the Senators and the house members to here at the Capitol that's what gets voted on that's what we carry forward again not what we want to do as a management team what our members tell us is important the next thing

122is advocacy now why is this important you'll hear some organizations say they don't Advocate on behalf of school boards we think advocacy is critical matter of fact in 1949 many of you probably know this but the Gilmer Aiken Act was passed and that is the modern system of public education and that's when tasp was formed because the voice of school board members was not hurt in Austin there's a lot of reasons we'll talk about a few of those in a moment during the session which is an odd number of years from January to may your members your house members and your senders are only in the districts really on Friday Saturday and Sunday so you've got to go to Austin to talk to them and that's very difficult for many people to do because you

123have lives beyond just serving as a board member many of your parents are taking care of elderly parents you have obligations at work you have obligations to your spouse so I wanted to show this next slide because I think it's critical to understand about advocacy more than 60 percent of our members there are 1025 school districts in the state of Texas live more than a three-hour drive to the Capitol that's one way quarter 27 over a quarter must drive five hours one way so what happens if capital on Tuesdays and Thursdays the education committees meet in the house and in the Senate you have to show up at about 10 o'clock in the morning and the bill you may want to hear in that committee may not be heard 10 o'clock that night or even

124into the next morning so not only do you have to drive the 10 hours or the six hours in your case about four hours round trip but then you get you have to have lodging food and everything else that's associated with advocating for Brenham ISD we do that with eight members of our gr team or an organization with 500 employees only eight work in this Arena but those eight are very powerful in their voice because they've listened to you all to tell us what it is that we should do not only that in the even number even number of years we go into the various regions and do what's called a Grassroots effort so we'll come to region six you'll come to those meetings if you like to do so and tell us what's important

125to Brenham and then that rises up through the other 19 service centers eventually voted on the delegate assembly so the voice of Brenham is very strong and can be very powerful if you show up those Grassroots meanings that will be here beginning in January of even numbered years this upcoming year so the driving distance is a big detriment by the way the furthest District to travel is out just north of El Paso it's Anthony ISD it has to travel more than 650 miles one way so obviously they're flying right and when they fly in that's expensive for a school district that puts themselves up in lodging and food so that's why we Advocate and that's why we think advocacy is so important but again it's not what we want to advocate for it's what you

126want us to advocate for and that's really important to keep in mind as you represent the voice of your community and you'll hear people say well Tabby shouldn't Advocate what they're really saying is the local voice of the community which is through you as their representatives shouldn't be heard in Austin you should have to go yourself advocate and I love it when you do and we do have trustees that come up but imagine doing that every week from January to May Tuesdays and Thursdays and sometimes on Monday and Wednesdays as well it's really prohibitive so that's why we do that role on your behalf next I just want to talk about is some of the ways we meet District needs we lessen the burden of government you'll hear that phrase a lot at tasb that

127means we make things more efficient in terms of operations how do we do that we have 19 elective program memberships 19 things that you can join from year to year just to get some Services I'll give you an example one of the ways that Brenham ISD saves a little bit of money is you did an energy efficient audit about four years ago with our facility services team that came in to look at HVAC systems to look at heating systems you look at light fixtures and retrofit those to be more efficient in the use of electricity which saves the district money we also by the way do HR Services membership program we can come in and have a compensation study done to see are you effectively paying your staff particularly your teachers what the prevailing wages

128in the area or districts similarly situated in size or region by the way we also do efficiency studies on Staffing and that helps districts to really look at are they utilizing their staff to the fullest extent we have one legal phone line we have our attorneys who are the experts in school law our attorneys train a lot of the school attorneys who work in private firms Sometimes they come for private firms sometimes they're trained up in our own organization that's free to you that costs you nothing as a member so you can call anytime you want and get legal advice free of charge by the way most firms are going to be two three or four hundred dollars an hour you can do that as a board member we have our school law e-source resources

129somebody earlier mentioned one of those we have 180 where do those come from those come from the legal phone line I'll talk about that in just a moment we have 10 proprietary online Solutions board book premiere you're using tonight by the way you paid about 1250 last year for that our nearest competitor is nearly five thousand dollars as you're looking at efficiencies think about the total picture not just one part of the pie because school Finance is much larger I taught school Finance at several universities it takes a lot to get the efficient operations until that's what we're trying to do for you we have four trustee focused Signature Events we have SLI which is in the summer in Fort Worth and in San Antonio at Summer Leadership Institute it's training for board members we

130also have a governance Camp after the Christmas break in Galveston which isn't very far for y'all and then we also have an annual conference at our convention that's actually coming up next week that's our fourth signature but we do 163 training opportunities throughout the year not just for board members but for your staff we have HR people that come and work with us we have individuals that work in sometimes administrative positions like work for the superintendent as administrative assistant or secretary they come to our trainings we have all kinds of opportunities for your staff and for your people to get the help they need and many of those are free to you because you're a member we have 10 pools and cooperatives hold on a second thank you for your patience we have 10 pools

131and cooperatives I'll be talking about one of those in just a moment we have 1800 awarded vendors on by board that is Amazon for school districts that's where we bid items out on your behalf to make sure we file the bidding laws by the way last year because your purchases on the buy board you not only got a savings in terms of things being bidded out across the state with all 1025 members collectively but you got a six thousand dollar rebate that came back to the district because the higher the volume the more purchases you make the higher your rebate we also do 57 consulting services so we do some individual consultations much as the items I've already talked about now we do have some free trustee focused Publications these are things that are available

132to you free we're one of the unique organizations that provides these Publications nobody else really does these specifically for trustees we have a scenario where you see up on the um on the screen that we have 10 issues of the Texas Lone Star magazine that are published every year this is one about East Chambers ISD is small but ready for anything East Chambers is in East Texas about 1400 students so when we look at our magazine it's to provide you with examples of the best practices that happen throughout the state of Texas that you can read about and then perhaps go visit or give a phone call to or talk to it at one of our conferences we also look at through a group of individuals in our organization best practices and things that are

133happening on the horizon we really try to be Visionary and leaders in this field as issues are coming to us at tasby we produce Publications on key topics this is just one of those a history of Texas public education and why nonpartisan school boards are tradition worth protecting we did one on parental rights and the importance of parental rights just recently because we feel like parental rights is the key to really having sound positive public education so that's available to you as well risk management I want to talk about three of the services and I'll take questions just so you have a little bit of background on many of the things that we offer it's fun to give you a glimpse into these three Risk Management Service is really about pulling across the state for

134the purposes of providing coverage in key areas to ensure that you have really good operations so in 1974 the risk management fund was created it was actually created because in 1973 the legislature passed a law that every school district had to have workers comp it's hard to believe they didn't but they didn't prior to that period of time and what occurred is the private sector wouldn't step in they wouldn't cover workers comp for school districts there was not profit to be made or we're a private company we're not for profit we're not for loss we're a non-profit company so we can do a lot of things for school districts so others can't and we came in and did workers comp we then added on unemployment compensation Auto liability property coverage recently we've provided and you

135all have it cyber security coverage not everyone offers that to districts at a reasonable price we actually have something unique called violent act protection if there is a violent act you have that coverage as well here Brenham uh you're covered if something tragic should happen and then last year we gave out 500 000 in Grants to school districts to increase cyber security 178 districts got those grants so just a little ways that we innovate and try to help school districts the next item is our policy service it was established in 1975 we do policy online which you all have access to and it has been online since 9 1997 the policies typically in a district are about 160 local policies because we believe in local control those policies are yours you can write a local

136policy to fit your local needs as long as you comply with the law you can't go outside the law and sometimes you have to consult either our legal department or your own in-house attorney by usually a third party that you're working with to find out if you are compliant but we really it's really important that you know you have about 160 local policies that are yours but you also have 300 legal policies that are arms proprietary nature you will lose them if you're not a member of our association I've heard somebody said well you can't copyright the law absolutely you cannot but that's like saying to somebody who writes a textbook for law school you can't copyright that because it's about the law our legal policies are a compilation of various laws rules and regulations

137judicial decisions and the interpretation of those and explanation of those that you have good policy to follow we also do policy updates anytime a court decision happens your Administration gets a policy update to make sure that they are complying with it or federal rule or some type of Regulation we do a model student handbook that most districts utilize are modified to their own needs we have administrative regulations manual and that all comes out of this Division and then finally I just wanted to mention legal services our Legal Services Division I mentioned has a a line that you can call and it's free for all of you including your Administration they take 3 200 calls a year that's what they did last year year a little over 3 200 calls they also help us to write

138those policies they write many of the FAQs they write legal documents that help and assist districts in operation I must say about the legal services division I think they're just phenomenal and they have incredible expertise you know a lot of times it's difficult to write and explain something that's in the law that maybe we're advocating against when we're going up to Washington DC or going to Austin but it's the law and we have to put that out there for everyone to understand and that way we try to take a very conservative approach when it comes to explaining the law conservative I mean we do not want you to get sued and lose and so the best approach is to give you all the information to make the best decisions you can and the legal services

139have been doing that since 1978. so that concludes just an overview of us we wanted to give you a brief bit of information and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have again thank you madam president for having me here this evening thank you very much for the presentation board members questions the the legal guidance document that has been represented many different ways in the public can you talk to us about that sure so as we mentioned we get calls into our legal line those calls come from districts throughout the state asking questions about students in issues that are germane to good practice in the schools and so we put together those questions into an FAQ to respond to districts that are asking for the help and assistance I want to be clear

140about a couple things that have been misrepresented both in the media but also throughout sometimes social media outlets in no way does Tas be endorsed not following the law we are an organization that believes in the law and following that law on the state of Texas the law is pretty clear also the UIL rules are pretty clear and I have to make this statement because I don't think a lot of people know this about me but as a former superintendent I also served on the UIL legislative advisory Council I was part of the group that made the rule and voted on it that says mail um individuals must participate in boy Sports and female individuals must participate in female sports by their birth certificate I'm probably the only one in this room that took a

141vote on that we are encouraging districts to follow the law we have to also explain when there's a little bit of confusion about the law so what happened is that FAQ you're referring to was actually written in 2015 it was updated in December of 2022 to reflect an 11th Circuit Court decision in Florida out of the Florida school systems that said a biological boy must use and participate in men's sports in men's restrooms a biological girl must do so as well that's all the update to the FAQ stated and that's something that's important for school districts to know because although that's not our circuit court that is a court that could potentially go to the Supreme Court or you may have a ruling that is the law of the land across the United States so

142we also try to give you regular updates on things that are happening but that was actually out there since 2015. in 2015 I was a superintendent in Kerrville ISD I've been with Tasman now for four years to as executive director so it's been out there for a very very long time we thought it was important to update boards on what in superintendents and staff on what happened in Florida any other questions yeah the uh the insurance that you mentioned that long list of insurance is that part of our enrollment or is that something the extra that we pay for that is additional because what happens you'll go out for an RFP usually through your finance department or larger districts actually have a risk management department they have that luxury you do not and when they

143go out for that we look at each district and we have Underwriters who actually quote what we believe is a really good value for you in terms of what we can cover I will tell you because we're a risk pool and not Insurance we're not looking to make a profit off of school districts we're looking to make sure that when you have a claim for example when a roof gets hail damage we can come in and make that claim whole a lot of the companies that are getting into this Arena I would just caution to really look at what is their financial stability and can they cover when you have a claim that actually occurs some can there's no doubt about it there's others in my experience that you always have to watch as a

144superintendent so the first question I always had with these companies that bid is what your reserves and can you actually pay out claims whether it's a legal liability claim against a staff member whether it is a auto claim because you are legally liable when you have an auto accident it's one of the few areas in Texas law where you're not covered completely and you're not immune from some type of civil suit so you got to make sure that these different companies are able to do that we try to go One Step Beyond that with training we have an annual risk management fund board training session that we do for Risk Managers and people in the financial world to learn a little about how Insurance works or risk pooling works we also as I said earlier

145do grants that allow people because we know schools are being attacked with cyber security issues regularly because they're vulnerable quite frankly because you have a lot of confidential information that you maintain and you don't always have the financial wherewithal if they can attack a casino in Las Vegas they can certainly attack a school district um I I want to say first of all thank you for keeping us informed whenever some of these um things have come out that are misinformation or you know what is that or if we get questions from the public or if something is being sent out um from the legislature or you know members of the legislature on things they all have been very responsive with explanations and Clarity and information so and I know that because being on the board

146when some of that came out in the last year which is why even though you serve so many rural districts there was not a mass Exodus because that was communicated so well from you and and from your team so I appreciate that but so I know the answer to this but just for the public why didn't tasby leave nasb immediately can you talk to us about what happened and um and tasby's response to that thank you madam president for the opportunity to answer that question we left within 36 hours 36 hours of work time for what nsba issued the report that found what occurred and let me let me kind of walk you through the timeline so September 30th 2021 the nsba issued a letter to the Biden Administration asking for intervention on local issues

147particularly of wrong security at school board meetings every state at that point with the exception of Hawaii was a member of nsba Hawaii only has one school district so they don't have an association and it was a scenario where we were very concerned about a number of things we didn't find out for weeks after until it was issued that it was even issued and we immediately asked for full investigation and review one of the things that our board believes in I hope you believe in his due process things need to be reviewed and they need to be examined and so we initiated along with several other states asking nsba to do a full review of what was occurring and what happened in the meantime they fired their executive director who was an interim executive director

148and they found a third party law firm in Washington DC that was nonpartisan because nonpartisanship is a tremendous a part of what we believe in on May 20th at noon they call the meeting of State executive presidents executive directors they told us at 12 o'clock what their findings were their findings showed a lack of oversight a lack of believing in the core fundamental principle of local control a lack of respect quite frankly for parents and the parents role in quality education our board immediately called a meeting on the 23rd that was a Friday they called on Monday and by the end of the day on Monday our board had voted to withdraw from nsba but they did allow and I do agree with them allowing the due process to occur we have too much rushing

149to judgment and not enough due process and allowing people's voices to be heard we insisted that that occurred we were the voice in the room along with several other states saying this needs to be reviewed and needs to be reviewed independently of nsba we did appreciate them removing their interim executive director and hiring an exec director from Kansas whose values are a little more aligned to Texas but nevertheless that wasn't enough for us to stay in and our board of directors made the decision to leave primarily because of a lack of oversight the issue with not respecting local control and then comments made about the federal government getting involved in what happens here in our local school districts as a former principal I was the principal at Jersey Village High School right down the road

150in Cypress fair being science D I was also principal in Allen Texas some of you may know that up in the Metroplex I can tell you that nothing would have bothered me more I don't like to see the state come in and take over school districts let alone the federal government getting involved in what happens in our local communities your district is yours to operate and to ensure that the voices in this room and the voices in this entire Community are heard through you as their representatives and that is a sacred trust that you have federal government doesn't have a role in that and that's why our Board of attorney thank you um I'm gonna excuse me um can you hear me I have to uh I have to kind of press you on that

151a little bit uh my notes are that National School Board Association released that on September 28th or 9th right um it wasn't until May 23rd that y'all made I believe it was the 23rd that y'all left that's eight months it wasn't 36 hours it's eight months and I I get it when you say due process but due process for something that truly needs to be looked into but as a parent and others are parents being called a terrorist doesn't deserve due process um my opinion it should be done immediately and and further research looked and it took less than a month for a handful of states to leave Texas was I think 26th maybe 24th 27th I don't have the exact number because a few left right at the same time there at the end

152but uh Missouri Ohio Pennsylvania et cetera all left less than a month later they didn't need eight months why did it take you so long because we were model thank you Mr Hefner because we really wanted to allow the internal review to occur many of the other states that are still in nsba are states that are still very read in their orientation very conservative States we found when that report came out that it was unacceptable the behavior that they had and we withdrew I do believe our board felt very strongly that staying in allowed us to do a thorough review when that review happened on the 20th that we were given the report which was published on their website we insisted on that as well by the 23rd we will withdraw them that is less

153than 36 hours after the report being issued there was a tremendous amount of discussion and debate and what we ultimately did was to allow the due process to occur you may know to answer this or not you say you've been with tabs for four years the executive director I've been executive director for two years that was two years the deputy executive director okay do you know how many uh superintendents tags be hired for Brenham off of him by any chance I'd have to go back and actually check our records only being here for four years I don't know if Dr Chaplin knows that but I could certainly get there I was just curious on that well and I'll say that they hired zero because only the board can hire and fire the superintendent so they

154can facilitate which I think they did I don't know um going back past um David Yeager yes but he was and and he was not local he was from a small town correct and was brought in correct right and so you all don't control the iron Pro it's up to the board correct and the president makes an excellent excellent through the search process there's a lot of companies out there that do superintendent searches um ultimately the Board of Trustees makes that decision in that higher what we try to do is prevent provide you with a array of candidates that are aligned to your community norms and values nobody wants to bring a superintendent into a district that doesn't understand what Brenham ISD is all about sometimes it's local but there are outstanding candidates from sometimes

155outside the local area who have the exact same values as Brenham I mean I served in in Kerbal ISD a district almost identical in size for this District matter of fact there were a number of playoff games we played against each other over those years we actually had one of our our better athletes going to Texas A M and won the Heisman Trophy and so it's one of those situations where ultimately what you want to do is hire someone who has similar values um when I came to Kerrville you know it's it's one of those scenarios where I stayed 14 years I love that Community it reminds me of this community you know my kids grew up in a community where they had a HomeTown with very traditional values and that appealed to me as

156I was raising my family and so I would really caution you not to rule out people from outside of your community who share a similar value you're looking for the best candidate when you limit your pool to just a select you then you don't really get a wide spectrum of people also it helps you to interview a lot of people or to look at different candidates to say this person doesn't match our needs this person does if you just say I'm going to look at locally and certainly you can view that there are districts that do that is as your president points out it's your ultimate decision what they do is fail to really have a really good pool and quite frankly you talk about attracting teachers and others to your District you want to

157give people from the surrounding areas as well who know that Brenham is open not just to local people but to anybody coming and moving here that this is a community that welcomes people from outside of sometimes your District boundaries you may end up hiring a very local person that may be your selection I do not have a lot of um beliefs in this world that I feel extremely strongly about like this but I believe in local control more than anything else and so you're absolutely right the Board of Trustees makes that decision but you need to have a good process in place when you listen to your community members who spoke here but also others who will complete surveys and do some work to come up with a profile you want for your superintendent and

158then interview and really look at not who's the most qualified because sometimes if you look at the most qualified somebody can have all the phds in the world and I have a PhD and I don't mean that derogatory towards anybody who's gone to a university and worked hard to get their PHD but you want the best fit you want somebody who's highly qualified who's the best fit in order to do that you have to look at a wide spectrum of people to make sure that you're selecting the very best that's my only advice to you on that that regard and thank you madam president for those very wise words that is the Board of Trustees who hires the superintendent any other questions I have a question uh can you tell us how many districts have

159left your organization to date Zero there is one in the Metroplex who was mentioned earlier that has taken a vote to consider leaving next year I'm not sure whether they will it's going to be difficult to replace all the services that we offer but it's also very difficult to publicly meet that type of a statement and not withdrawal we will be open to anything please be quiet we'll be very open to any of those districts coming back when they find the quality of our services and the value that they get for our services they'll be welcome back with open arms but you know it really doesn't preclude anybody from still continuing to work with us at tasb even if you have an attended statement that you're looking to lead but we still have 1025 school

160districts that belong to the asp um what is the cost of the membership for you it was ten thousand dollars just over ten thousand dollars remember you also got a six thousand dollar rebate and you're getting for example on your board but Premiere probably close to a three or four thousand dollar savings you start to add those up uh you got you're going to be in a situation where financially it's going to be hitting your bottom line in a very negative way but that's for you all to decide I certainly wouldn't do anything that would put pressure on you to make a decision to go or not go with us but remember one of the things that we're really about is lessening the burden of government and providing high quality high value products and services

161follow up here you said it's ten thousand or a little over ten thousand I think last year was like ten thousand six hundred um and that's just for the membership but uh you said savings but I didn't hear what the actual cost was for board book and all the other uh things that you do that we have done or we have used or we are using I guess I should say so you have a number of products if you take board book for example or book generally runs you around thirteen hundred dollars our competitors around the four to six thousand dollar range so you can easily see the difference if you look at by board you got a six thousand dollar rebate for using it plus you've got lower cost on the products you purchased

162on it because they were bent out competitively and we followed that that type of process very strictly and then policy updates are also an add-on right we need to pay for those yes your policy when we have too many microphones on it gets very loud isn't it no problem Mr Hefner so we have about twenty three hundred dollars for policy online and policy Services combined because you can have policy services without having policy online so when you combine those together it's about twenty three hundred dollars I would challenge with 160 local policies any law firm to do it cheaper than that they're not in that practice so let me let me be clear you're basically stating that it is virtually impossible which I do not believe for clarity for somebody to do to do everything

163that you do potentially cheaper I am not saying that what I'm saying is our 75 years of service to the state as a track record that nobody can match now there could be organizations out there that can do what we do I've not seen those yet the organizations that are out there that are saying there are competitors I have seen no offering outside of a website so I can't answer your question Mr Archer one final question and I'm sorry to keep asking lots of different questions here but on your statement of beliefs um they're bullet points I don't know what number it is but it's the last one uh uh it says we believe in and are committed to supporting diversity equity and inclusion promoting dignity and mutual respect striving to eradicate system aggressive racism

164and providing opportunity for all um that first statement supporting diversity Equity inclusion is in fact the way I perceive it to be a racist statement but um why is that on here as part of your statement of beliefs if that's core statements Dei is in and of itself a problem um which is another version of CRT which is also exactly what our governor has advised to not use and follow but yet it's on your statement so let me answer the question about CRT we actually wrote again a paper about the harmful impact of CRT CRT is a university-based law school-based curriculum and program not appropriate for middle schools and high school kids that statement was actually developed by our board of directors through a year-long process of working on a strategic plan they saw in

165the state of Texas the achievement Gap that exists in almost every school district in this state between students of color and angle students and students that are Asian American they wanted to address it and that was their effort to do so other questions or comments thank you so much for your time I really appreciate you all and appreciate everyone in the audience for being here tonight thank you all thank you do you need water okay next we have consideration and possible approval to either join Texans for excellence in education or remain a member of the Texas Association of school boards I will note that um whenever we had the presentation on tee last month and I had asked because so many of the services since they are such a new entity there were things listed

166on the website coming soon or this you know things that would be available but that there weren't examples of yet and I had asked her to send um because they were working on the policy for Carroll ISD when that was complete to to send us a sample so we would have you know something tangible to compare to and to date I haven't received anything I did look on Carol isd's website this morning and it was still the tasby um policy online so that was still not available how many uh how many dishes does te have zero one well partial I think Carol maybe is partly they're still a member of tasbi but they have she told us that they were part of me they have expressed intent to shift over I believe so their renewal

167is up in January okay and so they've already voted it was a five to one vote to leave tasbi they have I have spoken to the president of Carroll ISD and asked and they are leaving they're they're joining tee and they've already joined te or t but their renewal is not up until January 1st and so that's why he said there nobody for the rest of this year well yeah well January 1st is when they will no longer be with tasbi so they always have one as of right now excuse me there are three others because I also called Hava and asked her about that um because I know she was supposed to get some to you she said she was running behind and it was going to take her another week to get it

168to you so we're not there but there are three others that have committed to her but they have not voted to uh it's not public yet so so there's she told me there's three so that'll be a total of four yeah total of four okay thank you sir yeah because I wanted to follow up and do my due diligence and ask Kyle can you uh remind us how because I don't remember when Miss Armstrong was here how long has t been in existence when did they start I believe it's in June is when they were official is that right yeah June 1st is when they were official and it was created uh with the help of Carol ISD trying to push them into getting it set up is what I was under the impression of

169okay thank you that's just important context for rather new organization they're getting their feet underneath them um so and that's a great point and that's one of the reasons why I don't there's there's no for one thing I have no complaints against casby they've served us well when I've been on the board and but to to go with an entity that is unproven seems unprudent um they for the insurance purposes they would be a middleman they don't provide tasby we are the insurance we pay into the fund it's not like they are a broker for other companies and with tee they would just be a broker which we could do you know we could go out for bids ourselves so we wouldn't need them for that for the training they're a third party they don't

170do their own training they partner with another entity for their training so those are two of the the biggest services or two of the big services that we get from tasbi that um that they are not doing and those it didn't sound like they had any you know some of the things they said they're coming soon but those weren't even things that were there was an intent to change on those and those are places where we get a lot of service from tasby so go ahead I'm not going to push back but I am going to say I don't feel that we have anything to lose entertaining T I don't know if everyone knows this some folks in the audience said this earlier but their first year of membership is free we don't do not

171lose a dime and we can maintain tasby membership at the same time and compare them apples to apples and kind of ghost the service and see how they work compared to what Tyler the offers and then once the year goes by we make our informed decision men now we have had two presentations from each each of the companies but we have not experienced the T experience of being a customer and it's a no-brainer to me because it's free we have nothing to lose in my opinion I just wanted to say that and it makes complete sense to me so um I invited hevo and T here and asked you to put them on the agenda and I appreciate that for last month um and it's not a secret that I'm a I'm a supporter of

172them I like them um I'm a big fan of theirs so I will lay out a couple things and I'll be very brief Bonnie because I know you said I get long-winded first of all I completely 100 concede the fact that if we leave tasby we have a problem with insurance completely understand that makes perfect sense um I think that almost ties our hands for a lack of a better phrase however I do believe that financially tea is a no-brainer like what Archer said uh if we join with them now it is completely free to see if we like them or no or not or don't whatever cost wise if it was not free it's five thousand dollars versus the ten thousand six hundred dollars policy updates are free versus he mentioned 2000 and the

173other eighteen hundred dollars for HR services and then the board book is included with them versus it's not with him we're up to we don't have any examples of what we would be getting I understand so that's what I'm saying we're not we don't have anything tangible to compare it I completely agree and I can see that um we do not know and that's why she basically said I know you don't have it you have nothing to compare it to so we're willing to give it to you for free to try it out I don't see any reason not to at least entertain that first of all and I it was very clear from my questions and Tommy you asked this of me I think maybe the last meeting or the meeting before the meeting

174before that about if it was personal and I at first I said no but after thinking about it I agree it is kind of personal and why I'm not a fan of tasbi because when in 2021 we were in the fight to not be masked and not being the schools we were in and we wanted to come to Brenham in 2020 actually and then all that stuff came out in 21 about parents being terrorists and that was something that I associated with tasbi and so as a parent I was like well no way so I instinctively took offense to that or instantly took offense to that and so yes it is personal with me why I'm not because I don't like being called a terrorist personally so I'm coming full circle back to your comment

175saying yes it is a personal thing for me my watch is messing it up sorry um so back to my point is if it's free it makes sense to at least try it out and see if we like it or don't like it and one year from today we don't have to deal with it but anyway um everybody else I guess okay let's try that is it on maybe okay um the last point I'm going to make is I have been vocal about wanting to leave tasby from the beginning before I um before I was elected it was in I think three of the forums we did I was asked that question and I said yes I'm absolutely on board for leaving tasby um I think they truly do not have our best interest in

176mind and I do not believe that um we are being told the same as what they are doing online their website says different than what we've been told and when you have Dei on here yes can you give an example absolutely uh probably a day or two days before y'all went to the tasby conference um I was on the phone with Jared asking why I wasn't going and they have it would take me about three minutes to find it but on their website they have their guidance it's a 13-page article and it's a PDF from tasbi saying these are the guidance we recommend on school boards uh with transgenderism and it's a lot of legalese of bidding around the bush and you have to read it like eight times oh yeah thank you you're see

177look we're on the same page and we didn't even know it um I bet you on the last page in there it says something on the lines of uh and I'm paraphrasing because I don't have it in front of me and if you need to read it you can and Bonnie I also sent this to you because you asked me about it uh it states in there that it's okay to not tell the parent and that's not okay to me and it doesn't attack the fact that this needs to go to the parent immediately and it is it's a lot like I said it's 13 pages of legalese of beating around the bush when it should be one paragraph in my opinion but it does not go to the point and I'd have to go

178back and search and I can find it if you give me time if you all have other questions we need to talk about it I can find exactly the sentence that uh struck me or the paragraph that struck me and I said this is just not okay but that on top of the Dei statement in their mission statement which it's just not okay that is blatantly against what we have been directed by our governor and it is the opposite of what we should be teaching in schools and so there you go thank you the best advice is to assess each situation as it comes working closely with the student parent and District Council to reach a resolution that protects the learning environment for all is it the rest of that article so how you doing

179right so I see what you're saying I understand what you're saying my dilemma is one organization is established and one isn't that's like going to court for a criminal case I'm not going to pick an attorney who doesn't have any any clients I'm going with the one who's who's established and this is not not about being personal it's about doing the right thing for the right reason I can play the agree that's why I said I agree we are our hands are tied and whether they're established or not we don't have another option because we didn't shop Insurance before and we were forced to go last minute of hey by the way here's our insurance renewal and I was upset about that at the last meeting or the meeting before two meetings ago um it

180was oh by the way here's our insurance and we have to renew uh and we didn't shop it around so because our insurance is through them we have to renew with tasbi and I understand that I also would like to entertain the idea of joining with T so in nine ten months eight months when it's time to look at insurance we can look at the free market to see if they can offer a better solution and when they do because from personal experience when I needed life insurance if I call my insurance agent he's going to give me a price and then I go out to somebody who a broker who shops everything all of a sudden it's almost half price but when they come out and shop it and it's a better option and

181better solution then we can make a decision because we have options and choices we don't have a choice if we stay with tasby and have no other option that's why I as Archer and I have clearly stated multiple times it makes sense to at least join with t as an interlocal agreement which we don't even need to vote on because it's they're not local it's a zero dollar choice we don't I mean that's something that we could just direct Tyler to do without us voting on it but it should still be voted since this is a hot contentious item and then the final statement I'll say um I counted it was 13 people plus there was two that sat down and I'm assuming they were just not going to beat a dead horse so that

182makes 15 people all saying the exact same thing they would like us to consider joining tea so let's listen to who the voters requested us to at least entertain and then a year from now if it's a terrible idea then we can say hey look we tried it it didn't work out T didn't work but they're new and a very good well-off school district is going with them there's got to be a reason that that current School District that happened back in March I think and we're not real sure but it's a lot of misleading the information is out there uh I know people saying that tax mid last Dr Chaplin did not come through tasbury he did not come through I know a lot of people out there saying that he was hired through

183Tasman he was not you know it was through a different number but what did this to me they're just not proven right now I mean I have a problem with just maybe one school district you're saying maybe three more maybe four at all but it's got to be a reason why we don't have that many over 1200 school districts in the state of Texas and then we have probably about four and that's about it right now I just don't have enough information right now to feel safe and not just the way I feel you know would it would it be something for us to consider in the future after they have established themselves that's kind of where I'm at is there's nothing for us to say let's try it because there's nothing there I mean

184there's there's nothing it's just a website that has no links that has no information that has not even what board book They're going to use we don't know anything we just know it's t-e-e that's it I mean I would be that's an entity that was registered in Delaware less than six months ago I mean it's tasby yes the 401c is registered in Delaware it's not even it's not even here in Texas where tasby is by board members four boards and they've served us well we have access to everything we talked about tonight and no it's not popular with the people who signed up to speak tonight but we're not here for a popularity vote we're here to do what's best for the district and based on the resources and the information we have this is

185an easy call for me um anybody who has any type of business that they open up Delaware is the best place to open anything so the majority of companies open in Delaware that's just common sense um second as far as uh uh they're in their their offices are in uh Fort Worth Dallas area and um that's where their headquarters are um but their physical address is there their physical address yes the physical address that's given on their website if you look it up it's what that's their mailing address it's Dallas yeah but but I looked it up and it looks like a warehouse I couldn't find a name that's a mailing address I saw the email from uh that person I I looked it up and I called and said hey what is this and

186said yeah that's just where we get our mail that's not our office um but look I I'm fighting an uphill battle and I get it um it seems to me that it I get it there's no reason to go with somebody new except for the facts of what I've said already and I can't restate them over and over and over again enough um but I do not like their mission statement I do not agree with it at all I do not appreciate that I do not appreciate a lot of how their stances are of on a lot of things that are online I just don't agree with it and being called a terrorist should be that was not tasby it absolutely was they were a part of the group that said it and it took

187them eight months you called parents a terrorist or anybody in here it wouldn't take us eight months to decide to ask you to leave your your office it's not okay there should be fired immediately and you I know and that's why three four five other states did it in less than a month Texas took their time and I want to read this their reason it was they found operational deficiencies and lack of internal controls and processes with nsba doesn't say anything about the fact that they called parents terrorists nothing bottom line I heard it it they said it it's a press release and then all of a sudden it just got washed from the internet because they wanted it cleared out it's there it was said and it it was a drag your feet we're

188gonna leave because we have to and only after I don't know how many Congressmen but it was over 10 congressmen all got together and made a statement saying that we request leave in SBA they got pressure and left because they had to and they felt the pressure was too high not because they wanted to I feel that speculation Kyle I don't think that I don't think I think it's speculation we don't know we don't know that that went down I I do have a question on the the report that you pulled off the website do y'all do y'all feel please be quiet in the audience do you all feel that the other legal documents that they have on there for guidance to school boards are also their opinions or are those all based off of

189facts and and precedence and Supreme Court rulings the reason the reason I ask is because I'm asking if you feel the other the other advice that they give on the website is based off of legal opinions and precedence and whatever the rulings or if that's all their opinion I'm just saying anything my point is why would they just give their opinion about that one topic and not every topic so are you are we just pulling one specific topic because I believe it's a narrative this is or because I believe they have a lot of opinions in here a lot a lot of our nation it is Nation do you have any conservative right now Supreme Court Justice Supreme Court Justice how do they interpret the law the law is up to interpretation and those documents

190will be changed as laws are interpreted by the court and and I respect that but I don't trustee and I respect that too so uh fantastic has proven himself in my opinion so Madam president um I'd like to make a motion like it makes a motion to remain with tech with Texas Association School boards as discussed all in favor aye opposed promotion carries thank you very much your passion everyone on the board I know we don't know next we have consideration and possible approval of the district's Library policies and procedures manual our head librarian Charlotte Pope will present this thank you no that nobody made a motion for that we entertained it there was no motion made for that don't tell board members what to do from the audience please thank you so we didn't

191get to that point in his did I move on too quickly and his in his defense we did just vote on that and we jumped straight in I assumed we were going to bring that up I assume it's going to fail but yes I assumed we were going to go back to that so if that's still something we can and are able to vote on then yes absolutely I would like to bring that up for a vote because it's free just make a motion [Music] I'll second it by Archer Archer seconded by Kyle haffner to join the Texas for excellence in education as discussed all in favor aye opposed aye oh the motion fails okay now we have consideration and possible approval of the district's Library policies and procedures manual our head librarian Charlotte poke

192will present thank you for your patience thank you foreign yeah just just a second I know there's people that are trying to leave okay y'all hear me yes okay I can't a little bit oh no you don't have to hold it once it's on it's on can you hang on just a second while we get the microphone worked out no you might have to get closer to it no can y'all hear me now is it working yeah just speak really close to it maybe okay so um we as a district of certified Librarians decided to look over the policies and procedures manual each year to see if there are any updates or verbiage changes that needed to be made so we decided that there was a little bit of transparency maybe with people who are

193not familiar with collection development and the reconsideration policies so we just kind of added a little bit of information in those particular areas and everything else is pretty much pretty much like what was approved last year there was just a couple of changes just to make it more transparent for people who are not familiar with the process [Music] um I think yeah pretty much I mean I don't want to make it go off again go ahead RJ notifications every time they check out no that's not that's not a policy that's part of Brenham what is the process for when we get new books to go through them to make sure that they're age appropriate for the libraries that they're in uh slayed out into five things that is linked in the policies and procedures manual

194um we are very cognizant of like what our students are interested in and what is age developmentally appropriate for them as well so um all of us at our campuses we try to make sure that the books that we have on our campus are appropriate for our students again every student is going to have a different um interest in what they want to read so not every book is going to be for every person and we all pretty much share the same ideal that if a book you don't like something that's in a book or it doesn't meet like your family's standards then turn it back in and get something else that you want to read there's no reason for you to finish reading anything when we do women yes and so I'll come over

195here okay Miss Cox I'm the librarian at Brenham Elementary and we do have we do reflect the community that we live in so when we use our our selection criteria we're mindful of the students that we're serving and especially at the elementary level these children are not developmentally ready for much of the new media that we're seeing on the market so we're cognizant of the of the children that we serve and their families and are are very careful in that selection process so that we don't interfere with with parents or family values that might not uh be sustained in that selection process when you all order books do you are you do you all hand select every book that comes in or do you is it like an allotment like I say I want to

196have a section of books in this criteria where one that possibly is appropriate would come through that I just want to make sure because there's we get a lot of scrutiny and you hear a lot of stuff in the media I want to make sure that our district is doing its due diligence before the books hit the Shelf to make sure that they don't get there so that's why I'm asking these questions I just want to make sure that y'all have y'all's hand in the process from start to finish and by the time they get there that they've been what we know that they're going to be yes so we use like our process is we have to have two positive reviews for every book there are some instances a lot of non-fiction books do

197not have reviews done on them so then we have to kind of look at the reputation of the publisher uh the author and things like that so we are very aware of like we look at all the reviews we try to look at all the information if there's something that I suspect maybe there's something that's not being said in any of those reviews because that happens they don't mention every single thing because it's not a pivotal part of the story it's just something that happens in the story and so occasionally we'll catch things like that I'll pull them and put them in my office if a parent wants to check that out for their child and read it to them they are welcome to come to my office and check that out but that's not

198something that maybe I would feel comfortable with the students that are of my age group having on the show for them to have without parent approval yeah we never ordered just like no okay we go through and like I ask my kids like what do we not have that you're wanting to read like what what they helped me create my list then I go through and I look at the books I look at the reviews and I decide and I tell them if it's age appropriate and it's okay for our campus then I'll look into getting it again have to look at budget but um definitely it's we make the list we curate it going from the information that we're hearing from our readers well thank you for answering the question thank you for doing

199your due diligence to ensure that's not happening in our libraries we literally appreciate that that's reassuring to us so thank you all very much for the due diligence of making sure that doesn't happen parents are welcome in our libraries you know part of our policy is come in come in and look at our collection take a look around see what children have to choose from and make budget decisions accordingly and since I've been in the district for this is my I guess I've been in the district eight years Destiny our catalog has been online the entire time I've been in this District so any person anywhere could log on online and see what what books we have available on our campuses so it's never been hidden it's always been there anyone can access it so

200that's not something that's ever been hidden what about Book Fairs do you have any um criteria there as well because I had heard that's that Scholastic had gotten a little bit more liberal in their books typically like we just kind of look and see if there's anything that we think might not be age appropriate like because my campus is okay for they send like K through six so I will pull things that I don't think are age-appropriate or relevant so you pull them before you ever put them out there we look and when we start setting up the book fair and see like if there's something that might be a little bit above their age bracket you know they want to read it because they're doing all the tick tocks and they're doing all this

201other stuff but it's like yeah not not a book at our at our library yeah thank you I'm just going to add because we have one coming up September 25th and we have invited our we have invited our PTO parents to come we received our shipment today we're out of school tomorrow but we've invited our PTO parents to come help us preview and pull anything they're uncomfortable with to make sure it aligns with our Community Values I think that's amazing thank you for all transparency I never thought ever thought books I just encourage that even the principals are taking it a step further with making sure that they're inviting the parents and the PTO to come in and do things that's just a I mean that's something that you don't really hear about uh with

202what what did you hear in the media so just that's awesome that we're going that much further I have volunteers that come from Mr oggs Church [Laughter] they're amazing and so they helped me also with uh processing books and shelving the books so they're getting to see like what's in the library as well and like I haven't had one of them come to me with any concerns or issues about anything they're seeing a little bit I'm probably gonna vote against it but in the involvement that you guys have in the process and the respect for the community security so thank you thank you any other questions are we I'd uh I'd like to make a motion to find it on the paper to approve the district's Library policies and procedures manual as presented hey we

203have a motion made by Jared krennic seconded by Bonnie brinkmeyer to approve the district's Library policies and procedures manual as presented all in favor opposed the motion carries thank you so much thank you for your patience I know it's a long meeting next we have our district star EOC update and our dean of instructions Sarah Cook and executive director of leading and learning Christy Johnson will present good evening sure good evening Madam president Dr Chaplin Board of Trustees we are here to present to you the star results the EOC results were presented to you earlier in the school year so this will be our third through eighth grade results these came in after school started and so it's been a task of getting that data together and and able to present that to you what

204you'll see in our results this year is when we look at them we're focused solely on the 2023 results this year came a big change to our students in the way that they were tested this was the first year that it was mandated all students test online due to some change in legislation they also saw an increased number of question types that we have never seen before that students had never seen before more writing on every reading test which is something that we have not had before so there were a lot of changes this year that were made to the test in itself so now that we've seen it we know and we can make those changes as we move forward in our instruction as well so if you see here at the our Brenham

205elementary schools all three of them together you can see that kind of a Shining Light there we had with some third grade reading where we saw some numbers above the state averages you can see they're in green are all of the the district scores and in white are the state averages and so you can see there in a lot of places especially in our approaches area that we are within two to three points of the state average so we are not where we want to be for sure but we are in line with the majority of the schools across the state as we make this shift and change to a new way of testing and so those numbers reflect that that change you can see there at the middle school again our area of growth

206and and shining stars are sixth grade reading and again we're a few points away from the state and our approaches category again not exactly where we hope to be but this is a place for us to start and to to make adjustments and make changes so that our students can continue to grow and change with our new changing assessment um and then at the junior high school um our seventh grade math is above the state average along with science in eighth grade in all of the different reporting uh the categories of um our achievement categories you can see that they're above um well over in several places so um again we we continue to look at this data we use it to make those instructional decisions that we do for our students in plc's but

207again this is one test one day it's a small snapshot of what our students are capable of and what they're able to do but we will definitely take this data and use it as one of our data points as we make instructional decisions I know that there were some questions as well about accountability those accountability ratings and all of that information was supposed to come out this month due to all of these changes to the way testing occurred they are pulling that back now and we may have some accountability decisions at the end of October or beginning of November because they are going to make some adjustments due to the changes in the assessment so that is has been delayed as well Sarah how's that going to affect teachers who need to know who needed

208to know before school started how their students had had performed before and now they have to wait until until accountability finally shows up it's kind of like way way way behind absolutely the kids had to take the test early but they didn't get their scores back this long that's really not fair to our children and part of the the promise with the online testing was that results would be back much faster which ended up not being the case again this is one data point so our teachers are really looking at map data which gives us a much broader picture and on a more um a a different scale it allows us to do that mid-year testing as well so a lot of instructional decisions are being made based on map scores from where they ended

209last year and the map test they took in the fall when they came to us that data is very reliable in telling us not just how they did on this one assessment but exactly where they're ready to learn at any grade level where they are happen to fall so if if you're a seventh grader taking the reading map test you may have some growth areas where you may have missed a skill in fifth grade and the map test will tell us that so the teachers have good data to make instructional decisions along with progress monitoring and formative assessment that they're doing in their classrooms on a regular basis talking those scores over with their PLC teams talking about best practices and so the teachers do have data to go on so having this delayed was

210not detrimental to instructional decisions that we needed to make and having accountability delayed it doesn't affect instructional decisions a lot of the data the star data is just one piece of that but a lot of the other data that's used is one two three years old so it's it's very lagging students on the regular test day they take they're taking the test online right yes sir no I don't see it back in the day release tests it's me back in the day we had like release tests yes now we have any kind of practice test do they have to they do that online also yes so now that we've taken the test in the new format one time um they have already released that it is public available online for anybody to see at texasassessment.org

211or sorry.gov and so anyone can get online and see what the types of questions are that they're asking our students and how that would just the test that the students are being asked to complete so they don't have the students don't have a choice they have to take the test online yes unless they have documented needs and paperwork and the decision is made based on a committee for a very small percentages knocked me out all right so I don't feel that these test results reflect the same results we sell our in the map testing because I feel like the map testing was a lot better news for the growth of our students how do we bridge the gap between the map test and the star testers or was it just because we didn't know what

212to expect the map testing didn't reflect what the current star test was so the students were unprepared just for the test format right so I think having a different format did throw some people for a loop um the state did not release a whole lot of of practice questions to give you a good idea of what that was going to look like um and so teachers teach and they go on best practices and did the best that they knew knew to do to teach students the content and hope that that translate into a new format of a test that we weren't completely sure of what it would look like so now that we know and we can take that data and we can look to see what those new questions look like how certain teaks

213are being tested because the way sometimes that's interpreted um could look a little bit different from person to person if you know how the questions are aligned to the standards and so now that we have this new piece of data we'll be able to add that to that whole picture of our students so has did we already make changes I don't want to say changes to curriculum but did we already make changes in our classrooms to help reflect this the current STAR test process this current startup method has that been done already well now that we we know what they look like yes those things are being looked at they say that it's supposed to reflect a lot of the practices we do in class anyway like some of the new question types are a

214drag and drop to sort words into a diagram or drop down choices to complete a sentence so they are it's just different from what our students are used to doing rather than selecting an ABCD they're manipulating things online to show their their understanding some of which give partial credit so it's just a new way of testing a new way of thinking about things and so I I think we'll see a bridge in that now that we know what it looks like okay last last question this has been brought up in the community a lot and it's the the growth plan and the accountability of the test so when will we be able to see something about what our projected our minimum projected growth would be from this year to last year now that we have

215the current format for the star test we really don't have any I hate we don't have any excuses on to say the format was correct so I don't know if this is I don't know who to ask the question to um I know but I mean I guess the board you all agree with what I'm saying like we this is something the community has asked for so when can we some get some type of information that's going to be able to say hey this is what we're going for so we have a goal so we know if if we need to hold people accountable for not not growing which is what we all want that's literally why we're here it's for kids education so I guess when bloody um ratings growth is a part of

216that they have pulled back the ratings partly to readjust what growth looks like we're comparing apples to oranges in some cases because we're comparing two different assessments so how do you measure growth accurately between two different assessments so that is being assessed at a state level um with the with the teams there and then we look at a that whole picture of our data and those will be campus-led decisions as well based on campus Improvement teams that will look at that whole picture with map data and now EOC or Star data and make those instructional decisions I guess do we will we have access to this because they're going to present at the next board meeting because they'll have the other okay everything with the plans right okay so that's great I just want to

217make sure like I said I the community's been asking and I think it's I think it's tan it's necessary to have something down so we can we know what to look back on the previous year instead of saying oh I did a little bit better but and we could have sooner had the state or not you know it's hard to make adjustments when we don't get the results until after school has started so the teachers have had their PD the campuses have made their plans and then we get this and now tea because of it being a different test that's why they've delayed the the next part of the accountability process look I look forward to the presentation then because I'd like to see what our growth plan is question um on on the results

218here grade three and four is reading and math and then grade five is reading math science but then grade six and seven doesn't have science did that get left off or do they not get tested on that because then it's back again at eighth grade those are the only tests that are assessed based on state level and and federal level decisions were required to test third through eighth grade or third through High School reading and math and then science is in fifth grade but it's a it's a a test that encompasses third fourth and fifth grade standards the eighth grade science test includes sixth seventh and eighth grade standards in the social studies is a standalone U.S history through reconstruction test got it so I completely understood it though made sense um okay and I

219know Jared kind of danced around this and um I I'm a little bit more blunt but these numbers obviously are not great and we definitely need a plan to get these numbers fixed and back up to where we should be we're falling behind the state except for an 8th grade science um we're falling behind the state and we should be not only ahead of the state but I mean the mastering level um is kind of what I consider an a grade and meets is I guess your B grade but I I mean I'm maybe I'm crazy here but I will I'm hoping that the approaches numbers should be at the meet number and the meat number should be at the Masters number and and eventually that's our goal to get there I'm I'm assuming we

220all agree on that because that's why we're all here but I think we need to have a very set Five-Year Plan or at least a three-year plan of here's where we need to be this is the goal post and here's what we're going to do to get it there and I get it there's tests of apples and oranges butter rotten apples are rotten apple and we should focus on passing all of them and mastering everything and making mastering the goal and not just approaching the goal so what do we need to do to get a three-year Five-Year Plan or gold track record whatever of this is where we're going to be and this is how we're going to do it so um we began last year with a curriculum design team that began working on

221looking at the essential standards and identifying those essential standards so our teachers could provide instruction to really make sure our students are mastering those skills so they've worked throughout last year and through the summer very intensively on designing these documents and so working as a district to identify what are we going to really hit hard and teach to Mastery level in third grade in fourth grade and fifth grade and so they've been working throughout the summer to design these documents and they're now posted on our website so our parents can see them our teachers can see them and everybody has access and it's to the level of the rigor that we need to show these the progress of these students so really we've we're putting those things in place it just takes time for that

222change to happen so absolutely we need goals and we need to work hard to meet those goals and that's what we're in the process of doing now I want to make sure I point out those that curriculum design team they're teachers this is experts in the field in the classroom who work with kids every single day saying this is what needs to happen for us to get Kyle as you're talking about to where we need to be so all of our kids are successful it's not it's not a curriculum team up here it's not administrator saying teachers you do this is Teachers designing a curriculum management system that says this will get our our students where they need to be earlier I talked about the work that Mr OG and the PLC and all of

223our campusers are doing with the teachers they do that on a weekly if not daily basis they get together as a team of say third grade teachers and they say how did your students do based on this assessment so we have Monitor and we adjust based on not only the outcomes of the students but was that tool a proper assessment of what it is we want our students to know there's a lot of fallacies with a state test that everybody across the board is going to take our teachers as part of that curriculum management system are designing appropriate assessments that say where are our students so that we can make sure we dig deep much like the map scores and stuff that they can use to dig deep into the skills that our students are

224missing so they can apply that reasoning and that critical thinking to future questions or future problems again I can't say enough about our teachers that have given up a lot a lot of time in the last year and a half to design this this curriculum management system the assessments that go along with that because you can you can teach all day long but if you have the wrong tool assessing what you're teaching or kids are not going to be successful right so our teachers have done a great job designing that we look forward in October for our teachers who helped design that to come to front of you guys and say Here's what we've created show you the examples compare our map data as as Jared was saying with the star data that is designed

225for a blanket across the state of Texas over 5.4 million students to take all at one time versus a teacher in one of our classrooms at any of our Elementary's Middle School junior high high school saying this is what our students can do so if we monitoring adjusting instruction every day in the classroom based on that and as a group of teachers Professionals in the field who are trained to teach and work with those kids every every day making those adjustments so our kids can be successful that includes includes everybody they all take the same test I don't want to I guess speak incorrectly I believe that our teachers are doing an amazing job and they're fighting an uphill battle um and I believe they're doing an excellent job fighting that battle I believe part

226of [Music] um are are lacking in scores is because the test is just well what's the nice word to say no so let me let me let me switch gears and ask a different question because that's that's what I do um is this and I've never claimed to be a teacher I'm the business guy from the outside here coming in trying to do something different but is this test required and can we do a different version of the state test because when I was here it wasn't a STAR test it was a different test and I know they changed names every three years but is it statement required because there's got to be a different version of this there's got to be a little bit more common sense than this terrible poorly tossed tests yeah

227and they'll change your name again and then they'll change the wording again and then they'll change how we take the test again as well and [Music] you don't like it they know it's flawed if if the standard to pass is 40 and only 50 percent of kids in the state can meet a threshold of 40 percent that tells you how bad the test is right that we would never allow teachers to grade our students based on that 100 but if as a parent if I say to the state y'all are wrong y'all are doing this wrong and I say my kid is not going to take the test then it hurts the district because yeah yeah they count that counts against the district so you want to do what's best for your kid we talk

228about parental rights this is a huge violation of parental rights because I don't know very many parents agree with the star test yet we are forcing our kids to do it because the state is telling us to and it's not good for kids it's not good for the district go to the basics if they can read they should score appropriately on the reading test if they can do math they should score appropriately on a math test you shouldn't have to be an excellent reader to score well on a math test there are kids who are gifted at one and not the other and the test is so convoluted that these kids just see failure when they look at these scores sorry soapbox it's a good soapbox to be on though um and I I agree

229with something you said and it kind of struck it stood out to me um I I know back in my day they always used to say you know we we teach to the test we're teaching to the test and I don't think we do that anymore well I remember I remember hearing that yeah that's what it was maybe um and I always it didn't make sense and it still doesn't I mean if you're in first second third grade and you're good at phonics you're going to be pretty decent at spelling and if you're also good at phonics you're going to be pretty good at reading and that continues all the way up through sixth seventh eighth grade and so on so I'm assuming that our teachers fighting the uphill battle like I said but are

230able to just teach and not focus on this as much and I think our Maps score really kind of showed where we're really at right and the hard part is though the state judges the elementary schools accountability score is rated 100 percent on the star test so we talk about advocacy and why it's important and this is why because we need the state to be listening to us the teaks which is the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills they have so much stuffed in there it's not the basics so that's why you can't master it and and I mean I shouldn't say like our goal is for them to master I want my kids to master it but there's so much in there that that's why the threshold is 40 instead of a 70. it should

231be a 70. if you pass with a 70 just like everything else in school that's passing but they lower it because there's not there's no way to get everything done in one year to cover the teeth so they lower the standard 8th grade social studies has over 90 standards to teach in one year eighth grade social studies has over 90 standards to teach in one year and what is their threshold do you remember offhand what the threshold is for prevent the paper but it's I mean that's a large chunk of Standards to teach when one thing and then to have a test made from that not just it's a little out of the realm of reality any other questions I have one one question so how much of this can be um sort of I'm

232going to piggyback on what Cal said earlier um attributed to the design of the test or the deaths being online instead of in paper because just when you're up there in the beginning describing it and you're like okay now students have to go on a computer they have to match the words they have to drag the mouse they have to do this they have to do that I'm like I'd rather just mark it on a piece of paper and that creates a lot more stress for me as a student especially a student with a disability you know like and so basically what I'm asking is how long is it going to take for our students to get used to the test where we can sort of erase that as maybe an excuse and sort of

233kind of catch up to that and be ready for it does that make sense it does yes right I agree with you man computer that's I mean that that's gonna that's gonna knock me out yeah right but you also have to think you think about it so many of our kids they don't have this that's two computers at home right the only time they have a chance to get them you know the end of summer months you know July and August that's not fair I guess in the world that's a great question and I want to piggyback on that real quick and this is kind of similar to testing but a separate question are kids in class at some point on a computer doing regular work on a computer so they're getting familiar with it

234and do we need to increase that because of ridiculous testing because my son we do spelling words at night and pen and paper he can get them down but if I stood him in front of the computer and tell them to type the word it took a long time to find the letters and then you lose your train of thought to find the letters and that's that's a way different scenario and we limit screen time so therefore he's limited on computer time therefore it's very limited on keyboard time so are we doing that in school there's a set of like computers in pretty much every classroom that's specific for that classroom so it stays in in there and so that that's what my son uses and then he can log on to Google Classroom whenever

235he's at home if there's any homework and so it just it all piggybacks off of each other it's actually a really good system to be able to not have to carry all that stuff but yeah they're they're definitely in the classrooms [Music] for that to really again my question wasn't answered and I'm not Kyle kind of took over the conversation a little bit but um how long do you think it's gonna take to kind of get used to this and catch up yeah and I think that's really difficult Archer to predict I mean every student is individual and some students are you know they can pick up that test and get on the computer and perform right away without any exposure and then there's other students it takes longer right you know I think it

236would just be a guess if I predicted right I think what we need to do is provide all of our students opportunities to grow and develop those skills so that we don't feel that the test format is impacting student performance but it does I mean I would be guessing if I said in two years the test isn't going to impact because in two years the state's probably going to change it again no they keep changing yeah that's and and we haven't really talked about this it it really hurts parents to have to think about their kids going to school for that test it really hurts a lot of our kids there were third graders I know this past year who took most of the day to take it and that's I mean that's it hurts

237my heart to think about the kids sitting there at eight years old right yeah nine years old and there are a lot of parents but it's because we allow it as a state it it is because we allow it and there are a lot of parents like Kyle that don't necessarily want their kids exposed to a high level of Technology at a younger age or social media or whatever it may be none of us but I totally understand that and then you you bring in Tommy's comment of the socioeconomic folks that don't have access to those Technologies they're going to the library three four times three four hours a day after school trying to get used to the computer I mean it it's not as sustainable paper paper but we've had the same commissioner now

238for many many years and we've had I I can't I can't even tell you how many different tests we've had over the years and it just keeps building and I don't know where it's going to stop but this is something we need to look at at a state level thank you thank you all very much appreciate it thank you okay next we have um monthly reports for informational purposes and then we will go into executive session it's 9 32 P.M for the purpose authorized by Texas open meetings that Texas government code section 551.071 consultation with attorney 551.074 Personnel matters and 551.076 deliberation regarding security devices thank you all very much I appreciate your patience for a long meeting thank you for being here foreign it is 10 17 we have now reconvened an open session

239and with no further business before the board we will adjourn at 10 17. thank you have a good evening