001good evening it is six o'clock P.M the Board of Trustees of the Brenham Independent School District is now convened I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present in collaboration with our families and Community 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 speaking
002thank 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 Tommy Sullivan with literacy and justice let us pray Our Father we come to you this afternoon giving you all the thanks and all the Glory thank you for just being so good and just being so kind we come this afternoon after you and thanking you help me call us for our students our staff members everyone in this town in this community we ask you to rep your loving arms around to each and every one of us coming upon us as we close this school year out we thank you for our teachers we don't we thank you our students ask
003that you protect him with your Karen and everlasting Grace we thank you for the blessing all blessings and your son Jesus Christ's name amen amen thank you okay first we will be canvassing the returns to declare the results of the trustee election held on May 6 2023 and at this time I'm going to pass out the canvassing documents to the board members just to verify you'll just check the numbers on the documents and make sure that they match foreign I think I'm the only one yeah let's see and Debbie is it correct that I signed them after everyone has checked okay yeah yeah good thank you okay and after you finish reading this I didn't put it on here but there should be a motion to approve the canvas results okay got it okay the
004board has been provided the returns which were duly and lawfully made Available To Us by the judges and clerks holding and conducting the election and we find that the following votes were cast in the election by voters who were resident qualified voters of the district for position one James Frankie total votes cast Bonnie brinkmeyer total votes cast 23-22 for position two total votes cast from Michael Altman 1625 total votes casted for Casper Archer Archer 1828. for position three artist Edwards total votes cast 1095. for Kyle haffner total votes cast 2375. for position four David jancey total votes cast 1704 for Kelvin Raven total votes cast 1740. we officially find determine and declare that the election was duly and properly ordered proper legal notice of the election was duly given in the English and Spanish languages
005that election officers were duly appointed prior to the election the election was duly and legally held and all Resident qualified voters of the district were permitted to vote a majority of the resident qualified voters of the Brenham ISD voting in the election voted for Bonnie brinkmeyer position one Archer Archer position two Kyle Hafner position three and Kelvin Raven position four congratulations and we will need a motion to approve the canvas results it's um yeah it just makes it much I make a motion to accept the canvassing of the results okay we have a motion made by Jared krennic seconded by Kelvin Raven to accept the canvassing results of the election all in favor opposed the motion carries thank you okay next and I will sign to make it official thank you okay part one complete
006next we have the certificates of election and this is um your certificate to keep and I will sign these for the newly elected trustees and then the next one is one that we will keep and this is a statement of office and this is just done prior to your oath um yeah okay all right and if you will come up one at a time and read your statement and then sign it and then that will be kept on record and just for public it says I and then the name of the trustee do solemnly swear or affirm that I have not directly or indirectly paid offered promised to pay contributed or promised to contribute any money or thing of value or promise to any public office or employment for the giving or withholding of a
007vote at the election at which I was elected or as a reward to secure my appointment or confirmation whichever the case may be so help me God so if the new trustees will come forward to sign these and I'll need all four of you okay thank you okay and for the oath of office we will just go in order of positions so miss brinkmeyer if you'll come forward and if you would like your family to come stand with you they are more than welcome to come forward and stand with you oh and judge durenberger is here we appreciate him being here to swear in our new trustees thank you judge [Music] okay repeat after me I Bonnie do solemnly swear or affirm that I will Faithfully execute the duties that I Faithfully execute the duties
008of the office of the Brenham ISD Board of Trustees position one of the office of the Brigham ISD Board of Trustees position one of the State of Texas of the State of Texas and will to the best of my ability and will to the best of my ability preserve preserved and defend protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state so help me God and of this state so help me God this is it [Applause] Archer next for position two is Archer Archer anyway okay raise your right hand repeat after me I am do solemnly swear or affirm that I will Faithfully execute the duties of the office of Brenham ISD Board of trustee position 2. [Music] of the state of
009Texas and will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state so help me God [Applause] Carl I think you're out there is your group all right position three Kyle haffner raise your right hand and repeat after me I do solemnly swear or affirm or that I will Faithfully execute the duties of the office of Brenham ISD Board of trustee position three of the state of Texas and will the do excuse me and will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state so help me God foreign position for Kelvin Raven I can't do solemnly swear or affirm that I will Faithfully execute the duties of the office of
010Brenham ISD Board of trustee position 4. of the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state so help me God [Applause] thank you judge durenberger thank you to everyone who ran everyone who voted or participated in any way in the election welcome to the board okay next we have our election of board of trustee officers each year the Board of Trustees elect officers which include president vice president and secretary and I'm going to turn over the nominations for president yes first thank you everybody for being here tonight yeah let me try this one okay first thing we we do is uh nominate and elect a president to reside over us for the following year um the
011process is I'll call for nominations shortly we can have more than one nomination do not have to have a second for each nomination just a nomination when nomination seeks when there's no further nominations then I'll call for a vote for each of the people in the order that they are nominated I think it's perfect okay all right so to begin this process I call an open nominations are now in order for the office of present I make a nomination for Natalie Lane for president okay thank you are there any further nominations for the office of president okay if no further nominations for the office of President are offered nominations are closed at this time I will call for the vote for the office of President each member will vote One One Time by raising their
012right hand those in favor of navigating to serve in the office of president of the Board of Trustees raise your right hand and keep it raised until counted it doesn't favor those in favor yes sir Debbie you got those opposed okay thank you at this time I'll turn it over to our re-elected board president miss Natalie Lang nominations are now in order for the office of Vice President I'd like to nominate Tommy Sullivan are there any further nominations for the office of Vice President if no further nominations for the office of Vice President are offered nominations are closed at this time I will call for the vote for the office of Vice President each member will vote One Time by raising their right hand those in favor of Tommy Sullivan to serve in the office
013of Vice President of the Board of Trustees raise your right hand and keep it raised until counted the vote is unanimous thank you Tommy Sullivan has received the majority of votes to serve as vice president of the Brenham ISD Board of Trustees thank you Tommy okay nominations are now in order for the office of secretary I make a motion too th as board secretary are there further nominations for the office of secretary if no further nominations for the office of secretary are offered nominations are closed at this time I will call for the vote for the office of secretary each member will vote One Time by raising their right hand those in favor of Jared krennic to serve in the office of Secretary of the Board of Trustees raise your right hand and keep it
014raised until counted you can vote for yourself yeah [Laughter] self-confidence man the vote is unanimous Jared krennic has received the majority of the votes to serve as Secretary of the Brenham ISD Board of Trustees thank you and congratulations and at this time if y'all wouldn't mind switching places and just bring your dude I know my right side is better than my left side I'm not sure thank you okay I think that's all the the paperwork type items um now for the fun part of special recognition we're going to start with our department Spotlight and our first Department that we will recognize is Child Nutrition our director of Child Nutrition Cassandra Davis will recognize her Department I brought the audience today all right well they make their way up I would just like to say good
015evening ladies and gentlemen of the board and Dr Chaplin I would especially like to give a warm welcome to our newest school board members congratulations it's a privilege for me tonight to speak on behalf of the Child Nutrition department and have the opportunity to recognize these hard-working individuals I think there's a large misconception of what it is that we do it reminds me of the memes that show what your parents think you do what your friends think you do what your supervisor thinks you do Etc first I would like to have our manager step forward I think we had five of them here tonight you're here step forward please so these ladies are typically the first ones to arrive at their campus in the morning sometimes they that means they're the first ones to find
016out there's no electricity at the school or that the hot water heater busted and their kitchen is flooded both of those happen to one campus this year managers hold a lot of responsibility this includes paperwork like forecasting student participation to order receive entering invoices inventory maintaining food production records hassup and safety testing new recipes continuing education keeping up with school functions and adjusted Bell schedules managing staff including scheduling overtime training and any other situation that arises on top of that since coming here two years ago I have changed a lot of their processes to be online and streamline the department which has impacted all of them in their daily tasks and I'm truly proud of how far they've come the next group I'd like to step forward managers go a little bit all right so
017the next group is going to be our Specialists which are the majority of the ladies in our department these ladies are our boots on the ground the ones who make all of our other jobs possible these ladies prep and serve food following standardized recipes that meet USDA guidelines they clean and mop from top to bottom all day long they use a large array of equipment and small equipment they learn student names hug them in the morning ask them how their tests went and cashier most importantly they have heart and will do whatever it takes to get the students the last group is still cleaning up after our dinner but I still want to point out our office staff these are the ladies that hold the glue together and keep me accountable for everything that goes
018on within the past year I just want to highlight some awards that our department has received we received the turnip the beat goal level participant award we were only one of 26 winners in the state of Texas and one of 98 Nationwide this award was given to programs who went above and beyond to serve high quality meals during the summer of 2022. next up was our farm fresh challenge we won the best of the bunch award which we received for serving three or more local Texas Foods representing different meal components each week in October and hosted a nutrition education opportunity last step I just wanted to give some fun statistics so for breakfast meals this year we have served 170 240 breakfasts it's about 1050 breakfast a day that's an increase of seven percent from
019last year so we're feeding more kiddos before they get to school in class next up are lunch meals so far this year we've served 447 669 000 lunches on average it's about 2 800 lunches a day I just like to give all these ladies a round of applause for anything everything that they do [Applause] thank you all so much we appreciate you thank you all okay thank you there are open seats if there's anyone else that's waiting that would like to come sit down their their open seats thank you next we have our School nurses and assistant superintendent clay gillentine and yeah from Deborah Saunders okay yeah all I was going to do was pass it off to Deborah we're so very thankful for this group what they do each and every day to meet
020our kids where they are and Deborah's going to introduce them they thank you good evening I'm Deborah Saunders the lead nurse for the district a nurse's care and served for other serve others what do nurses actually do because I'm not sure if everyone really knows what we do we provide care for those with acute illness seizures asthma food allergies diabetics daily medications injuries and the medically fragile also we do Wellness Care by doing hearing vision and spinal screenings maintaining immunization records developing ihps as well as attending 504 and art meetings in addition we coordinate with student Care by communicating with parents and medical providers in the community and work with School administration counselors dietary teachers otpt athletic trainers we are clinical mentors for students in the Blinn LVN and RN programs who rotate through our
021clinics we use our knowledge and critical thinking skills to care for both the students and the staff and so far this year our clinics we've we've had 53 000 events have through our clinics so I think and that's a lot more than even last year I can't give you a percentage but it is more so we do see lots of kids I'd like to introduce this professional and dedicated nursing staff we have Yesenia Bennett and she is with Krause and we have caseworks and she is with Alton Elementary and we have Alexis Smith who's here at the high school with me Street and unfortunately Sam Sam Luna from eclc and Emily Dahl could not make it this evening this evening thank you thank y'all so much we appreciate everything y'all do first night thank you
022so much next we want to recognize ROTC National finalists and Captain Jeffrey Bays will introduce the members of the ROTC who competed in the national competition another hey pretty loud another year another honor to bring you our seventh year in a row of attending Nationals in front of you got about half the team we got an avid trip going on this week and a couple people that had to work but it's about half the team that went we took 19 people to Nationals this year and left with third place which is great but the biggest thing I would say that we came out with and I don't think this is said enough is that you know just the experience of being there not only that but we got first place and the most important event
023that they do at the meet but although they got third uh to me they're champions in my eyes um we got a couple people here we got the current CEO over here we got next year's EXO we got next year's Co we got a lot of different leadership up here our Color Guard Commander here on next year's unarmed exhibition Commander so we got a lot of people coming back and I'm excited for next year we're so proud of y'all thank you for representing ISD so well congratulations thank you for coming being recognized congratulations incredible thank you all so much congratulations thank you thank you congratulations next we have some Visual Arts students that we want to recognize and our Communications coordinator Brooke Trahan will introduce these students so I would like to introduce the art
024teachers Mr Henry and Miss Nichols they are both veteran art teachers but they are first year to Brenham ISD this has been a growing program but for them to come in as first-year teachers take it over and have the successes that they have had this year has been outstanding so I will pass it over to them I I just want to start off before I start reading off the script uh thank you guys for your support so much admin especially foreign anyway here we go this school year we had a fantastic turnout and student participation in multiple art contests art events here within the community and creating Personal Expressions on campus the visual fine arts department participated in community events such as the Washington County Fair empty bowls for the Brazos Food Bank Texas Arts
025Music Festival arts and appetizers which I've recognize a lot of you folks in that thank you for supporting that and our seniors for field day face painting at Alton Elementary School this was the first year students participated in the empty bowls project and that's a Grassroots Movement by artists and Crafts People in cities and towns around the world raise money for food related charities care for and feed the hungry in their communities we paired up with the Brazos food bank and our students volunteered at the Texas Art and music festival to sell and serve soup out of their ceramic bowls each dollar they sold provided five meals for those in need at the Arts and appetizers event we had more than 30 students contribute Works to auction this year which has raised over eighty two
026thousand dollars for our foundation some of these kids sold their pieces for as much as two thousand dollars and that contributed a significant amount not only did the art students spread the love of art by serving food out of their ceramic bowls okay they also created two large artworks right here on our campus permanent mural is now part of the high school and the Art Club created temporary holiday murals during the month of December spread the holiday cheer we look forward to how they will continue random Legacy of trading artistic spaces for all to see students Talent shined in their assignments in earning recognition in the following competitions Scholastic art in writing the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo the Brenham High School we had the traditional recognition of festive show two gold medals and a
027special Merit along with five finalists in Houston in Houston in addition to having such a large participation at Houston Livestock Show on Rodeo we also had students participate in the rodeo quick draw in which students dedicated their time after school to train for weeks on how to draw real people from observation in a specific time in the prestigious Scholastic art and writing contest we had eight students submit interest thousands of students from all over the region of South Texas competed in this event and from our school alone our students are the silver key when one of our students under silver key for digital photography and an honorable mention for her photograph in addition to this we also had two other students are an honorable mention for their photography this year the students also participated in
028the UIL art event base right okay and we had 11 students earn medals for exceptional scores and two with excellent scores this UIL event was held at College Station students had to present their artwork to a judge and give a presentation on how they executed their idea practice their skill sets and align their composition to the principle of design that was a mouthful winner the scores based on their knowledge of their skill sets and their confidence and their ability to articulate in words moreover the visual art department has succeeded in creating an environment that Fosters a safe and secure place for all of our students regardless of their love or lack thereof for visual art our class is a place now where students can succeed feel welcome and have an enjoyable time being creative no
029matter what their skill level may be and our incoming numbers for next year reflect that positive atmosphere because the word is out that our class is a great place and uh I would like to say that all these things that you our kids have accomplished this year I really believe it's going to be exponential next year and uh like my house off to miss Nichols especially the hard work that she's put in and we I think we've succeeded creating connections and Rapport and relationship with these great kids lives and they make it so easy thank you guys thank you we're so proud of what you're doing and we can't wait to see what's next we'd love to get a picture with y'all congratulations thank you so much thank you next we have consideration and possible
030approval of a monetary donation from the Texas Arts and Music Music Festival our Communications coordinator Brooke Trahan will introduce the members of the Texas Texas Arts and Music Festival who are here Jenny van Dorff is our board president and I'll let her tell you a little bit about Texas Arts and Music Festival oh thank you guys so the Texas Arts and Music Festival is a wonderful 501c3 non-profit organization that has raised twenty thousand dollars over the last eight years now I think uh since 2016 uh through our Festival that we have in October and as I'm sure you've known that or seeing the 25 murals that we have in around town which you know created a nice beautification of the city and that money that we raised goes to students in the Belleville Seeley uh
031Brennan and Burton area to promote arts and music programs which we hope you will consider and accept our donation today to you guys in order to help continuing that tradition that we've had and uh anyway so thank you very much for letting us present that to you and we hope to continue for many years to come thank you so much for the donation and everything you do for the community we we appreciate you more than you know we've only made a motion to approve I make a motion to approve the aforementioned monetary donations and recognize said donors as presented second okay we have a motion made by Jared krennic seconded by Archer Archer to approve the aforementioned monetary donations and recognize said donors as presented all in favor opposed the motion carries thank you so
032much [Applause] [Music] thank you again thank you we're so fortunate to have so many individuals and groups who are willing to work hard and and give back to the school district thank you all okay next we have our public comment and audience participation this is an opportunity for citizens to address the board or make comments to the board the board will only listen without comment the public participation section of the meeting will be limited to 30 minutes total 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 and please keep
033in mind that individual names may not be mentioned during these presentations and we had several individuals sign up when you're you're called forward the time is up here so if you'll just keep track of that and then stop at three minutes if if you're still going um the first person is Jim Boyd to address um daughter's English literature course good evening my name is James Boyd my daughter is taking a senior level English literature class here they are reviewing classic novels such as Great Gatsby minimized Sun Also Rises and a part of that review a video is shown in class for each one of these novels and they're from a I think you should know what's in the videos they're from a YouTube channel called Thug Notes Original Gangster the language in these videos is
034depressing I'm not going to repeat the words here I don't feel comfortable doing it even though the children have left the room and we could do I can Sam if you want but suffice it to say that English literature is now taught here with repeated use of the f word in the classroom and all its various forms these videos to integrate women when the characters in the novel in these videos reviews are called hoes trim you can look that one up that one's interesting ask dirty skank this his name it's crazy smack that up in the classroom in English literature my daughter sat through this these videos are filled with anti-white racial insults excuse me I start shaking when I girl feelings the characters in the novel are called honkies according to Wikipedia honky is
035a derogatory term used to refer to white people the characters that call it crackers according to Wikipedia this is a racial slur directed towards white people that's my understanding of it why people are called fools not because they're a fool as their character in the novel but because they're white and the white men in these novels are repeatedly called in a dismissive manner boys white boys now virtually men have been called Boys in this society as a means of racial repression they prevent all men from achieving their full potential in our society and I think we all know that when a man is called a boy when his race is put in ahead of that as an adjective if it's a racial slur I think we all know that that's done repeatedly those those children
036when they're not children they're 17 18 years old they had to sit there in a classroom and listen to this she had to sit there and listen to her father being denigrated like this I learned that murders representative of judeo-christian morality and um I have a long list of things here to complain about but I don't want to and I don't want to repeat this language I'll just say that you know a society can condition its young women to embrace their own denigration we can do that we can teach them that but it's not a good it's horrible it's an evil thing to do we can't condition young people of all Races to hate themselves to embrace their own denigration and dehumanization that is a terrible thing to do we need to lift each other
037up not tear each other down and laugh as we insult one another and so I've been away from education for a long time and so I was deeply um I was really impacted by this I didn't know this kind of thing went on thank you thank you and if if you say [Applause] if you're here after the meeting I know the high school principal is here okay thank you please bear with us yay now I don't think he heard you because I didn't what were you saying he heard me he responded thank you thank you um Suzanne flammer and the topic is moms for America good evening this comes we are members of moms for America a national state and growing local organization and members of local churches that support pro-life pro-family and pro-parental rights
038issues we're also taxpayers and we're concerned about a lobbying organization having a negative influence Over Texas schools I want to congratulate the new board members it's wonderful to see you on here and we look forward to being able to work in cooperation with you but like the gentleman before me there are things that need to be said and this is the best opportunity um a recent article titled lawmakers urge all school districts to leave Texas Association of school boards reported that Texas state legislators sent a letter to every school board in Texas encouraging them to do the right thing for The taxpayers Who entrusted our elusive who entrust you with students their stewardship for their hard-earned money since then Carol ISD in South Lake has left and following their leading they gave reasons that indicate
039am I talking it's okay okay indicate that tasby who once was respected for their services to Texans has become a radically a radicalized political organization three minutes I don't have a lot of opportunities but I'll tell you for example late on June 23rd the female athletes staged a rally called our bodies Our Sports in Washington DC it was protested by transgender group rights groups in Oregon organizations three months later another article reported that tasb convention in San Antonio hosted the Texas civil liberties Union ACLU who presented a prac best practices program entitled transgender students in Texas schools what you need to know included concerns about challenges in schools over restrooms in sports in other words tasb hosted the opponents of the female athletes who rallied over challenges to their rights given under Title IX and
040instead endorsed transgender males to compete against our student females in Campus Sports David Hamilton of Fort Bend ISD attended the tasb presentation and then tweeted they were trying to force Texas public schools to allow boys in locker rooms adding that it sounded like a warning that schools must accommodate transgender rights or face lawsuits from the ACLU the lawmakers accused to have as guidelines of endorsing radical gender and ideology and endangering children at Public Schools Steve Roth said that part of the program lies with the school board trustees who don't question what they're told please I urge you we love our students I know you do the girls need all the support from this school board that they can get because there are activists coming after their rights to to compete as females in a Level
041Playing Field Sports game thank you for your attention week we're so happy that you're here thank you thank you thank you [Applause] next is John Davies you said I could go Oh I thought I thought I had it in the right order I'm sorry Billy Billy Sutherland all right before I say anything else I want to offer my sincere apology for the email that I sent on Friday it was much more harsh than it needed to be I understand why it caused upset I allowed weeks of frustration to control how I wrote it and I was wrong to do that so no attempts to rationalize or Justify I was wrong I apologize I was an error it won't happen again I hope you can accept my apology second as I said in a follow-up email
042to you besides my written apology I spoke from my own experience and frustration not as a representative from Texas church leaders Texas church leaders had absolutely nothing to do with my email it was from my own email account and in no way was an attempt to speak for them third I want to sincerely thank Madam president for her thoughtful response to my email it's the first time since I've been emailing the board that anybody has responded with more than just a thank you or a couple of lines or a brief paragraph and you email Madam president you mentioned the high stress and political pressure we're seeing in society and I'd really love for you to consider the possibility that maybe one of the reasons for that is the very nature of how School boards run
043their meetings in a high stress situation there needs to be a legitimate safety valve to let off some of the pressure in a calm and polite manner I know I may sound like a broken record on this but it is exactly why just over three months ago I became passionate about seeing what I could do to change the school board in hopes of changing the format during that time I attended over 130 meetings to listen to people and this open dialogue issue came up a lot I have suggested several times that we have some type of town hall meeting to actually discuss issues rather than a very tightly controlled format we have here we the people are given a very rigidly controlled three minutes to speak during which time some board members don't even appear
044to be listening then there's no comment no response nothing then the superintendent gets to speak as long as he wants on any topic with no response of rebuttal from the audience does that really sound like a level probably playing field why can't baisd lead the way for other districts do we actually care what our constituents think and spend the time hearing them out and actually dialoguing with them that would be more like community I frequently attend commissioner Court meetings where for example I recently presented National Day of Prayer and the County Judge responded and several of the Commissioners responded we actually had a back and forth dialogue about it like friends and Neighbors I've seen other people present a topic or an idea and the judge and or Commissioners respond and actually resolve a problem
045right there on the spot so I'm asking once again why not have some sessions where we actually get to interact like friends and have a polite two-way conversation where we can work together finally one of the examples of things gone wrong is the issue of the BISD Police Department that seems to have come out of nowhere and suddenly there's this rush rush rush to get it done only three board members voted for this and now I believe there's only two on the board who voted for this uh it was a very strict timeline only three months and um to stand up an entire police department this all happened just weeks before a new board was about to be elected so the timing was another issue I'd like to suggest that the board reconsider this issue
046spend some more time doing homework to see what the actual challenges and actual cost would be and vote on it again this time with far better Community than other city and county agencies your time has expired thank you very much thank you [Applause] John Davies representing Texas church leaders good evening good evening Dr Chaplin school board members old and new my name is John Davies I'm the pastor at Brennan Bible Church and founder of Texas church leaders which is a group of individual pastors from several churches here in Brenham and surrounding areas including Brenham Bible Church Salem Lutheran Fellowship Baptist First Baptist Lions one-way Bible Church abiding Word Lutheran First Baptist Brenham country Bible Church Calvary Baptist Grace Community Fellowship Champion Fellowship as well as representatives from Cowboy Church first and foremost I wish to
047extend congratulations to all who were recently elected Mrs brinkmeyer Mr Raven Mr Hoffmeyer Mr Archer whether you won by a Lancelot or you won in a close race God and his sovereignty has placed you in a position of servant leadership for our community to serve the school board we are so grateful as a community for your willingness and obedience to step forward to begin or continue in your service for our community our prayers your local pastors is that you will serve in a manner in which brings glory and honor to God the Bible instructs God's people to pray for those that God places an authority over us in our community and so our commitment as local pastors for you is to be available individually or corporately if you need counsel and to continue to cover
048you in as much prayer as you need our desire is not only to build a bridge with you for healthy communication as Billy mentioned but also to see you embrace the Judea Christian ethic for our school district that our nation was founded on and that our community also values when we hold standards and expectations in our community that align with the principles we find in scripture the community and ultimately the school school district will flourish over the last six months there have been a number of misunderstandings and miscommunications between our group and school board and so as a new board let me start with a clean slate Texas church leaders exist for three purposes and no we don't hate any teachers we love the teachers here first for those who are Pastors in our community
049we exist as a local Pastor group for pastors to rub shoulders because being a pastor is not an easy job neither is being a school board member it's nice when you get to rub shoulders that with people who understand what you're going through and what you're walking in so we exist for each other but second we also exist as local christian leaders in this community because we long to see unity in the body of Christ and so we put together opportunities for the big sea church to come together and worship we had a wonderful service in April on Palm Sunday we saw nearly 700 Christians from across the community come together and worship as we approached Easter and in may we held an outdoor worship event in downtown for the National Day of Prayer but
050the third purpose by which we came together is because we realize that God has used leaders from among his people to confront issues in the culture when there has either been personal sin issues or a cultural shift away from God's standard in his law Christian leaders throughout history have been used to confront and speak truth to other leaders in culture Moses confronted Pharaoh Nathan confronted David David or Daniel confronted Nebuchadnezzar and the Apostle Paul even got a chance to speak to King Agrippa to that end our purpose is to speak to Truth and Love and always with grace to areas where we see God's ethic deteriorating deteriorating in our community so whether we go visit the city council on one issue or come back to you with a second please understand that we are identifying
051the issue and tracing it back to an issue that we find in Scripture that needs to be addressed whether it's the family roles for parents gender roles for kids sexual ethic financial management or any number of other issues I know that I am out of time but and I'm going to have uh Pastor Donaldson come up and pray for you because we as a group of pastors do want to pray for you as a new board but let me leave you with this one piece of encouragement in James chapter 1 God promises that if any ask for wisdom he will give liberally to all the hall and as a local Pastor I can't tell you how many times I've needed to go back and say Lord give me some wisdom here so my challenge for
052you as a new board coming together is do not be negligent in going back to the our creator the god of the universe and saying father we need wisdom thank you next is Darren Donaldson good evening believe in Darren Donaldson I'm a pastor at Fellowship Baptist Church I realize it's public comments but being a Baptist I want to pray for the community as a member of Texas church leaders I want us to do what we have pledged to do but as a Baptist I'm not sure I can pray in under three minutes but I will do the very best that I please do because I don't want to interrupt a prayer don't make me do that but since everybody's lives going to be close you won't know when the timer is out so let us
053pray God when you call me here 25 years ago I thought you'd call me to be the pastor at Fellowship Baptist Church but you taught me that I am not just the pastor there I am a pastor here in this community of Brenham and father that's what I have sought to be in these 25 years I admit to you that I have failed you at times I admit to you that there have been times when my emotions have controlled my mouth ahead of my thoughts but I have always tried to speak the truth and to do it in love but I appreciate the school board I appreciate Brenham school district and what they have done for my family in educating my own children who have now gone on to serve in their communities and father
054I lift up this school board that they may be granted wisdom that they may be granted understanding that they may be reminded that they are stewards and you have put them in this position of authority I ask for your blessing on them I ask for your protection on them I pray for your blessing on all of Brenham schools administrators teachers students support staff that you would uplift them and that always truth and education and children would be the priority mother I stand with my brothers who are Pastors in this community and like them and like everyone who prefaces the name of Christ what we want to be are ministers of reconciliation that we would bring the unity in community that we would do our very best to have a school district that we can be
055proud of and that everyone else in the state of Texas looks to as an example of what it means to follow after Christ to follow after righteousness to educate students in the best way possible so that everyone is included everyone is valued everyone has worth and everyone has dignity so thank you Lord for what you've put us here for the responsibilities you've placed under us and the task that is before us may you be our guide and may you be our strength in all things in the name of Jesus we pray amen amen amen thank you thank you next we have our superintendent's monthly update Dr Chaplin okay thank you everyone who attends tonight and Mr Donaldson thank you for the prayers we we as a district we as a community and our kids definitely
056need all the prayers that we can get a couple of things real quick just to bring people up to speed and a lot of them are just simply celebrations because it's that time of year where we celebrate a lot of our students accomplishments uh the first week of May we loaded a group of students onto a charter bus who hadn't been on a charter bus before and they went to Abilene Texas and they represented our community our school district and uh what was the UIL unified track and field state meet so I'm talking to some of those student athletes when they got back I said what was the best part and they said we got to ride in a fancy boss right they got to spend the night in a hotel you know quite an
057opportunity for our kids so we appreciate them out of 15 schools they represented Us and got eighth grade or eighth place that is the smallest number of students On Any Given team and yet they still came away with eighth place so to Angela Moore and all the people that helped her put that together and travel with her and make that opportunity possible for our kids we say thank you to them we we offered to recognize them tonight they are in the sports banquet over in the auditorium where they are being recognized by a mass volume of people for their accomplishments in representing us so great job there this past week we have quite a few things that took place we've got a lot of things going on this week I attended the eighth grade Watch
058program Junior High staff Mr Watts big smile on his face did a tremendous job of not only celebrating those individuals but also showing the support and the love that that they have for those kids daisy chain on Friday what a cool tradition right you know every time I watch those um those videos of the kids when they were small and then their older ones you know you literally get teary-eyed because you put yourself in that and you know how far those those individuals have come so what a cool tradition and then also this last week we had the Brenham Junior High art show I wandered through there during the school day and had a couple of students tell me what they had created and why they created it and uh you know that's always the
059best thing is for for a young person to not only justify their learning but from this lens of creativity to be able to see what inspired them to reflect that on the paper that they had when it went again later on that night wasn't a lot of people there talked to the teachers and said but you started the path you started the path that hopefully will continue to grow again look at the calendar board members that I put at your place there's a lot of activities going on the next two weeks to help celebrate the stuff that we have as I mentioned second ago athletic banquet was going on right now so I'm sure everybody will leave here and go right into there and help us celebrate and recognize those those athletes I keep saying
060banquet there's no food so it's a athletic ceremony right not a banquet um and our staff recognition ceremony the last day of school starts at 1 30 May 26th in the auditorium now if you get a chance to join us to celebrate our teachers we'll recognize the campus teacher of the year and paraprofessional of the year throughout the year as their nominees for the district teacher in pair of the year will announce which person was the campus teacher of the year in pair of the year then we'll also announce who will be the district teacher and para professional of the Year something we've added this year because it's a valuable part of organization is also recognizing a substitute of the Year award at that ceremony so that is May 26th at 1 30 and I'll
061I'll send you guys myself or Debbie we'll send you guys a reminder of that we'll also recognize teacher Service Awards for the years of service that that some of those individuals have given and dedicated to public education this last piece I almost said it when Captain baze was in here but you know oftentimes we know what we change lives this morning we had a signing event at the high school man we had 10 students from from Brenham High School sign up for the military we have four Army three National Guard two Navy one Marine I know they're not in the room right now but that deserves a round of applause I mentioned the captain pays that I was going to acknowledge that I know they have a lot of things going on in their young
062lives and they didn't want to stick around for me to mention that but he also happened to slide in the fact that his daughter who was the CEO he pointed out also was one of only 1200 students across the United States to receive the U.S submarine Corps Junior ROTC Marine Corps scholarship she's going to attend Texas A M next year so congratulations to her any questions on that and she was one of the art students who was recognized any questions okay thank you all right we have our consent agenda next we can approve in one motion or pool any items for discussion I don't want to I don't want to pull an item but I do want to clarify uh the funding for the boilers and for the painting what is that coming out of
063the well the painting is the next agenda item but the boilers are on it it's just a boilers and I apologize so the Steamers we won an equipment Grant in the fall of 2022 so we won it for middle school eclc and the junior high school um this first consent agenda is for two Steamers so we are purchasing the items but we will be reimbursed once we submit the invoice for those okay so it is it's funding that's there already that's all I wanted to know I just wanted to make sure okay thank you okay thank you can I ask really look for somebody to do what the budget budget is for all of us new Folks up here that have no idea what that means yeah that's a great question thank you so Ambassador
064our CFO oh yeah thank you and congratulations to the new members uh see you uh the Board of Trustees each year they they adopt the budget at the fund and function level right that's that's a part of our 20 digit account code for uh and so anytime that we are moving any funds between functions it requires board approval got it thank you very much and just to go a little further anytime that we're adjusting uh the total revenues of general fund that that too would go to the board right okay thank you very much okay we if there's no other comments or questions then we can improve in one motion or we could still cool I make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented okay we have a motion made by Kelvin Raven
065seconded by Tommy Sullivan to approve the consent agenda as presented all in favor aye opposed the motion carries thank you next we have consideration of a contract to repaint campus kitchens and our director of Child Nutrition Cassandra Davis will present this good evening um okay so just like I mentioned before Child Nutrition is a federally funded program so the local taxes and things do not go into the Child Nutrition program so we basically operate like eight restaurants because we also feed it pride so from the funds that are generated in our department that's how we pay for our own salaries our own equipment our own food groceries Etc um we due to the Federal Regulations are only allowed to have three months worth of operating expenditures at this time we have more than that so
066I am required from TDA to help spin that down so when I submitted my um plan to TDA in March I had asked for us to get approval to get painting done in the kitchens some of our campuses have peeling paint in the pantries where we're storing food signs have been moved over the years I reached out to maintenance to find out the last time our kitchens had been painted and there was nothing on record so there's been a few touch-ups here and there but the entire kitchen serving area locker rooms Etc have not been painted on record another reason I chose to have painting added was for employee morale so you know just like when you walk in at home when you have fresh paint fresh walls when we're constantly cooking as much as
067we do in the kitchens the Steamers the equipment cause yellowing and unfortunately a lot of our campuses look old and worn due to the due to the cooking and everything that we're doing so I'm hoping that with a fresh paint and just the overall look of it being improved will help it get our employee morale up and keep the retention for next year anybody have any questions further does it take a specific prep or paint because of the conditions in the kitchen yes so we are purchasing a choice Partners Co-op has an RFP out for painting drywall and flooring so I reached out to six vendors and asked them if they'd be willing to come out and walk the projects with us and go to each campus while they did that they took samples of
068the walls some of the campuses have a CMU block so they're having the paint company come out to do an adhesion test for warranty to make sure that we don't have the same peeling problems that we currently see okay thank you so Jared you gave me a bad mic it's working it's Jared's fault um so how many bits I only had I only had one vendor except the request and come out of six yes sir I heard the price somewhere how much are they charging the total price for all seven campuses are 83 283 dollars yes Crosby will be the last campus at the beginning of August because we do summer feeding from that campus extra due to covet and free meals last year we had a lot more students eating and participating with us
069since coming I've also tried to increase the recipes do different promotions so we have an increase of students eating which is generating the extra funding to um make some new changes any other questions thank you we will need a motion to approve yeah I'd like to make a motion to approve the contract of painting service for all kitchens to ad2 Construction Services through the choice Partners purchasing contract in the amount of 83 284 to be paid out of the Child Nutrition fund balance as presented second okay we have a motion it's a mouthful we have a motion made by Jared krennic seconded by Archer Archer to approve the contract of painting services for all kitchens to 82 Construction Services through the choice Partners purchasing Co-op contract in the amount of 83 284 dollars to be
070paid out of Child Nutrition fund balance as presented all in favor aye opposed the motion carries thank you foreign twister okay next we have consideration and possible approval of teacher contracts and Dr Chaplin will present yes last month we approved the teacher contracts we had a few who were still waiting for different alternative certification programs to finalize for the end of the year those individuals have finalized their alternative certification programs and now are are eligible for hire so that list is in in front of you there it's my recommendation to accept the list of individuals any questions or comments I make a motion to approve the hold on approve the teacher contracts okay thank you thank you we have a motion made by Bonnie brinkmeyer and seconded by Kelvin Raven to approve the teacher contracts
071as presented all in favor opposed the motion carries thank you the next item and and we talked about this with new board members but it's um It's Just for information purposes these items are reports just for for public record so those don't require action and are we having we're not going into executive sessions so with no further business before the board we will adjourn at 7 17. thank you so much and again Welcome to our new board members