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 may be recorded and I respectfully ask that you please refrain from speaking While others are
002talking thank you for taking time to join us this evening 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 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God let us pray Our Father in Heaven the Creator and the make of all things we come right and at this moment giving you all the thanks and all the Glory thank you for just being so good and just being so kind we ask you to be with each and one of us each one of us as we do the things and make the best decision for this school district we thank you for our
003staff members and our students and everyone in this community in town yes we ask for you to be with each and every one of us and bless our staff and students and students as we preparing for this end of this week of school that should be with each and every one of us we have for your traveling grace and protection race we thank you for all these blessings and your sons either Christ's name amen amen thank you we've got a few more chairs coming in thank you all and there's a few empty up here if anyone wants to grab a chair we're going to start this evening with some special recognition and our campus Spotlight is Brenham Middle School Mrs Thibodeaux will recognize these students and employees good evening Dr Chaplin and members of the
004board is my distinct pleasure to present to you the student paraprofessional and teacher of the month for Brenna Middle School I'm going to start with our youngest so I'm going to ask our fifth grade principal Ms Pam plagens to please escort Miss Riley Jackson our fifth grade student of the month [Applause] Riley is a student in Miss malman Miss Bartels and Miss Westfield's class and they had the following to say about her when they nominate her Riley Works harder than anyone in her class she always asks questions when she needs help and is extra kind to all of her classmates she keeps a positive attitude even when work is challenging or difficult for her and I can say on a personal note that when you see Riley in the hallways she is exceptionally kind each
005morning we ask our students when we sign off of announcements to remember to be brave to be kind and to shine their light and Riley does all three of those every day day in and day out and I it can go without saying for those of us in the room but I know there are people just listening so you have to know that she has a smile that lights up the room and uh her mother is here today michelina Jackson so would you like to invite your guests forward you've got some other guests with us do you want to tell us who came with you today my anchors and my brother Levi and my brother Howard and Tristan [Applause] so Riley on behalf of Brenham Middle School I want to thank you for the excellent
006job you do for us every day and I hope that you keep shining your light and setting an example for others at Brennan Middle School thank you baby through the board you'll make shake their hands and take a picture y'all come on congratulations thank you thank you thank you next I'd like to introduce you to our teacher of the month Mr Caleb White [Applause] Caleb Caleb White is one of our special education collaborative teachers who works in a daily support setting in our sixth grade classroom and he's also serving in the role of a past coach and when his co-workers nominated him they had the following to say about Mr White he goes above and beyond to meet the needs of his students and as always positive and friendly he has a kind word and
007a helping hand for everyone he meets I can say that this is absolutely true of Mr White in fact he started just as a collaborative teacher in one classroom and he has been exceptionally generous with his time and his efforts both with his collaborative partner and with his team members is his first year at the middle school and most of his career we have this in common we actually I had the pleasure of working with him years ago on the high school campus when we were both teaching here and and he is like I did last year making the transition down to this different age level and I can say without a shadow of doubt that he is exactly where he's supposed to be he's impacting lives daily both of the adults and the students
008in the classroom he transitioned into the past support role for us because it was a need that developed on our campus and he works each day and is always looking for ways to help and he had a connection with students who were struggling with some of their behaviors and he took that extra role on and his consideration was not for the extra workload that it was for him but who was going to be supporting the classroom that he was leaving his collaborative teacher and the students that he was serving those were his biggest concerns not the extra work that came to him so in return we've worked out a schedule where he is able to continue doing that while still serving extra students in the past support program and he's making a huge difference every
009day on our campus so it is my great honor to introduce Mr Caleb White [Applause] and we have one thing to read for you Mr White from Dr Rao on behalf of Brenham ISD and Dr Rao of Texas vein and wellness Institute it's our pleasure to share with you that you will receive a check in the amount of 250 dollars to use at your discretion for being voted as teacher of the month thank you for dedicating your time to our school district we are better because of you foreign thank you it also happens to be his birthday Riley was supposed to tell you also I wouldn't have to okay and finally I would like to introduce to you our paraprofessional of the most of the month Miss Samantha yanish kinnerson [Applause] Mrs kinnerson who is
010Miss yanish at the beginning of the school year so that's going to take me a minute to get used to is working in our 50 50 classrooms or 50 50 support classrooms which means she works with two teams and she is with each of them every other day um she's an a math Pro and is the support that our staff needs when they've got students who need extra assistance and her class her teammates who nominated her had the following to say yanish is the best she steps right in and works with kids wherever needed she helps students and teachers alike and our team is great because of her so these words are absolutely true but Michiana doesn't just try to help the students that are assigned to her in the classes that she's working with
011when our schedules change or fluctuate and there's extra gaps in her time she always looks for other ways that she can help and asks other people if there's a way that she can assist with anything going on if students are testing or they're out in rotations she's volunteered and set up a math tutoring program with some of our extra students and or extra tutoring for some of our students that need it um and it's a personal pleasure to me because one of the as I made that transition to middle school last year that I mentioned earlier to find a handful of my own students that I am now working with and I think you might know a little bit of what that feels like it's it's it's undescribable um and she's one of those and
012today we're honoring her as a paraprofessional of the month and I have no doubt that in the future we'll be honoring her as a teacher of the year because she is working to finish her degree and earn her certification [Applause] so miss kinnerson because that'll take me a while to get used to too on behalf of Brenham ISD and Dr Rao we want to share with you that you will receive a check for 150 to use at your discretion for being voted paraprofessional in the month for December and thank you for all you do for Freedom ISD and middle school we appreciate you we also want to thank her family and invite her husband up thank you thank y'all good okay thank you and congratulations and special thanks to Dr Rao for the generous donations
013too um next our director of Safety and Security Jay Hefty will recognize the sros members of the board superintendent chaplain it is my honor and my privilege to stand here and recognize our school resource officers these men and women of the Brenham Police Department are dedicated to helping our kids succeed each and every day they go above and beyond they build relationships they build bonds they ensure the safety and security of our staff our students our parents our community they help me exponentially they make my job much easier they are all highly highly respected and appreciated on each campus that they serve on throughout the district I have personally found each of them to be outstanding in the performance of their duties and just as individuals so at this time I would like to recognize
014our school resource officers and present each of them with a certificate of recognition first we'll start with Sergeant Joe Merkley [Applause] Sergeant Merkley has 20 years of service in law enforcement and this is his first year as our SRO sergeant he is my right hand he is uh he is exceptional sergeant [Applause] yeah you guys stay next I'd like to recognize Corporal Sierra Randall Corporal Randall has eight years of service with law enforcement and four years as an SRO she currently serves on the junior high campus and she has presented she has helped she has aided she is quite the asset to this District foreign I'd like to honor Corporal Ed Ortega he has 18 years of service and this is first year as an SRO and he serves at our Middle School campus second
015year first year with me next I'd like to honor Corporal Jason kasperwich thank you six years of service as a law enforcement officer in five years as an SRO and he's currently servicing us at the high school campus and finally unfortunately Corporal Rochelle malinowski could not be here tonight but I will give her a certificate to Sergeant Berkeley so that she can be honored as well she has five years of service as a law enforcement officer in three years as an SRO and she also Services the high school thank you thank you guys thank you very much come on [Laughter] thanks again [Applause] next our assistant superintendent clay gillentine will recognize our Dropout prevention now it's on President Lang Dr Chaplin members of the board our last honoree tonight is K damal keff you'll join
016me please Kay was hired on the hills of covid to be our uh truant preventionist um with so many absentees to battle she's become so much more than that she works in Social Services all day every day um if you've never visited the Cubs closet you should definitely do so she's turned that into a storefront where she meets the needs of children especially this time of year but all year long with food with clothing with toiletries um you know she's she's right there anytime a counselor administrator um gives her a call because they have a student in need which unfortunately is is all too often um so again at this Christmas time as she's handing out coats and toothbrushes and Foods it's my honor to um honor okay Dom okay [Applause] creative thank you all
017there are more open seats so if there's anyone in the back that would like a seat there's there's more room now if you want to come sit down this is time for our public comment portion I'm sorry I was moving right along we also have our director of Maintenance Paul austinbeck we'll introduce um a special guest thank you president Lang and members of the board I brought with me tonight uh Mr Brent nabalik with Triton air and uh Brent has been very instrumental in getting our Rock Gym up and going so uh he brought with him tonight I believe a check for 7 785 dollars to and that's only part of what he has done for us uh that part is going to go to half of the finishing of the floor but he is
018responsible for the repainting of the bleachers the painting of the floor the restrooms have been upgraded putting TVs in there I think uh so who knows uh what's next uh but it's been a great partnership uh with Brent and we appreciate everything you do for Brenham ISD [Applause] thank you so much perfect let's do it on there once again I guess this thing's on here first off I have to say Paul's been great to work with um you know we're doing this to help the community to help the kids and we appreciate any time that ISD and the local you know District can can allow somebody that's private or private company to come in and do this uh it's kind of a nice teamwork situation and you know getting to get to know different people
019I've known Paul for I guess maybe a year or two because my wife has known him but being able to to help the community and see the kids um you know get to play on on better flooring and better atmosphere and stuff that's what it's about and for us it's a you know just just being able to help out so we appreciate you know being able to do this and and hopefully more people can come down the road and and gather in to helping the community and doing things for the school district and for the community as such as we did so I appreciate it we appreciate you so much if you haven't seen the The Rock Gym lately go catch one of the basketball games there um the difference that they have made has
020been tremendous it's it's night and day difference okay now we have public comment portion of the meeting 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 began and keep in mind that individual names may not be mentioned during these presentations and we did have two individuals sign up Mrs gas Camp will keep time it's
021three minutes oh the timer's behind us so you can keep an eye on time first we have Billy Sutherland yeah sure my name is Tim Webb Pastor Champion Fellowship been in Brenham for 25 years and Ministry 35 years let me Begin by first thanking the Brenham BISD Board of Trustees for their commitment to serve our community as a trustee we know that requires countless hours of personal time away from family to fully examine the needs within a local school district it is also important to note that the pastors represented here today do not negate the need for a centralized approach to education and we are aware that the system is designed to meet the needs of many different individuals and families another important item to remember in discussing the needs within a community is for
022individuals to be open to opinions that may differ without moving toward personal attacks and degrading comments furthermore when individuals Express faith in Christ they are held to a higher standard and should be willing to have their viewpoints evaluated through the lens of biblical values the pastors are affiliated with Texas church leaders have a vested interest in our community and the condition of Brenham ISD some of us have had or currently do have students enrolled in public education and passionately desired students to have every opportunity for Success I've been asked to express the why behind the felt need for pastors to express concern over the current situation with within BISD the current Board of Trustees except for Mr krennic based upon the website expressed in 2018 holds to a legislative agenda that does not represent the
023express desire of the community rather those of a progressive movement that steers away from parental leadership within the family specifically items four eight and nine item four asks for state-funded support for campus-based mental and Behavioral Health Services for students this position puts our school district in direct opposition with our state constitution which places the psychological care for children under the supervision of parents and not public education according to the American Psychological Association secular therapy does not endorse any counseling that opposes the lgbtq lifestyle as normal therefore the parent of a student whose Faith does not align with that philosophy will find their child subjected to to a belief system that contradicts over two thousand years of traditional biblical values furthermore items eight and nine would remove any possible funding for a parent to find alternative
024options for their child's education when they find the academic performance of the school district lacking or moving in a direction that is antithetically different from their values while there are realistic challenges due to state and federal funding current policies and Trends tend to reveal that students and teachers are being set up to fail entertaining woke CRT SEL or other Progressive ideologies are unacceptable for those seeking to promote biblical values that help form the great state of Texas and these United States such philosophies are found to be in direct opposition to our faith in Christ which supports the advancement of all individuals based on the content of character not the color of their skin as pastors we believe it is time for leadership to engage in the leadership that promotes the development of solutions that will
025facilitate the academic development of our students without having to compromise biblical values these values helped establish one of the greatest nations in the history of the world let's get back to the basics of Education discipline and character that leads to success thank you thank you Julie Sutherland [Applause] Billy Sutherland pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in brennaman when I step into a Pulpit I'm used to at least 30 minutes so this will be an adjustment the cover sheet I have on the papers that you're getting explains what it's all about the blue copy is a series of questions that we would like to ask all persons who are seeking to serve on the school board including those who are for reelection the yellow copy is a response to the pink copy the pink copy is the
026legislative agenda of BISD currently on the website so instead of reading those let me just get straight to the blue copy we would like for all of the potential school board members to answer seven questions this is a draft questions may change whereas there's National interest in school boards representing parents and students rather than the agenda of public school system and administration what is your position on where your loyalty should lie as a school board trustee whereas the overwhelming majority of Americans strongly support giving families educational options and I've got some statistics there uh the school board why does the school board adamantly oppose and ask elected officials to vigorously oppose school choice number three should Brenham School Board have any alleged a legislative agenda at all if so what if not why as there
027is growing concern about the social engineering taking place in our Public Schools regarding CRT SEL social emotional learning and various sex education programs including gender reassignment issues what is your position on the parents rights to know and understand what is being taught and to oppose those things with which they disagree do you support cdc's whole school whole Community whole child model used in many school districts to implement the SEL program in violation of the Texas Constitution number six do you believe that parents should have the final say in the education of their children number seven you believe that the district should focus I'm sorry thank you this is my last one do you believe that the district should focus on actually teaching Reading Writing arithmetic geography history Civics science and the like thank you very
028much thank you [Applause] foreign next we have the discussion and possible approval of the 2021-2022 district Financial audit conducted by Bill Harris and pachacek and Mr Hebert will introduce us well good evening members of the board my name is Daniel Hebert I'm with belt Harris pachacek We Are The District's independent audit firm and I'm here to present the results of this year's FY 2022 Financial audit I'll be presenting out of the book with the brown cover in front of you I plan to just touch on a couple of key numbers and then I'll take any questions you may have at the end before I begin I do want to thank that and the staff I always kind of tell people it's it's the staff's job to get 10 000 things right all year long to
029stay in compliance with all the rules and regulations that are required of a school district and a school district Finance team that's sort of our job to come in and nitpick at the end so we do appreciate all of the staff's support uh first I'll touch on page number 11. page number 11 is our independent Auditor's report this is otherwise known as an opinion letter I am pleased to say that we have issued an unmodified opinion on the district's financial statements that is the highest level of assurance that we as independent Auditors can give that the district's financial statements are materially correct and that all of the required disclosures uh required by the generally accepted accounting principles in the United States have been made in other words it's a clean opinion it's what you want
030to hear if you'll follow back with me to page 25 page 25 is your statement of net position otherwise known as a balance sheet but this is presented on the full accrual basis of accounting which means it has all of the long-term items presented such as capital assets long-term debt pension and opeb obligations Etc I'll just point out that between your governmental and business type activities the district ended the year with total assets of about 76 million dollars total liabilities of about 69.9 million dollars and overall deficit in a position of about four million dollars again that deficit there may seem a little scary but it's pretty consistent with the rest of the districts across the state a couple of years ago accounting pronouncements required that all the state excuse me all the school districts
031in the state are required to start presenting those pension and opeb liabilities for all the teachers that participate in those programs and that has that long-term effect on the overall net position again nothing to be super concerned about there it's relatively consistent with what we'd see across other districts if you'll flip back with me to page number page number 29 is that same type of financial statement a balance sheet however this is for your fund level otherwise presented on a modified accrual basis so this doesn't contain any of those long-term items like those long-term assets or liabilities this is much more closest to the basis of accounting with what you would adopt your budget here I'll just point out that the general operating fund the main operating fund of the district ended the year with
032total assets of about 18 million total liabilities of about 3.1 million some deferred inflows of resources for unavailable Revenue related to property taxes about 1.2 million and overall ending fund balance of about 13.5 million last page page number 33. page number 33 is our statement of revenues expenditures or changes in fund balance otherwise known as an income statement this presents those revenues and expenditures and again is adopted or excuse me is presented on that same basis of accrual that you the same basis of accounting that you would adopt uh your budget with every year here I'll just point out that the general fund ended the year with total revenues of about 48 million dollars total expenditures of about 50 million dollars after some transfers in and out and overall net decrease in general fund fund
033balance of about 1.9 million dollars leaving you with that ending fund balance of about 13.5 million I will point out that as a general indicator of Financial Health uh Bond rating agencies financial advisors Etc typically look at that ending fund balance number I'd like to see at least three months of operating expenditures contained in that formalities number uh that fund balance of about 13.5 million represents about three and a half almost uh three and three quarter months of your operating expenditures about 27 so healthy healthy fund balance looking there uh with that I'll go ahead and conclude my presentation I'd be happy to take any questions you may have I know it takes quite a bit to delve into this information so as you care to read over the weekend uh feel free to pass
034along your questions and we can get them answered if you so choose thank you any questions none at this time thank you okay and our CFO Thad Lasseter will present a budget discussion Mrs Lang Dr Chaplin members of the board good evening uh I'd like to first thank Bill Harris pachasik for their thorough And Timely audit uh I believe we're getting it a couple of months earlier this year which is uh was my intention coming in uh as we've discussed previously we ended the year with a reduction of fund balance of that 1.9 million that he uh that Daniel was talking about and there's uh that's due to of course expenditures over uh exceeding revenues I've provided you earlier this evening with a brief synopsis of some of those contributing factors uh towards that deficit
035and I'll go over those now uh so the the adopted budget back in uh August of last year uh at a estimated uh state revenue budget which was 2.3 million more than what we actually received in state revenues this year that difference there over the adopted budget to where we ended up of course comes down to enrollment and attendance estimating enrollment can be tricky especially coming off a year as we went through a global pandemic we had no idea how many students were were going to we were going to retain did they move did they uh go to home school what have you like that uh so just that estimation of of the enrollment was tricky again you take that enrollment uh and then our attendance rate what was our attendance rate going to be
036well it was low of course coming coming out of covid uh so that that was a contributing factor to that uh looking on the expenditure side on the adopted budget for substitute teachers there was a 292 000 was budgeted we ended up spending about 900 000 in substitutes so there's a big vast difference there and that too flare up coveted related absences of staff uh we had 842 000 more expenditure than original budget in maintenance and operations uh on the list that I gave you there's there's a few of those items that uh were identified 360 000 in contracted services that includes 95 000 from ideal impact that was an agreement we had with them beginning of the year was a budget wasn't budgeted we amended the budget during the year to get that in
037there were 700 000 more in salaries and benefits a lot of that transferring over those that custodial staff that we took over from the Outsource company and then uh again 173 thousand more expensive than was originally adopted in the budget for supplies again a whole lot of that was custodial supplies and equipment that we had purchased to bring those uh to bring that function of the district back in house uh and another contributing factor to this deficit was our idea B formula grant that's our special education grant expenditures there which are nearly all salaries and benefits uh those those expenditures were 248 000 more than than the actual Grant award uh that that Grant award decreased from year to year we maintained the same staff or or uh increased those special education staff members and
038uh so that 248 000 had to be moved over to the general fund another expenditure that wasn't budgeted at all uh as as Daniel mentioned we ended up the year even with the uh 1.9 million dollar deficit with a fund balance of 13.59 million uh again recommended by tea rating agencies uh Bond buyers Etc is is uh they'd like to see a fund balance of around 3 million or three months in operating expense and we're still over that three and a half for or three three quarters any questions on those um knowing that um that we had constraints with the coveted restrictions as far as kids being able to come back you know they had to be out so many days according to the state last year and um was that a big part of
039the lower attendance yeah if you remember the situation going into the summer of 2022 at the end of the spring of 2022 excuse me 2021 there was a lot of talk that covet was over everybody came back and everybody felt good and then right around August to the beginning of this fiscal year and then turn on into September we had a lot of kids that were out we had a lot of staff that were out the increase in maintaining that higher elevated salary of our substitute teachers so we could continue to get substitute teachers and keep them them in our classrooms and then we had another big spike right after Christmas I know that we did a lot of testing down at the community ahead building for the better part of two full months in
040which we were rotating staff and students through their testing and each time at that time the protocols where they had they had just quarantined for 14 days so it was a situation that caught most of Texas off guard the fact that covert wasn't over at that time it still reared its head with the variant so from those aspects that they called us off guard so definitely hurts funding when you have to when you don't have a choice about the kids coming back but then we're definitely definitely based on yeah and there wasn't the whole harmless that there was the previous year in which the state held harmless with an average of of ADA uh as we've talked about many times if the student is not in the chair we don't get funding it doesn't matter
041why if the student is not in the chair we don't get funding and when you're quarantining kids for 14 days possibly rightfully so then then that it decreases your funding but also when when teachers take care of themselves and their own kids that decreases the teachers in the classroom you increase the substitutes to make sure we have people in those classrooms how are we this year on Ada so far we're doing quite well 94.7 I believe is about what we're sitting right now and that's about what we've averaged to take out the covet anomaly about what we've averaged in the past so it looked like we took a double hit on this with the um to substitute teachers by you the more substitutions also we had to increase the payoff so not only here what
042is throughout the state and everywhere that's what caused a lot of this to increase and pay with substitute teaching you with a lot more teachers and then we got hit with the Ada play about the championship they're not in the chair we don't get we don't get don't get governments with that so yeah and bless those substitutes who came at that time I mean I say this for all the districts across the state and everybody was hurting under the circumstances and those are special people who under the circumstances said yes I will come and substitute for a certain amount of money and put myself in a classroom with other students and put myself at risk so again those people were special any other questions or comments I'm glad we don't have these kind of amendments
043very often yeah hopefully thank you thank you okay we will need a motion to approve the financial audit I make a motion to approve the 2020-2021 financial audience presented second okay we have a motion made by Kelvin Raven seconded by Mike Altman to approve the 2020-2021 financial audit as presented all in favor all right opposed motion carries thank you next we have our annual investment policy review and possible approval of a resolution and our Chief Financial Officer Thad Lassiter will conduct this as well welcome back welcome back welcome back so the annual uh investment policy review uh you you were included in your board packet the the district investment policy uh all it is uh once a year the board should review that policy and uh resolve to continue the policy so if there's not
044any questions on the policy let me add to just uh those policies are based on legal statutes governing our investment our abilities and all that stuff so yeah and I'll make that note uh a district can have a policy pretty independent of the uh uh legal policy Brenham has elected uh looks like you need to stay right with that legal policy in our local policy and we don't have a separate written document as our investment policy like some districts do we we abide just by that board policy uh whatever it is local thank you yeah no changes no any questions or discussion on that if not we'll need a motion I make a motion to adopt a resolution of the board regarding review of the investment program as presented second anyway we have a motion
045made by Jared krennett seconded by Mike Altman to adopt a resolution of the board regarding review of the investment program as presented all in favor opposed the motion carries thank you next we have superintendent's monthly update Dr Chaplin yes first of all thank you for everybody being here I know it's a great privilege for our young people to see people supporting them as they come out in their honored for different stuff so my list today has a lot of those first a little bit of information as you guys know we started the creation process of our Master calendar for 2324 sent the survey out that included four different calendar options that our guiding Coalition a group of our teachers and community members and parents helped kind of formulate four different options we sent those to
046the staff today the survey will close on Friday and I'll bring to you as my recommendation in the January board meeting whatever their will is so I look forward to that a little piece of information just an FYI went into an office over a community the other day and then reassured today the HEB donated what I would call a bunch a bunch of tissues for our teachers there are many many large boxes over there they will get distributed to the campuses so as teachers have those in their classroom so thank you to HEB for that just hot off the presses Marine Corps Junior ROTC competed in Travis drill competition as you guys know our Marine Corps Junior ROTC is a well-decorated group of young people it's very impressive to watch their drill uh competitions and
047how they do that if you haven't seen that I recommend you going to check it out so at the Travis drill competition this weekend we have several first place Awards and then three best overall Awards so it seems like they're on the path to represent us again at not only regionals but back at Nationals if they've done the last two years this last Wednesday we had the Brazos Valley food drive and Brenham ISD was a big participant in that as well as many other organizations across the the county I want to thank for sure miss Griffin and her ability and all her sponsors to bring those different student groups the busing bust them over there dropped them off let them volunteer it was pretty cool to watch that uh Courtney Mason Brook Trahan helped organize
048and really footed a big part of the load for for the district in our processes of helping out in that food drive collectively Washington County uh collected in one day 13 740 of monetary donations and then ten thousand two hundred sixty one pounds of food uh that goes to area food banks so great job on everyone's part I don't want to put all the the credit to Brenham ISD but on everyone's part but aside from that what this is is a great example of our students and again I appreciate the fact that we got so many different student groups from the high school to go we talk about formulating a good citizen when our kids walk the stage and cross that we need to make sure we have opportunities where our students know what a
049good citizen looks like and at that day down there at uh at the fairgrounds they got to see many individuals from many different organizations donate their time to give back to those in the community that's how they learn how to be a good citizen and an opportunity to participate in that so again very proud of those in our ability to be a participant in that another thing we participated in is Toys for Tots we had a book box located at central office and we'll get those distributed for those individuals who helped us help our students our young people in need in the area another thing I want to make sure people are aware of we did something at your eclc this last week also we had a parent nutrition night for our early childhood Learning
050Center those are our four-year-olds so many of these parents are young new parents and something as simple as a child's nutrition can sometimes get lost in the mix and so uh with the help of Ms Banker Miss Davis and our Child Nutrition staff Courtney again they organized a Early Childhood Learning Center parent nutrition night in which they taught these parents the good protocols with diet proper diet when to eat and all of those things and then again to our high school students who came out and volunteered to babysit while these parents were learning on how to take care of their kids so they also volunteered to babysit and we're we're at a title three parent night that we held at the senior citizen Center two weeks ago a few weeks ago so I'm going to
051group these together in collections because again I don't think we can sing enough praise to our young people across the district who are doing a great job Brenham Elementary Stephen you back there socks for seniors collecting shoes for Brennan blessings to redistribute again great opportunity for our kids to learn what it means to be a great citizen our eclc Melissa pjs for toddlers what a great idea right collecting pjs for our young people again in the community and the Texas Children and then each campus participate in most you know more so because Willie came around and twisted our arm but participated in a gingerbread contest so we all put together a gingerbread house I don't know how we did but I thought ours was the best I'll throw down to that but the Gingerbread competition
052then became an auction in which Willie had them auction off those gingerbread houses that a BISD and many other entities in the in the county went as a fundraiser to our Senior Citizen Center of which uh many of you may not know but we go to the Senior Citizen Center often and use their facilities and interact with those people and we appreciate their willingness to let us do that don't always give a lot of individual recognition but I wanted to point out a young lady this came to my attention uh a fifth grader Chloe Leisure organized and collected donations for travel size toiletries Kay didn't mention it while ago when she was getting recognized but Chloe gathered and uh put together over 270 toiletry bags to be able to donate to Cub's closet again great
053example yes she doesn't know I was going to mention her name but I know she watches and listens to every one of our award meetings so great job Chloe right and then to sum it all up the semester is over this Friday at noon we wish our students our staff and our families a very Merry Christmas that's all I have any questions next we have our consent agenda we can pull any items for discussion or approve in one motion make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented hey we have a motion made by Mike Altman seconded by Kelvin Raven to approve the consent agenda as presented all in favor opposed motion carries next we have Dr Chaplin will present information about the service Center's superintendent's legislative priorities okay I've had an opportunity in
054the last well always as a representative of the district the board and the students that of our community to try and make sure that we're looking out for their needs one of the things that I do is make sure I'm communicating with with different organizations to see where we are legislatively had the opportunity the last part of last week to sit in a very kind of intimate setting of about 30 superintendents in which we spoke with the Senate Pub Ed chair Brandon Creighton the House Pub ad chair representative member Dutton Glenn Hager as the Comptroller commissioner Mike morath tried to gain an understanding of legislation and where where the legislation is going I also had the opportunity prior to that to sit with other region 6 superintendents to see what are some issues that we
055see coming down the pipe as far as legislation for school districts one of the things as as a leader of any entity in the organization is to make sure that we keep the people that we lead abreast of what is coming down that could positively or negatively impact the district or in our case the organization that I lead and that you help me lead one of the things that we always look through and we put this lens on everything we do is what are the what are the values and commitments and hopes and dreams of our community what do they value and put that through that lens and we try to generate then legislative suggestions for those that represent us and speaking with each individ each of those individuals I named earlier personally in a
056one-on-one conversation every one of them said please let us know how our legislation is going to impact your District we want to make sure that as much as possible we sidestep or avoid what they term as unintended consequences so I'll use House Bill 4545 as a prime example because that's what they use House Bill 4545 which is a legislative priority for us for them to come and fix and speaking with each of those individuals they feel like they will definitely make the corrections of the unintended consequences the ratio of one to three students one teacher to every three students mathematically impossible in the state of Texas with our teacher shortage they understand that they realize that the fact that whether a student missed meeting the state standard by one point or missed every question the
057amount of of information the amount of tutoring um response to intervention mtss all the things that are they're um terminology for the day does not change we asked them and they agreed and that will be one of their legislative priorities is to fix House Bill 4545 with the unintended consequences that they put on us recognizing now that the only way they can fix those is through another legislative session which starts in January so that's the context I say these these legislative suggestions that are that we have helped develop first one help solve the teacher's shortest puzzle crosses Across the Nation there as a teacher shortage Brennan is Brenham has not has not been missed by that teacher's shortages right here as well so that's a priority for them now there's different ways that the the
058different uh groups in in parties might think they can come about changing the teacher shortage but that's a teacher shortage is a problem they hope to overcome marath put together a committee to study the teacher shortage and there's many things that have come out of that committee anywhere from finances which is always always an issue teacher salaries where should we land on that what exact amount is it that will keep and draw our young Talent out of college to come into the education profession but more so than finances is respect how can we get our communities our nation our state our parents to respect our teachers a little bit more and the contribute contributions they make to the lives of young people so that one's a bigger one for both sides of the aisle to
059try and overcome how do we how do we address that problem the fact that teachers don't have the respect that they used to from students and parents so that's a teacher shortage problem um continue setting meaningful goals meaningful goals that will hopefully get us to where we need to be House Bill 4545 I've used that as an example reading academies those are good goals how do we give tutorials to students who need it how do we identify who needs it reading academies how do we give the teachers the skills that they need in order to do that well when you pass blanketed legislation they all have unintended consequences much like house before 45 45 the example I just gave reading academies and the fact that if I'm a first year teacher I didn't catch it
060in college I'm taking all those hours as a first year teacher while trying to figure out how to be a teacher so there may be some consideration on that and that's one of the legislative priorities have some consideration on the timing of the reading academies nobody denies that this training is positive but the timing of it needs to be a little bit of flexibility refrain from writing bills that give sole authority to the commissioner very few people in the state of Texas have the ability that has been given to the commissioner when a lot of legislation comes out and the legislation starts with the words the commissioner shall develop takes a lot of uh influence over school districts across the state both public and Charter uh takes it out of their hands and puts it
061in one one uh entity that's appointed especially when that's not an elected person great point it's an appointed position Bond elections there's always a push just make sure that or try to get Bond elections to pass with the two-thirds majority both sides of the aisle agreed at least they did this past week when I spoke with them that that is not something that's necessary no one gets elected with two-thirds majority in each one of those representatives and Senators said I probably would not be sitting here if I needed two-thirds majority of the voters so I don't know that that one will gain traction but we want to make sure that that is something that stays on there the majority of a community wants something or doesn't want something it should stay with that accountability the
062whole a through F and accountability star system is being revamped in three major areas from the types of questions being more open responsive to the online testing to the restructure of some of the reading stuff at a time where you're you're moving three major components and I'll just take one at a time where you now have a third grader taking a test online so talking with a fourth grade teacher over the weekend they're going to spend and it's not a Brenham person fortunately but they're going to spend the next two weeks teaching their kids how to use a computer the right way as opposed to the way they've learned on a tablet and all that simply so they could finish and take their test because they're all online so again this accountability legislation is is
063or or proposal is saying not necessarily against a through F I can give you my personal opinion on that but we're not necessarily collectively against that but we are asking for one year reprieve let us figure out how to how the kids are going to take the test from that aspect let tea figure out where they're going to set this the set scores we're not going to get those scores back in our our responses until September when the kids take it in July online or excuse me in May online so let's give us a one-year break on that so that's an accountability legislative priority Safety and Security you know Jay's talked many times about Safety and Security those young men and young ladies who we just honored here in the blue we could not do
064what we do as far as keeping our kids safe to the level of safety they need today in 2022 that's an expense the districts did not incur 10 years ago and what you saw up here and a little bit more is the better part of six hundred thousand dollars of expenses that now we incur that wasn't wasn't incurred before the state needs to help us with that last legislative session they promised the districts fifty dollars per Ada the reality came down to and they know it by the time they sliced and diced it it was 9.17 for Ada that's not going to get you much all right we have a lot of priorities that need to happen Safety and Security is a big part of it and big part of that is truancy you know
065okay he was here I think she walked out a while ago but our ability to bring kids to school we need to have some teeth about eight years ago we were cut with most of the teeth we had for getting kids to school we are charged as we should be to educate our kids and provide them with an education that can make them contributing public citizens when they walk across the stage and number two we're charged with public funds to make sure we use those funds accurately properly as spelled out by Statute we're funded by people sitting in the chair if we don't have any ability to force parents to bring their kids to school then we don't we we're sunk and so there was again a lot of bipartisan talk at least this past
066week about reinstating the truancy laws that were in place before so that we can help get kids to school we can't educate them if they're not in school and I love young people people but also know what I was doing if I was not in school when I was 13 years old it's not a lot of positive going all the time so if we can get them in school and then the last one is is goes back to our funding is also a couple aspects there number one and it's one of your questions on here so I'll speak to it school choice and vouchers I'm a hundred percent and you'll probably be hard-pressed for any superintendent Pride board member in the state of Texas to say we are not for school choice I'm a hundred
067percent for competition let's level the playing field if you want to take say funds there should be the auditor like just came up in front of us and dispels where all that money goes if you want to take State tests you ought to say yes and I will take all students just like isd's do we take every child that walks in our door you ought to be open for accountability Charter Schools don't take STAR tests public school or excuse me private schools don't take STAR tests home schools don't taste our tests so many things are tied to that I'm all for school choice let's level the playing field so until legislation is proposed that levels the playing field and I hope I'm speaking for the board that levels the playing field I'm not for that
068because there's a certain amount of money that's allocated towards public education every legislative cycle when that pot of money is sliced and diced and certain things are pulled out of it that part of money hurts our kids and we have to do business on less money than we've had before that that is an issue and I invite the people in the audience to come and sit down with me and I'll talk to you about the many intricacies of the options of school choice again I'm a proponent of school choice if we have a Level Playing Field but there needs to be a lot of details worked out in both sides of the aisle would agree with that and the last thing is funding based on enrollment instead of ADA this I think will get a
069lot of push because of all the Ada problems we had during covid and the fact that again if we don't have truancy law laws that are in place to help us bring kids then fund us on our enrollment if I had a classroom that has 20 kids in it and 10 of them don't show up that day I lose the salary the the funding for 10 kids but my daily costs my my expenditures has not changed at all so fund based on enrollment so these are things that are not only the region 6 superintendent's list of all the things we'll talk to our our Senators and our legislators about it is also things that our Senators and our legislators are calling me on the phone and saying Tyler how is it impacting Brenham ISD because
070we want to make sure that whatever we legislate does not have unintended consequences so why are we all involved in the legislative process because it directly impacts our kids and our community and your children so that's all I have board members I part of our role is to be advocates for the district that we serve so absolutely we should be advocating um one that was on funding to fully fund Pre-K and it's sad that that's even still part of the discussion but that's that's definitely part of it so on that we have full we have Pre-K that the district locally funds the other half of the day for our teacher salaries and all their supplies that would be a great thing if the state would fully fund Pre-K that we don't have to pull that
071out of local money to be able to do that because we know that's what's right for our kids any other questions or comments next we have consideration of an RFP for fencing at Alton and Brenham Elementary School and our director of Maintenance Paul washenbeck will present good evening again I've I've gotten before you a a proposal for to continue our fencing project that we have throughout the district we went out for an RFP um had a couple interests there walk the sites came up with the ideas of where the gates were going to go and that kind of thing when it came down to it one one person actually put in The Proposal I would be kind of worried about it if it wasn't somebody that we haven't worked with before but American Fence company
072has has done a lot of our fencing throughout the district feel very confident that he can do us a really good job and does really quality work so it is my recommendation to award that bid if uh if you so choose okay I have one how many how many campuses do we have left to have been fully fence in if we go with this one we'll finish up uh Alton and Brenham Elementary and that just leaves the big uh elephant in the room the high school high school so that all the elementary schools Junior High Middle School yeah this will finish those up and we just have this that's good I'm glad to hear it's got to that point we'll need a motion to approve I make a motion to approve an RFP from American
073Fence Company let's saw fencing on the Alton and Brenham elementary school campuses as presented second motion made by Jared clinic seconded by Mike Altman to approve an RFP from American Fence Company to install fencing on the Alton and Brenham elementary school campuses as presented all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries thank you and I'll also present consideration and possible approval on RFP to replace the chiller here at the high school wake up everyone hello um this RFP was for the uh the last remaining uh Chiller that is uh from the build when 1996 when the building was built uh this is the the chillery ashery place with sr3 funds we did an application for that received 275 thousand dollars towards that uh the problem is prices has gone up considerably since then so we
074will have to kick in about sixty thousand dollars to get the project done but with that money sitting there we have to spend it an amount of time so with the money sitting there from sr3 again it's my recommendation to follow through with this and get that project completed well that's the last original Chiller from the 1994 building correct yes okay that is the third and last one we we have uh one we're replaced about two years ago uh a year and a half ago and since then the price of that same Chiller went up two hundred thousand dollars so that's what we're dealing with right now we have a York Chiller that's also out there uh I think it was put in in 2009 2010 somewhere in there but the one that we're looking
075to replace is from 1996. and getting cheaper no no all right we've got our money's worth so you can sell that one right yeah no he's talking about since we replaced the last since we replaced the last one two years ago I make most of yourself the RFP from ml lean to replace the Chile on the Brenham High School campus as presented second we have a motion made by Kelvin Raven seconded by Jared printing to accept the RP from mln to replace the chiller on the Brenham High School campus as president all in favor aye opposed motion carries thank you very much thank you next we have an update on Safety and Security our director of Safety and Security Jay Hefty will present this I wasn't safe at all president laying members of the board
076superintendent Dr Chaplin um you know we are making solid strides towards improving Safety and Security not just physical security but also behavioral actions that impact our students that impact our staff that that really carry through because Safety and Security is not on one individual it is on every single individual in the building in the room and it's basically falls back onto the community the community has to be dedicated to keeping Kids Safe all the time because the world that we live in unfortunately has not progressed in a way that we would like it to it seems to me that it has regressed and we are now in uncharted waters where we can't predict what someone something may try to do to our kids so when I first start started this job this board committed to
077Safety and Security they said that this was a priority president Lang said this is something that we promised and this is something that we will fulfill and you did and you are and it's with the support of this board with the support of Dr Chaplin with the support of our administrators that we are moving forward quickly and we are doing everything that we can to keep our kids safe as Paul mentioned we're installing new fencing and that's moving forward beautifully so as you heard perimeter fencing projects continue to move forward and with that approval we will start the projects at Alton and at Brenham Elementary over this holiday break we will be working with America fencing to do so we continue to embrace best practices to train our staff to teach our kids what to
078do in an emergency how do we support those men and women that were here being recognized today how do we allow them to do their jobs the the worst habits and we're we're getting better at it we're improving an example of that is we last week had our another Intruder audit somebody from the region came in and tried to get into Brenham Elementary School tugged on a bunch of doors and couldn't get access they were identified brought to the office yes sir absolutely brought to the office made to sign in and when they checked our classroom doors they were secure they were locked we are doing what we need to do to keep Kids Safe and we will continue to do so if you have any questions thank you thank you we have monthly reports
079for information purposes and next we will go into executive session according to Texas government code 551.071 and 551.074 to deliberate regarding the proposed termination and suspension without pay of the probationary contract of teacher Holly ridenbach and consult with legal counsel regarding the same all final votes actions and decisions will be taken in open meeting at 7 14 pm okay okay it's 807 we're coming out of closed session and with no further business before the board we will adjourn now thank you have a good evening