001All right. Well, good afternoon everyone. This is the quarter one meeting for a fiscal year 2026, the October 27th meeting of the State Advisory Council and educational opportunity for military Children. Thanks so much for joining us. We have a packed agenda today. It looks relatively light, but we have several topics to to address. So I'm going to start just reviewing our full agenda for today's meeting and then we'll jump into to our our roll call. I'm not sure that we're at a quorum. I do not anticipate any action items today. This meeting is being recorded though, so we will share that with any members who were not able to attend. So we will have a call to order and roll call in just a moment. Just a standing roll review the public comments requirement. We
002have new members to enter, some to introduce today and some to let you know we will be introducing very soon. Not all able to join us today, but we'll share a little bit of their information with you and then meet them at a future meeting. And then we have a military compact training Lindsay Dablow at from the national headquarters in Lexington for the Military Interstate Compact is here to provide us with an an overview training of the military compact. There are more details and longer trainings available and they also have some new trainings that they have have developed for those who have attended training in the past and might need a refresher. So hopefully she'll be sharing some information about those as well that we can share and push out into the field. But asked
003her to do an overview for the council today. It's been a couple of years since we've had a presentation and we have some new members. So looking forward to that update. Next we will move on to council priorities. The council has had a kind of a procedure of reviewing its priorities for each fiscal year. We had some discussion in previous meetings. I would like to, in this meeting, kind of hone in and focus on some of the things that have been discussed and then have some some different planning documents that I'd like to share with the council so that we can kind of organize those priorities and revisit them in between meetings for updates. So excited to kind of share some of those graphic organizers and planning documents for your consideration for future use. Then
004we have council member and staff reports. I'll provide an update from the annual business meeting. Doctor Lay, one of our council members will also be providing an update from TEA, but a different division than my division, which Doctor Lay serves in the highly mobile at risk populations unit, which also provides direct support from military connected families and students. So she will be providing an update. And then as always, we will have time for any other council members who have updates or reports that they would like to share. We'll go over upcoming events between now and the next meeting and then we will adjourn. So first, I'll start with our call to order. Just a reminder to take yourself off mute for this this section and starting with roll call. Doctor John Kraft, Jessica Garza, Brenda
005Howard, Brenda, you're on mute. Unmute. I'm sorry. Here. Thank you, Captain Hub settler. I'm here. Thank you. Jeanette Gomez Here is a designee for new member. Colonel Jew here. Thank you. Doctor Lee. Present Nancy Patterson Here. Doctor Roper. I am Jessica Snyder, the Mick 3 Commissioner designee from TEA. Let the record show I am present. Simone Wendland, Hendricks Pleasant, Madison Yandel, Technical Sergeant Zepeda and then we have 3 vacant positions listed. Just as a reminder to the the council, particularly when we have action items or items requiring a vote. If you are unable to attend a meeting, you always have the option of identifying A proxy to attend in your place. Whether you will be identifying A proxy or you're simply unable to attend. If you can let me know in advance that can also
006help me identify what agendas we items we might want to save until you're able to attend and to ensure we have a quorum, etcetera. So please let me know. Certainly understand that folks sometimes have conflicts that come up, but if you can let us know that will help us with our planning. Thank you. All right. This is just a standing item for public comments. We are an open meeting. We have a physical address where people are able to come in and attend should they wish to do so. And we also share the Zoom link for this meeting and the meeting is reported and posted. So in aligned with that open meeting notice, we post some guidelines for the public comments as a part of the open meeting notice that we post 10 days calendar days
007prior to the actual meeting. We would hear any testimony should anyone wish to register for testimony. We did not receive any public comments or requests to provide testimony. So we will move on. I am pausing for a moment. Yes, there is the I was looking for my recording button as I said that to make sure that I was in fact recording the meeting. And Diane, so excited. While we do not have all of our new members with us to introduce themselves today, I can at least introduce their names to you, to you. And I do have one member here who will ask to introduce ourselves. But we have identified three additional council members since our last meeting. It was one of our priorities was to fill vacancies on the council. I would like to go
008through the list first. We have Brenda Howard who will be joining us, and she is with us, who is with us, and we'll have her introduce herself in just a moment. She is filling the position, which is the designee of the chair of the House of Representatives from the Committee on Public Education. So this is one of our legislative, one of our positions that is identified from the legislature, from the House. And so we're thrilled to have her join the committee. And I'll let her introduce herself in just a moment. But just to go through the rest of the list, I said three. We actually have 4, but I'll explain why how that's our 4th member is a little bit different. Next we have Colonel Peter Ju, he is absent. He has a designee attending
009taking notes for him today. I'm Jeanette Gomez, so thank you again Jeanette for being with us. We will let Colonel Ju introduce himself at a future meeting. He is in Japan and I'm sure who knows what time it is right there right now but unable to attend. But we look forward to formally welcoming him to the council in our next meeting. We also have Technical Sergeant Nolan Zepeda. He will be serving as our ex officio representative for the reserves component of the US Armed Forces. This is the position that the Council recently voted to add to the membership and we received his appointment through the National Office for the Air Force. So we were through a national office. So we were excited to to have be able to add him to our membership. And the
010reason why our 4th member is a little bit different is because Doctor Inlay has been attending and presenting at our meetings, but we have been able to formal formally extend an offer to serve on the council to her. We had some restructuring we needed to, we currently had a position at TEA listed that no longer existed and we just needed to make some adjustments to our operating procedures to be a little bit more expansive that we would have a member from the other Division. I mentioned, not mine, but another division here at TEA that supports military connected students, which is our highly mobile at risk unit, which doctor lay serves on. And so with that adjustment, we're able to fill that position, that vacancy. And so also thrilled to welcome her. But let's go back
011to the top and Brenda is with us today. And Brenda, if you could come off mute, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and and how you and how you think you came to join a council that supports our military connected students. Thank you so much. And, and just to let you know, I'm completely honored. This is a joy for me. I am a military brat. So I traveled the world and I went to all the military schools. I was active duty military myself, so former Sergeant Howard. And then I married military. So I had a son in the military. So I have all of the military experience and by degree I'm a paralegal. And I became interested in education when we moved to Texas seven years ago. And I've been working
012on policy, pretty much education policy, ever since. So Chairman Buckley and I have worked closely together with regard to legislation and education in the state of Texas. So I'm pretty sure that that entire combination is how I ended up here. So, but it is an honor. I'm excited about it. And we are where we're from. Belton in our House district is right next to Fort Hood, and so there's a military base right there. So it's a quite a perfect combination. Well, that is good to know the proximity as well your experience, which we will welcome in our remote council meetings. But it's also good to know your proximity should we should we need anyone to knock on doors back to that. And just more about that in just a moment. But but welcome Brenda. We
013appreciate your joining us this afternoon and in advance for your in in retrospect and in advance for your service. Thank you council member Doctor Lee, I know you have presented to this group before, but thought you might say just a couple of words about your your unit and the work that that you do as a new council member. Absolutely, thank you so much. So I serve as the manager of the highly mobile address student programs and I lead the military connected programs unit. And what we do is connect our families and our students to resources and support systems that can help to elevate their student success academically and non academically. And we've been working with our grantee, the MSEC, and providing a suite of professional development. We've got resources that are coming out the wazoo
014this year and being represented at Summit nationally and helping for Texas to be recognized as a national leader in our military connected work. So just super excited to be in this space and very honored to work alongside everyone. Thank you, Doctor Lee. I'm particularly excited about this collaboration. While we have been collaborating up to date, formalizing that collaboration with, with council membership as well, I think will really benefit the council and its work and priorities. So my myself as the the commissioner designee for the Military Interstate Compact, I serve the, the role for our state and the Commission. Each state as as well as the District of Columbia has a representative. So I attend this the annual business meeting and, and I'm responsible for staffing and supporting the council. My other day job here at
015TEA, I've mentioned a different division or department is the curriculum standards and student support unit. And our unit supports the curriculum standards and other curriculum related policies under the State Board of Education and the commissioner, and that includes our graduation requirements, award of credit, transfer of credit and transcript requirements. And so that's the piece of the compact that that I support. But all of those resources, stakeholder engagement and and tools that Doctor Leigh and direct direct support as well as coordination with school liaison officers is a critical piece. When you put them together, I feel like you have the whole puzzle. And so looking forward to continuing to work with her to, to serve this population in this council. So the next slide is just wanting to show the progress that we've made in terms
016of the positions that we filled, but just highlighting for you the positions that remain unfilled and and then would like to have a little bit of of, of discussion. I'm going to jump to the middle where you see the Chair of the Senate Committee on Education. So we have two legislative appointed positions from the House and one from the Senate. Brenda Howard has stepped in in the as a representative selected from the House. We have been in contact with the Committee for Education. On the Senate side, you may or may not be aware Senator Creighton has has submitted his his resignation from the Senate. He has been appointed as the the Chancellor for Texas Tech University. Fortunately, he had plans in place to to fill our vacancy before stepping down and into his new role,
017stepping down from the Senate and into his new role. So we we expect that we may have that position filled as soon as our next meeting. So good, good news and progress there. We have the other two positions we have vacant are a second ex officio position and the parent representative. Our previous parent representative her term had ended and she is no longer. She was actually also a school district employee but her term had also ended. I am not sure how the the parent designee was identified in the past. That was prior to my joining the council and so I wasn't really sure how to go about filling that position. And so I, I'd like to ask the Council 1 if you either have any recollection of how the position has been, the individual for
018that position has been identified in the past and or have any recommendations about how we might identify an individual to fill the parent representative role. So this is a discussion item opening the floor. Jessica, this is Nancy. I do not have any recollection of how parent representatives were selected in the past, but I am happy to support or even try to find parent representatives to bring forward to the committee for consideration. I think that's so the form of a recommendation that council members can use their networks to identify, potentially identify a parent or recommendation. I could extend that to all what we've done in, in the past when it's kind of been an, an open call is we've asked either the council members or the entity we've reached out to, to provide those recommendations to
019us and then we'll contact them and request a resume. In the past, the council has, has seemed to approve that once we have those nominations that TEA can make that selection. And so I might ask the the council members who are here if there's any objection once we have a pool of candidates with, with TEA, reviewing those resumes and making that selection or any objections to that process. I think that sounds great. So council members could make recommendations. Any other recommendations for how we might pursue or identify introduced interested candidates? I agree with the recommendation from all the other committee members because it would be someone who you're working with who is already interested and has some buy in, if you will, regarding the issues. So I I agree that whoever's on this committee, it's
020probably tied into a parent somewhere that would be interested in serving. So that's my thought moan. I'm wondering if we might check in with some of the school liaisons and their contacts or would you prefer the sticking with the council as a starting place? I'm so sorry. I have issues with my can you hear me? Yes, OK, yes, I that, that was my recommendation that maybe we can ask the Texas lows since we work with parents now a parent that is interested would have to submit an application or I think what I would, we typically just ask for a resume. What I would ask is that council members, whether it's Simone, in your case, you might be asking the, the the slows if they have a recommendation or council members who have their own individual
021contacts. If you will provide me with their name and contact information, then we will reach out. We'll provide the individual with an explanation of the commitment, a little bit of background on the end and then on a request for their resume. So why don't we, why don't we go that route and ask for council members to submit recommendations for individuals? So Simone, I would say if you have an SLO who wants to recommend a parent, if you could actually be the, the, the, the sponsoring council member and submit that individual or individuals to me by e-mail, let's say by December 1st, that would give us time to reach out, review applications and potentially have someone join us by our January meeting. So we'll include that in our follow up communication, that deadline and that request
022in our we'll include it in the minutes and in the follow up communication you receive after this meeting. That would be great. I appreciate the Council support in filling that position. The second position that is still vacant is the ex officio position that the the Council recently approved a representative from the Texas National Guard. And so I thought there are two things we could do here. Well, one we we did what the Council recommended for for the two ex ex officio positions was that we draft a letter for the installation commanders, which we did. We were very fortunate one of those communications was escalated to the national office and we received the appointment directly from a national office for the Air Force. And I apologize, I don't know exactly the way that they depict that
023office. I'm still learning terminology, but we received a Technical Sergeant Cepeda's appointment through that strategy. But overall we got a very limited response and so we were not able to identify a National Guard representative. The two thoughts that I had was we can open that up for discussion as well if there are other ideas or follow up that Council members would recommend. The second option would require an amendment to operating rules. And I'm not sure that this is appropriate, but I didn't think of it at the time when the Council was discussing the two positions. And that is I wanted to be sure that it was the intent of the Council that it was. And, and by and I mean an ex officio representative from the Reserves of the Armed Forces and an ex officio
024representative from the Texas National Guard because it it could be an or one or the other. I recognize that there are different perspectives that you would receive from the two representatives. And so I thought we might just start and I'd like as many folks as possible to weigh in on this question is if this is if it is the sense that it is important to have both of those positions filled concurrently or if it's a single position that it's one or the other? OK. I'll jump in there. Thank you. Yeah, Beau Hofsteller up here at Fort Worth. I think it'd be OK just to be an or. I think the the perspective that the reserve or the guard brings to the conversation is just that they're long standing members typically within the same geographical areas.
025And and that's not always the case. There's going to be probably even some some guard folks that move in and out. But both of those, both of those groups can be mobilized in different ways and can go from being, you know, part time school teachers, pilots, mechanics and full time deployed, you know, in a matter of weeks. Whereas your active duty footprint is going to be that kind of continuous, probably two to three years and then moving in and out of Texas. And so you're going to have just a different perspective from those families that are coming from an active duty background. So I don't, I don't think it would be absolutely critical that you would have to have both a reserve and a guard representative. And I think if we continue to have somebody
026like I'll be in this job for another year and I don't know the guy who's coming behind me has a similar background to me. You know, we can definitely speak intelligently on reserve because we're a, a joint reserve base. So, so I think you'll end up probably with two perspectives there for both active duty Guard and reserve. And so I and then the other part is, is we have Texas Air National Guard and soon we'll have Army National Guard on the base. So we can, you know, always solicit any feedback that you want from those leaders here internally and then just bring it to the group. Thank you. I appreciate that other other discussion. Because this would require an adjustment to the operating rules that would require a formal vote. And So what I propose
027we can outline this discussion, this action item for the next meeting and bring it back to the committee for posted as an action item in our next agenda and bring it back to the council for a vote in January. So in the interim, we will not actively pursue filling the additional position, but depending on the the action and the decision by the Council in January, we will either amend the operating procedure to make that an either or, or if it remains as an and then we'll ask for additional recommendations for how we might fill that that additional seat. But thank you for bringing that perspective of Colonel Heff seller. And while we have a year, we will definitely want to talk to you about our our transition plan. We can similarly in filling Colonel Dalby's
028position, reached out to his replacement about filling that role. Again, that national office indicated that they would like to to actually make the appointment directly and chose it a different base. And so we'll just want to make sure that that we have a transition plan in place. Colonel Headstettler, when you transition out of your current role. OK, that sounds great. OK, thank you so much. All right, well, that takes care of our membership update. Thanks everyone for chiming in. One other reminder here for new and existing members, you may or may not be aware of the open meeting training that is required as a Council member. We will include this information with active links. I realize you can't click on them here, but we'll share both the presentation with you and again in our meeting
029minutes. This reminder that you are required to complete the Office of the Attorney General's Open meeting training. And so we are asking for our new members to provide the certificate. There's a link as well that you can complete the certificate if you are an existing member and have completing the training, completed the training. We are not asking you to provide any additional verification other than we will honor. If you tell you have completed it, then then we will accept that since we didn't put this certificate requirement as a new requirement. However, if you're an existing member who has not completed the training, please do so and then you will. There's a separate link here for generating your certificate. Our ask is that members are up to date prior to the next council meeting in January.
030Again, we'll include this information and this reminder in our our minutes and our follow up communication. You are also required as council members to complete the Military Interstate Compact training. The MC3I. I shorten it a bit. It is a longer title than that, so I should just say MC3. There are three CS in that title and we are, as a courtesy to our new member who's in attendance today, we're going to include training as a part of of today's council meeting. This is an overview there. I've mentioned there are longer, more extensive trainings that are available on the MIT Three web page, but this is just a good opportunity for folks to kind of reorient before we dig into priorities, re Orient into the provisions and purpose of the Count compact. And so for this,
031I'm going to turn things over to Lindsay Dablow from the national Headquarters office. Lindsay, I'm going to go ahead and just turn things over to you. I believe you're sharing your own slides today, is that correct? Yes, ma'am, I will stop sharing. All right. It's making me request that I can share. Yes, I will give you permission. Permission granted. All right, so hopefully everyone can see my screen now. My name is Lindsay Dablow. I am the interim executive director for the Military Interstate Children's Compact Commission. As Commissioner Snyder said, it's a very long organizational name. We are the Commission that is tasked with overseeing the Interstate compact on educational opportunity for military children. So we we didn't do ourselves any favors. We haven't shortened anything. We definitely like long titles. We are headquartered here in
032Lexington, KY. We are part of an affiliate of the Council State Government. So for those of you who are in education or the military, there are a lot of Interstate compacts right now that are out there kind of being shopped around to legislators to address military spouse staffing, especially in the educator realm. And so that's all coming out of the National Center for Interstate Compacts, which is also housed. I'm actually, I'm less than 5 feet away from their headquarters here at the Council State Government. So if you're kind of wondering how we came to be in Lexington, that is the reason why. But this is our condensed compact one O 1 training. So in the next 30 minutes you're going to learn a lot of information, but you're also not going to learn as much
033as you could. So I'm going to go through the presentation fairly quickly. I'm give you some examples as we go, but please know there's a lot more information to digest and you can reach out to Commissioner Snyder to get that, or you're always welcome to contact us here at the national office or your school liaisons. They are wonderful resources for the Interstate Compact. I'm sorry I've got so many screens here. I've lost my cursor, but there we go. So our mission here at MIC 3 is through the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children to address key transition issues that are encountered by the children of military families. I'm sure most of you all have heard the statistic that on average, a military connected student will transition 6 to 9 times. So that's a
034different set of hurdles that child has to overcome to stay on grade level, on track to graduate. And so that's what the Compact is here to address. As you can see, they're removing those barriers to educational success that are imposed upon those children because of their parents frequent moves or deployments. And you'll see this QR code to the compact rules. So how every state becomes part of an Interstate compact is they took the model compact language that we proposed and they adopted it into their law, into their statutes. So I always tell people, all 50 states plus the District of Columbia belong to this compact. So no matter where you go within the continental United States, your child, as long as they are enrolled in a public school or a Dodea school, are covered by
035the compact. So through a memorandum of understanding, we also cover Dodea schools. But what is unique think about a compact, an Interstate compact, is that our rules have the force and effect of statutory law. And so we take that very seriously. We meet annually. As Commissioner Snyder said, we just got done with our 2025 annual business meeting in Indianapolis and we did amend one of our rules. So that is an administrative rule. Actually that has to do with more with paying of annual dues than it has to do with anything related to children. But you definitely want to be aware of our compact rules because again they do have that force effective statutory law And we'll you'll I'll refer back to those here when we get into the provisions of the compact. There are two
036individuals that are very integral to the successful implementation of the Interstate compact. The first one is the compact commissioner, which is the position that Commissioner Snyder is currently holding within the state. They are your state appointed representative. I'm usually appointed by the governor. They're responsible for ensuring that the state establishes an MIC 3 State Council like the one that is meeting today, ensuring that the state and school districts comply with all MIC 3 rules, bylaws, and then once again the state statute and assisting school liaison schools and military families with any compact related education issues that may arise that are covered by the compact. You can find these individuals on our interactive map, our website ismic3.net. Whenever you click on your state, you'll find 2 points of contact there within that state that can assist
037military families. You're also going to find contact information for all the school liaisons. You will find the membership of your State Council as well as your meeting minutes and agenda. So this is really a one stop shop for the state. And then for those of you in the military on today's call, as you have families who maybe are leaving your installation, if it's a member of your staff and you want to say, hey, you know, you're headed to Colorado. So you might look at this map and see who the school liaison is so your family can transition a little easier. It's a wonderful resource for military families to have access to. The other individual is the school liaison. So the school liaisons do not work for MIC 3, but we could not successfully implement the
038compact within states without them. They provide their, their work is so important and MIC 3 is an extremely small part of what they do for military families. So you can see they are the primary point of contact for school related matters. So we always refer families back to the school liaison, back to the compact commissioner. We want them to be in touch with those local points of contact so that they can resolve any issues quickly and efficiently for that student. They represent, inform and assist command. So you may see these individuals at school board meetings. They're going to report back to command like, hey, these are some things to be aware of. Like maybe a area around the base is going to rezone. And so be aware that this may affect some of our family
039members. That's some of the information they'll share. They assist military families with school issues. So whenever a military family has a question and whether they are have been at the installation for a while or they're just coming in, they can help them answer any of those questions. They coordinate with the local school system. So, you know, on the flip side, say you have a large scale deployment coming up or something is happening and it's going to affect the families on the installation. Maybe the students in those school districts, they'll communicate that back to the schools and say, hey, just be aware you may need some more supports on campus because this is happening or you may see this coming up. So really they're about forging partnerships and building relationships. Again, you can find them on
040the interactive map. And we also have a Find My School Liaison drop down on mic3.net. And then of course, if you're headed overseas, a military one source is where you would find the contact information for those individuals who are at overseas installations. So who does the compact apply to? So it applies to active duty members of the armed forces. That does include Space Force as well as the Coast Guard, National Guard Reserve on Title 10 orders. So Title 10 are your active duty orders. We cover those individuals. Some states have chosen through external statute language to cover other, other orders or you know, other titles like 32 or Adrs, but that's done separate from the compact. So just know you, you may get a family and a school distance as well. I was covered by
041the compact, but really we only cover those Title 10 National Guard Reserve members, uniformed members of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration as well as the US Public Health Service are also covered by the compact. And the members are veterans who are medically discharged or retired for one year are covered. And then the families of service members who perish while on active duty, they are also covered again for that period of one year following the service members death. And the reason why those last two groups kind of have that timeline of one year is because, let's say a service member retires, they tend to not live right next to the last place they were stationed, right? They're going to return to their final home of record. So this gives them a year of coverage to withdraw
042their student from the local school district. Maybe they're going to move back to Kentucky. That allows them to enroll their student. And then if they have to address any education issues within that year, they have the coverage to do that after that year. Let's say that family decides to move to Virginia. For whatever reason, they're now moving based on choice, right? It's no longer that they're being ordered to by the military. So that's why that year gives them that chance to move during their retirement. But after that, it does fall away. And then, of course, the compact applies to the local education agency, to public and Department of Defense education activity schools or Dodea schools and only kindergarten through 12th grade. You can see it focuses on those key educational transition issues, which we'll touch
043a little bit on when we get into the provisions here in about one more slide. It seeks to inform schools of the unit of the unique education challenges of transitioning military students. So we talked about that 6 to 9, you know, transitions throughout their educational career. I meet students all the time who are in their 11th or 12th. And I think, Jessica, there was one individual on the Bloom call last week that was in 17 schools. I mean, it was some kind of astronomical amount of schools. And so this is not a student who maybe, you know, mom and dad divorced and they go to the neighboring school districts. You're going to get students that maybe have four or five different transcripts. And, you know, maybe two of them are from a public public schools,
0441 is from a Dodea school, and one is from an International School. And how do you reconcile all of that information to keep that student on grade level, on track to graduate? So that's why the compact exists. It allows for the uniform treatment of military students alongside their civilian peers. So uniform treatments in bold because we're not asking for more than we really want our military connected students to have the same opportunities that their civilian peers have that do not transition. What it doesn't do is advocate for preferential treatment. So again, uniform treatment, it does not impact curriculum, state and local education authority. So we'll see when we get into the provisions, how we work within the foundation established by the school district to really address these various situations that military families encounter. It does
045not apply to preschool, pre kindergarten or provisional kindergarten. So again, coverage begins in kindergarten and lasts until 12th grade and then it doesn't apply to private parochial home school or international schools. However, I'm a little caveat to this last bullet point is, you know, sometimes a service member is stationed somewhere where there is no Dodea school for the student to attend and they have to be an International School. We often get asked when that family, you know, transitions back stateside or comes back into the public school system, can they, can the compact be used? Absolutely. You can avail yourselves of all of the provisions of the compact to assist that family. It's just while they're in that International School, we really cannot affect anything for them. So just know that once they do come back
046in, they do have all of the coverage afforded to them under the compact. And then why is it important? It does provide districts and schools flexibility to make accommodations within the scope of the compact. Prior to the compact, you know, when you got to know it was just a no, you know, there was no recourse. And so that last bullet there, it allows states through their commissioners to converse and facilitate cases. So not only did it provide flexibility, but it gave you a point of contact or gave military families a point of contact in each state that really can have these conversations and address these needs for military students. So now we're getting into the provisions. There is a lot of information on these next two slides and so I'm going to not necessarily read
047all of it to you, but I am going to give you situations or some instances of how they might these provisions might apply. So I'm under the first article educational record. So this allows families to hand carry unofficial documents between the sending school and the receiving school. It allows the receiving school to use those hand carried or unofficial documents to enroll and place the student and then reach back and request the official documentation. And you'll notice on the very kind of if you're looking at your screen on the right hand side at the bottom rules, Chapter 300, Section 3.1 O 1. So if you are, if you did scan that QR code and you're looking for where the supplies and the rules, we've kind of tried to help you out by putting that little CHEAT
048SHEET on there. This is very helpful for for students especially because as they transition right, sometimes students were having to sit out a couple of weeks while a school while the receiving school waited for those official documents. This allows the family to get those hand carried records and the receiving school can use those to enroll and place the student and so the student is not forced to sit out and doesn't lose any time, any instructional time. Immunizations. The student has 30 days from enrollment to get any additional required immunizations. If it's a series of shots, they have to get the first shot in the series and of course complete the the series within that 30 day time frame. What is not covered is TB testing. That is a test non immunization. So if a negative
049test result is required prior to enrollment, that's allowable under the compact. And then, umm, rounding out this article of the compact, kindergarten and 1st grade entrance age, which I would say is one of our more widely used provisions of the compact. This allows a student or requires a student that has continued kindergarten or first grade if previously started at an accredited school before transferring, the ability to continue. So once they've started, they've been enrolled in attending. And we do not define attendance one day, 20 days. We don't give a set number of days, but we do require documentation that a student has to be able to produce to prove they were enrolled in attending in that sending school in order for the receiving school to accept that student, enroll them back into kindergarten or first
050grade, regardless of their age. So again, this keeps students like say maybe a student started in Kentucky and now they have PCs to South Carolina, but they don't meet South Carolina's kindergarten entrance age. Under this provision of the compact 3 CD school would have to honor that previous enrollment in Kentucky and allow the child to continue. It just keeps them on that trajectory once they have started. And of course in educational program placement, this looks like a small provision, but actually as students get into middle school, high school transitions, this becomes more and more you widely used provision. So kindergarten and 1st grade entrance age and then course in educational program, two of the more widely used provisions. The receiving school must initially honor course placement and enrollment and gifted and talented honors, AP, International
051Baccalaureate honors National Honor Society, ROTC. All of those are considered educational programs if previously enrolled at the sending school, but the receiving school can test to ensure continued enrollment and they're not. The receiving school is not required to create a class or additional space if the class is full. So let's say a student was in the sending school, they were, they took algebra, they earned a grade and a credit for algebra. The receiving school, unless they did it in 8th grade, but on their transcript, it's noted that that course was taken for high school level credit or graduation credit. The receiving school has to honor that grade and that credit already earned and place them in the next course in the sequence. So this is an area that we get a lot of questions around.
052The other way this can affect military connected students is let's say they transition mid year and so they were in algebra one. The receiving school has to honor that enrollment and place them back into that course. So it keeps students from having to repeat courses that maybe they took at the receiving school. But again, it all has to be outlined clearly on the transcript. Then gifted and talented program is normally what we get the most questions around for a student. Under this provision of the compact, if the student was enrolled in and participating in the gifted and talented program, the receiving school has to immediately upon enrollment place the student into that program. But then they can test them to ensure they meet the receiving schools requirements. A lot of times schools want to test
053and then place a student. But if it is a military connected student, under this provision, they have to place the student and then they can do the testing. So again, it's always placement, then testing. another unique thing to know about this provision is let's say the student at the end of the school year tested into the gifted and talented program in the sending school, but they didn't actually attend courses. Under this provision of the compact. If that students say they PCs over the summer, the receiving school has to honor that assessment, place the student to the program, and then perform their own tests. They can't look at the test scores and say, well, you may have qualified in Kentucky, but you don't qualify here in Florida. They have to honor that assessment, place the student
054and then do their own testing. So just keep that in mind. Now, of course, if the school does not offer that course, they're not required then to create that course. So that's why you have that extra little bullet point there under the underneath special education services. The compact does adhere to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. And what makes an Interstate compact unique is that in certain areas, the ones that we're talking about or discussing right now, we supersede state rules and regulations and laws in these areas. And every state who signed on to the compact agreed to abide by them. And that's what makes us unique. So in these areas, they've given us the ability to come in and say, hey, you know, maybe you do this for civilian students, but because it's a
055military connected student, you've agreed to go by the this set of rules. But for special education services, because the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is federal law that we do not supersede federal law. So we adhere to IDEA, our language you see here will probably will will mimic what you see there. The receiving school must provide comparable services, but they're not required to provide the exact same program as the sending school. So again, they have to honor what's on the IEP, provide those services or comparable services, but not necessarily the same program. And again, they can conduct an evaluation to determine appropriate placement and ensure that the student is a is receiving the appropriate services. Of course, we always want to make sure that the students are getting the the services they need placement flexibility.
056The receiving school may wave course or program prerequisites if the student has previously completed similar coursework and another local education agency. That's just another way to say school district and waivers are not mandatory. So we allow waivers on almost all of our provisions, but they're not mandatory. However, if a school determines they're not going to give a waiver when one is eligible, they do have to show cause for why the waiver was denied. Placement flexibility. This allows students who may, you know, we, we see a lot of mid year transitions and a lot of schools have seek time requirements. And so this allows that school to maybe waive that requirement because the student was in was in class, but not just not necessarily in their school district. And so they can waive that. This also
057allows schools like perhaps as a student, as a senior, say you have a student who transitions mid mid year their senior year and they need to take a state history. If they've taken a previous state history, you could waive that requirement counting that other state's history. Now, again, that's there are nuances to every case. So I give these as very broad strokes. But you know, the other side of that argument or that other scenario is if the student has the time in their course to take that or the time and they're scheduled to take that course, they're going to be required to the compact does not necessarily mean they're not going to have to take that course. It's, it's a lot depends on when they transition and how much time they have to complete their
058requirements. Absences related to deployment activities. So this allows schools to grant additional excused absences. So a child may visit with their parent or legal guardian while that parent is home due due to deployment. So let's say you know you're getting back for a little time at home in between deployment or in between leaving. Again, this allows the school to, to grant additional excused absences so the child can visit with that parent. We don't give a set number of days you're going to see we use that verbiage, reasonable accommodation if it's during state testing period, if the child is a truancy risk, if they are in danger of failing core courses. We want the schools to be able to say, hey, I understand mom or dad are is back and they're visiting or getting ready to
059deploy and you will want to spend some time together. However, you know, right now we can't give you 5 days off, but we can give you 3 days here and you know, two days the next week or however the school can work that out, but they do have to make some accommodation for that student. Again, that reasonable accommodation eligibility for enrollment. I call this the deployment provision because it does not apply to PCs or permanent change of station moves. It only applies to deployment so a student can continue at their current school while living with a parent or non custodial. I'm sorry, with a guardian or a non custodial parent while the service member is deployed, the school cannot charge tuition for the student living outside of the stone school district and transportation to and
060from school is going to be the guardians responsibility. So we tend to see this whenever a National Guard a member is say they're, you know, put on 2 active duty orders. And we just had a case recently where the parents were divorced. So hit the student was going to go live with the non custodial parent while the service member was deployed. And then of course he's going to come back in six months and going to live back with that custodial parent. So in that situation, you don't want to have to force the student to withdraw from their current school, go to the neighboring school district, enroll and then repeat that process in six months. Under this provision, as long as that and guardian will drive the student back and forth to school and any extracurriculars,
061they can stay enrolled in their current school in that current school cannot charge them tuition for living outside that zoned boundary. We do see families try to use this on two different ways. And again, I think they're very legitimate way he's but they're just not covered under this provision. The first one is a family is going to PCs during their child's senior year and say they want to leave that child behind with a family member or a guardian so that they can complete their senior year. I think that's again, a very valid reason to want to use this provision of the compact, but unfortunately that is not what this is intended to do. Now, can the school district make the accommodation? Absolutely, but that would be outside the compact. They would be choosing to do
062that on their own, of their own volition, not because we are requiring it. The other way we see this tend to be used is let's say a family member or family has younger children and those children are not acclimating well because of the multiple, you know, moves. And so they want to leave them behind in a more stable home life, usually with grandparents or an aunt or an uncle so that they aren't moving. Again, very valid reason to do what's in the best interest of your children. And the school can make the accommodation, but it is outside the compact. This is strictly for what you see there. I'm deployments, not PCs moves, eligibility for extracurricular participation. And this deals with athletics a lot. But I will talk about athletics right now, but please keep in
063mind that extracurricular includes things, any school sponsored activity, band, debate, academic team, drama club, any of those school sponsored activities. But we tend to get the most questions around athletics. So if a student is qualified and ensures the opportunity, the language in the compact is actually facilitates the opportunity for the child to participate in extracurricular activities, even if deadlines and those deadlines can be paperwork or physical tryout deadlines have passed. The school's not required to hold open or create additional spaces for the for the military students and the school must publicly post information relevant to all extracurricular activities. So the PCs season is usually over the summer. This effects cheerleading tryouts and some other, you know, fall activities like soccer or football, some fall baseball. And so students, you know, maybe coming to the school,
064just into that school district after the cheerleading tryouts have happened. And so this requires the school to allow that child to try out even though they have missed that deadline. So just be aware a military families are getting very, very good at doing their due diligence and really trying to work within the school's time frame to accommodate their students. And so we have a lot of parents who will coordinate with the local school liaison. They know, hey, we're coming to Fort Knox. When does Elizabethtown, when do they have their cheerleading tryouts? And they'll find a way virtually or however, to participate. So their student can already be involved before they get there. However, just know that even if this parent does not do that, the school is still required to facilitate the opportunity for that
065child. And then all information does have to be publicly posted where either the family or the student has access to it. So graduation requirements, this is the final provision of the compact. It it does several things. It's usually applied when a student is transitioning between their junior and senior year. So the time frame for them to acquire a new state's, you know, education requirements is very condensed. So there's several different ways that we can help those students who have that shorter time frame to accomplish those first courses required for graduation may be waived if similar coursework has been previously completed. So, you know, again, we kind of talked about the the history example that I gave a little earlier. This allows that student to kind of still have those graduation coursework completed because of courses
066they took at the previous school. The receiving school can accept extra and of course exams from sending state or national achievement test in lieu of testing that the student didn't have to take. So the example or the way we normally see this applied is let's say a student was a freshman in Rhode Island and took biology. And just for the sake of argument, let's just let's say that Rhode Island did not require an end of course exam. Now they're a senior and they're graduating from a state that requires an end of course exam for biology. That receiving school can accept, you know, a CTSAT scores. We've seen them accept the last Test score taken in that course as the end of course exam. They can also waive the requirement. There's a lot of different ways
067we can help students who may be are are encountering some issue with that end of course or exit exams for those courses that they weren't required to take in other states, but now they are in the receiving state. The third bullet is outside of kindergarten athletics and course placement. This is what we call the reciprocal diploma. It is one of our more widely used provisions. So those are the four you want to look for. This allows receipt of a city school diplomas, an alternative to accommodations for exit exams or graduation requirements that the student doesn't have time to meet. So let's say a student comes into a school and they need to take a full load and then maybe attend summer school if the student can graduate from the sending school. So you know, you,
068a school counselor will look at the students transcripts and they're going to realize pretty quick the student is not going to meet our graduation requirements. But you reach back and they would have met the sending states requirements had they stayed. So you reach back to that sending school, you arrange this reciprocal diploma with the school. We can help with that. But school liaisons do these all the time. Every graduation cycle they're putting together these packages for reciprocal diplomas. The student gets to participate in all of the graduation activities. They get their cap and gown. They walk across the stage, Mom and dad get to take their photos. But when they open their folder at the end of the evening, it's a diploma from the sending school. That's the reciprocal diploma. So this is allows that
069student again to stay on that trajectory so that they're not disadvantaged because they've transitioned between that junior and senior year. And then you see here again, we talk about waivers, not mandatory. However, if denied, you do have to show cause for the denial and the receiving school if denied shall provide an alternative means for acquiring the coursework. So graduation may occur on time. So what that means there that a little additional caveat is let's say a student comes in and they need a course. So they're a junior and their senior year and they need a course that that was offered in the fall and you're they transitioned over, you know, Christmas break. And so now it's the spring semester and they're not going to get the chance to take that. If you can find an
070alternative to accommodate that student. So let's say it's a course taken online virtually or maybe at the local Community College. If you can still find a way to accommodate that student, you don't have to reach back for the reciprocal diploma, as long as you can keep them on track, on grade level track to graduate. Now, every scenario we have talked about throughout this section of the training is for students who are doing their due diligence right. They've gotten the grades, they have come to school, they have participated. We do not change and we do have to have this conversation sometimes with parents. We don't change graduation requirements. We don't change grades. You know, your student earns the grades that they they get the grades that they earn, I should say. And so we really, you
071know, stress that to families like the the compact is here to help the students who have done everything they could do to possibly stay on grade, live on track to graduate. And these are just some extra little assistance we can give them the case resolution process. So here at the national office, we work about 70 to 80 cases. Commissioner Cider, did you want to say something before I moved on? I'm going to unmute myself first. I did when I had, we had one question in the chat when you were talking about the placement piece, Colonel, have settler asked about a testing timeline for a place and then test. So I think that's related to when we're talking about programs like GT other other programs that a district might historically test before they place. But with
072a military connected student, we flip that and we say place and then test. So the question was if there's a timeline for that testing requirement. Yeah. And if I could, if I could add to that just to kind of expound on it. So most of the military families, well, not most, but a heavy percentage of of military families are PCs ING in the summertime or they're trying to align their their moves with the summertime. And so the the student would be, you know, departing out of a school where they were previously placed and then moving to the somewhere in August time frame. And I've seen it in more than one occasion where that school, even if they place, still wants to test at the end of the summer. When would be the absolute worst time
073to do the testing? So I'm just trying to discern if there's any language or policy or guidelines for those schools to actually place and allow the student to to execute for the year and then test at the end of the year. Or if they actually have to test upon showing up right after APCS move. So as far as the compact is concerned, there is no time frame for the testing. As long as they place the student and allow the student to participate in the courses or the the educational program, they can test whenever they are testing. And honestly, we usually see it where a family's where the school like wants to test before they play. So we, we don't run into very many instances where it's more of a we want to test at the
074end. It's usually that these the school wants to wait to test. So I haven't run into that so, so often. But no, there's no requirement as far as the timeline or the time frame under the compact. Now, states may have some. And so I would refer to Commissioner Snyder on if there's some type of requirement in Texas, but not under the compact. She's shaking her head. No. OK. Yeah, no, that's helpful. I think for special education, there might be timelines that need to to be reviewed and considered. But in in general, just broadly, no, at the state level, we don't have Yeah, no, I think that's, I think that's good. I think the special my, my wife is a special educator. And so I understand the uniqueness of that. Students are at an extreme disadvantage
075to move PCs, which is equivalent to having a death in the family. And then when they show up at their next place, even if they are placed and, and it shows up on their schedule, if they're required to test upon arrival, that's a really difficult situation. So I think from an advocacy standpoint, my, my hope is that the students would be allowed to be placed and then at the end of the year, if they don't test into that for a follow on year. That would make sense to me. Thanks. Did I miss anything else on anybody? Sorry, I, I can't read and speak at the same time. And, and no jokes about Kentucky. I think that's normal for everybody. I think that's because I'm from Kentucky. Now I've lost my cursor again. Hold on. So
076at the national office we do work around 70 to 80 cases per year. You know, we get called from school districts, we get calls from families, we get calls from school liaisons, we get calls from compact commissioners. And so we work really hard on those to resolve them at the local level. Most effective, efficient outcome for the student. Our focus is the student. We, we really know there's a student, there's a child somewhere that's waiting on this decision either to, we have to retake a course or to get into a course. And so we don't want to belabor it. We want to really address at the local level. So we always ask families especially, you know, have you talked to the teacher, the principal, the Superintendent? We want to ensure that everybody is aware there's
077a situation and has had the opportunity to address it, right? Because the worst thing is whenever you call someone and they're not aware that there was even a situation. So we always make sure everyone is looped in. I'm at that point if the family feels like we've tried to address it, but unfortunately, you know, we're still struggling, maybe it's a communication that's not a problem. Then what we do is we loop in the school liaison and then the compact commissioner and at that point we're on the emails. Usually we just are there as a support if anyone has any questions. But we really do allow them to discuss it at the local level to work it out for the student. And 90% of the cases are resolved by the school liaison and the compact commissioner.
078They never come back to the national office. On those rare occasions where a commissioner will contact us and say, you know, do you remember the Smith family that referred us to, we've spoken to the school and unfortunately we, we need some help. Maybe we're not communicating effectively. So at that point, when we are invited in by the compact commissioner, we will have a discussion with the school. Again, we always do it under the, you know, education and information because we want it to be productive. We want them to understand what the law says and what they're required to do. If at that point it is covered by the compact and the school is refusing to make the accommodation, then we do keep general counsel on retainer that we can have contact the school. Usually it's
079the attorney there within the school system to have that conversation on more of a legal level of what's required for that student. I've been with the organization. Now I'm in my 8th year. Actually, I guess in a few months I'll start my 9th year. And that's only happened twice. So it's very rare that we get to that point because again, we are very focused on working these out quickly for the student. And so we're always focused on that. But it does happen and we do have general counsel should we need to address those issues. So what do you, what do you do now? Well, now that we've gone through all of this, I'm just our website, mic3. net is a wonderful resource. There is a whole page dedicated to schools and a page dedicated to
080parents. Of course, our interactive map is on there. So I always tell people, if you haven't bookmarked it, please do. We constantly update that we're on it every day. But we also have some really great materials, informational materials for schools and the military for the school liaisons to give out to their families. So the first one that I'll point out is you may see this little, it's like a little kind of picture in the middle of school with kids running across it. That's our guide for parents, school officials and public administrators. This is everything we have learned today or kind of talked about today in this session in a very condensed layman's terms booklet. And so it goes through everything. It gives contact information for the national office. It's a wonderful resource for registrars, for
081guidance counselors or school counselors. It's a great resource for school liaisons to have or for, you know, senior spouses whenever they get, whenever they have their meeting. Sometimes we'll brief to them. This is you can order any of this stuff off our website and we provide everything at no cost requesting party. So everything we provide is paid by the state dues that support the Commission. So we don't charge for anything. That's the great news is that you can order these hard copies off our website. They're also digital downloads. That guide for parents, school officials and public administrators is in English and Spanish. We have two items that we've translated that and the brochure are both available in Spanish as well. But we've got some great one pagers and I know Texas Education Agency also took
082A1 pager and they have a great one pager with compact information on one side and I believe the Texas information on the other. So there are also state specific resources that you can find. We of course have stuff for a month of the military child which comes up in April every year and that we refresh that and send it out every January. So that'll be coming out soon. And then we have our resource toolkits. That is basically everything you need to know about the compact and all the different links on our website so that you have that act, that information at your fingertips in one single document. And then we do provide training on the compact and we provide it virtually like today we provided in person. Again, that is no cost. We bring all
083the materials. We'll arrange those for the school district or for, you know, any, any stakeholder group that wants that information. We also have MIC threetraining.net, which is our online portal that our education, our training committee just recently launched, which Commissioner Snyder is a part of that that that training committee. This is everything. It's 10 modules. You can take it at your own pace. You just sign up, you create a user profile. Again, no cost to do this. I mean, you can go through everything a little bit more in depth and we've done it today, obviously. And it does offer a certificate of completion at the end. So for schools, I always recommend that if they can't come to one of our monthly virtual one-on-one training sessions that we provide on our events calendar, then this
084is another way to get the information, you know, at their own leisure as they can take it. And so that's a great course. And anytime we provide training, we do provide that certificate of completion. So if a school needs professional development hours, we can definitely arrange that. And some of the school liaisons, I think last year, and I'm going to say this, Air Force Base wrong. So I'm going to apologize up front. Dice DYESS you think I was there for three days, you think I would have finally learned how to say it, but I don't do well at it. Anyway. We provided in person training and a lot of schools allowed us to come in and do professional development. So that's definitely something that, you know, we concentrate on, especially to ensure that schools understand
085the compact and the the legal provisions that are afforded to those military connected students. And then finally, you can always contact us at mic3.net, our e-mail, ourgeneralinfomic3info@csg. org or on our telephone number. You're welcome to reach out to us. But I would say that if you have questions, if you know your school liaison, reach out to them. But definitely Commissioner Snyder is your point of contact there within Texas and can answer any questions you might have and any recent resources that you or the the council determine you might need. Commissioner Snyder, you know, you can always request those to the national office as well. We're here here to support your all's efforts, but I will stop there and yield the floor back to you, Commissioner Snyder. Thank you, Lindsay. Do we have any other questions
086from council members for Lindsay? So one thing I wanted to mention the trainings that Lindsay provides, I think there you know, there are, there are a couple of opportunities here in one of the I mentioned we were at the annual business meeting just last week. And, and one of the things we talked about in the number of resources that are available on the MC3 website is you know, we have, we have the, we have the water, the resources and we, and we have the horse, which are our school, our LEAS, our schools, our parents. And like, how do we, how do we get them, get that horse to, to the water? And I think that is as a potential space for the, for the council where we come in and in creating and establishing these
087networks that we can ensure that, that both our school systems as well as our, as our stakeholders and our parents and our students are aware of the provisions and the resources available through, through the compact. And so that is I think what we'll be talking about in the second part of of our meeting. Lindsay, anything else you would like to put on the radar of this group or, or share with us before we conclude this piece? No, I, I appreciate the opportunity today. I think Kushner Snyder mentioned our annual business meeting. We had a great panel of bloom teens that spoke and really what they said was, you know, they're, they were 7, they're 17 years old or 18 years old. And they said, you know, we along the way now that they know about
088the compact, they had found different instances throughout their mini PCs moves where the compact would have helped them, but they, they didn't know about it and the schools they were transitioning into didn't know about it. And so, you know, you don't know what you don't know. But definitely to Commissioner Snyder's point, if there is a way that we can assist your all's efforts in getting the information out to the parties who need it, please let us know. We're that's why we exist and we're happy to do that. So I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much folks. We actually have kind of an another detailed item after this item. And so I'd like to give folks just a 5 minute break before we pick up our business. So you're welcome to go off camera and
089mute yourselves if you're not already. And we will reconvene at 2:15. We do expect to to go till 3:00 today. So if you want to take a 5 minute break, we will resume at 2:15. Thank you. You know, that was a very short break, but I just wanted to give folks an opportunity to pause for a moment if they needed before we continue with the second part of our agenda. We'll give folks just a little bit of time to make their way back to their computers. While I do that, I need to extend it a a technical difficulty. I recognize we have attendees who are not council members, so they're not panelists. Unfortunately, we don't have a mechanism set up that we can view or see the any comments that are are submitted. That is
090something I will work on and provide some more guidance or instructions if needed for our next meeting, but wanted to let our attendees know. If there is a question or comment that you would like to share, please send that to me via e-mail and and then we'll we'll find out a way between now and and the next meeting to make sure that we are able to, to view those comments. But at at this point in time, we're not able to do so, right. I am going to kind of transition us as folks make their way back to the computer. If Council members can either turn on their cameras or send a message to let me know that you have rejoined us, that would be helpful. Where we're headed next is revisiting the conversation from from
091a previous meeting related to our Council priorities, specifically starting with starting with just the the role of the State Advisory Council. This is pulled from a from a previous slide from a previous session. Our role as the State Advanced Advisory Council on Educational Opportunity for Military Children is to assist in the dissemination of information regarding the compact, assisting the identification of topics and issues of interest to military connected parents and students, and then to assist in that identification of topics of issues of interest for districts and schools that serve military connected students. So that is both identifying those those issues that come up and matter the most, both for our parents and students as well As for our school districts, our leas #4. We advise the Commissioner of Education, excuse me, on topics of interest
092to military families and we advise TEA regarding dispute resolution issues related to the Military compact. Those five areas are the ones I think where our priorities that we focus on in the year ahead and then coming years really focus. The last three are kind of more logistical that we convene once 1/4 abide by the Texas Open Meetings Act and established policies and procedures governing the operation of the State Council. I don't think I have the slide here, but or maybe it's animation. Let's see if it comes up. It does not. There we go. I think we have accomplished compliance with 6-7 and eight, but what I am really hoping for the year ahead with the Council is to start to identify the different ways that we would like to focus on the dissemination of information
093and support that we provide to our students, our parents, and to our schools. On that note, we started that conversation earlier this year, but in April and in July, the Council discussed continuing its effort to promote understanding, awareness of the provisions of the compact. So essentially, when we started talking about where we might want to focus in the coming year, the council member started with saying we just need to keep doing the things that we're doing. People need to know that the compact exists. We are still at a foundational level with a state as large as Texas, as ensuring that there's awareness of the compact. But the council did identify some areas of focus for the coming year. The first is increasing communication with districts with lower numbers of military connected families that have limited
094awareness of the compact. So we know that our school districts that are on base or near bases have a lot of support from the state liaison officers that are there. And our state liaison officers extend their support across the regions in areas where they. But there are still pockets and some of them are large pockets that are less connected geographically to our bases. But that we still have students who are meet that definition of military connected who may be under the provisions of the compact but not have the same level of communication and resources and support as students who are are near to bases. And so the council felt that increasing communication with these districts so that we can ensure that their support for students, regardless of where they live in the state, that they
095receive the the support that they need and deserve. The second was reviewing cases of of issues military connected students experience. So this was a conversation about the application of the compact would be beneficial for the field, but also for the council as Lindsay was going through the provisions of the compact. Some of it seems really straightforward. But as I'm sure our attendees know and council members to a certain extent, depending on your direct interaction with students and school districts, it's not always black and white and cut and dry. It's usually it's complicated. And so how to apply the compact in those when there are those areas of Gray? Really, I think the case studies, the actual case studies of what the issue was, the the resolution and the process of getting to that resolution is
096where the compact really comes to life and, and we really learn about how, how to apply those specific provisions to specific scenarios. The council also discussed promoting the criteria for Purple Star campuses. I believe it was Doctor Kraft who brought this up. Purple Star campuses are are not actually a part of the military Interstate compact of the Military Compact, but they certainly represent a selection of school districts that are upholding the compact and providing resources and support to military connected students. And So what are those campuses doing right that that that criteria across the state, Purple Star or not, we want to ensure that some of those best practices are are are being implemented across the state. And then while they're being implemented, the next step may be that Purple Star application, but having something
097that awareness of best practices and promotion of best practices for all campuses in our state is was suggested as an area that we focus on. Then there's also reinforcing the council's connections with school liaison officers and we have some some ideas about how to do that, that I'll talk about it just a bit. And then finally, we we also addressed a priority for this year in filling vacancies on the council and we discussed a little bit earlier some progress we've made as as well as some, some next steps to ensure that we are fully staffed, if you will. So I talked, had a conversation with, with Doctor Lay about, we decided that in, in laying out some of these priorities and works that it would be helpful to have some, some documentation of the conversations
098and decisions that the council makes. And so Doctor Lay helped or I shouldn't say helped me create Doctor Lay created a visual organizer for us. And in some ways that we can think about the priorities that the that the council addressed. So as a first step, she created this document. On the left side is our membership, a link to our tea web page. You can see on the far left column we have the different positions that we hold starting with the Texas commissioner, our Superintendent representatives. We have a designee of the governor. The grade out boxes show our vacancies. The orange represent direct school employees such as or school district representatives, a school council representative, a district level representative. And then on the right side at the bottom quadrant there you can see there is
099a representative from each branch of the US Armed Services. And we've identified the the the branches that we have represented on our council. They're in green. Then we started to, so that represents who, who we are the, the body, the entity that sets these priorities. And so as we talked about having a, a, a plan or documentation of the priority plan, we really identified looking at the list that we just looked at that there were three kind of buckets or categories. The first is stakeholder engagement and outreach. The second training opportunities and resource dissemination. And then the third is strategic partnerships and leadership engagement. And then as the next step, we took the list of priorities that the Council talked about in its last meeting and have assigned them to one of those categories of
100work. So it's stakeholder engagement as where we plugged in that increased communication with districts with that lower military connected student enrollment. That's essentially some outreach. Those are our stakeholders, the schools and the students and and outreach to increase that communication and the training opportunities and resources. This is where and, and training opportunity and, and resources where we really focus on the on, on the training, the tools and equipping our stakeholders and staff with the with the resources that that they need to promote these these priorities for military connected student support. So this is where we plugged the reviewing of case studies that is essentially could, could be a, a training or informational piece also put that criteria for the purple * campuses and those best practices. So distributing those there's, there are training opportunities that
101both of those offer, as well as potentially the production of of a resource that can be shared or distributed. And then in the last column, we've got strategic partnership and leadership. This is cultivating the partnerships and the relationships to promote the compact and the council's priorities. And so we identified there that reinforcing the connections with the state liaison officers, they are important partners in this work, as well as filling our vacant council positions, which is our our leadership. And so this was really just in starting that these are, these are three again, like categories of, of, of types of priorities that we can have stakeholder engagement, training and resources dissemination, and then the strategic partnerships. And each of the, the priorities that the Council discussed in these previous meetings fits we thought fit in one
102of these areas. Before I move on, I wanted to kind of pause and give folks, the council members a moment to look at these these categories and where we place the priorities that that the group discussed and see if we put things in the right place. Does this make sense? And or if there's anything you would you would move or define differently than we've than how we've defined it or where we've placed it here. This is Simone. I don't know why, but I'm having issues with my microphone. Can you hear me now? So I really love this visual. It makes it easier to understand where we're going. So I think it's great. And I don't have any suggestions for, you know, making it better, but I do like it. It makes it easy to understand
103where we are and where we want to go. Thank you so much. And Commissioner, I just have one question is, does TEA have a list of purple star campuses that can be provided to us? We'd too, Doctor Leigh, do you want to address that question? OK. Yes, Brenda, we have a Purple Star campus designation web page and it has all the required components on there. So I will send that into the chat for you and there you'll see the list for the last six years. Excellent. Thank you. So really this first graphic that I'm sharing with you is just a way to think about the different categories or, or or types of, of priorities that the council may may identify. And it really is just to start a visualization 1 to list these priorities and
104then to kind of assign them and like what it how we might have. I think that that bucket or that category also helps how we might think about or or work on that particular priority. This is outreach, this is a tool that we need to develop. These are partnerships that we need to Foster and, and, and cultivate. And so this is just kind of the starting of helping us to organize, visualize and document the the discussions and the priorities that the council has discussed. But we'd like to take it one step further. And so I'm going to, I don't know if I'm going to stop sharing my screen or pull something over. We'll see how this works. I want to bring an Excel document into the mix. But actually, before they do that, I wanted
105to remind the council that when we have an action item such as that requires a formal vote, like the operating procedure that I mentioned that I'll bring back, that is something that we need to identify in our agenda and, and ensure that we have a quorum for. We, the council can also have discussions. And if there's general consensus about doing a thing or moving in a particular direction, that's something that we can just discuss. And if there aren't any objections, we can decide we want to move forward with that. And so here I think I might just ask, you know, in general, if there are any objections to using this, this framework to help us organize our, as a way to think about and organize our priorities moving forward. Any objections? OK, then I think
106we can continue and to use, if we, we add to or tweak or refine, we can bring this up. It's just kind of a grounding document for us. We can also open it up for, for discussion today. It's really just to 1 to pull in what the committee has already discussed so far. We will provide, I will provide opportunities in the future if there are, there are things we want to add to and we might want to do that on the schedule. So that's going to kind of segue me to the next document. I think I can just pull this over, but no. Well, there we go. OK. Are you able to see a spreadsheet? I want to make sure it's covering. I see Jeanette nodding. You should see it. Let me bump it up
107a notch. So what? Oh, for some reason, it's not letting me increase the size. Are you able to? I can try something else. Jeanette, are you able to see and read? Is it large enough that you can read what's on it? It's not that large. I can see the words, but yeah, it might need to be zoomed. But maybe. Yeah, it is. I'm not seeing the zoom. Yeah, I think I'm gonna. Here we go. OK, so this next tool would provide an additional layer of accountability and organization to the priorities. I'm just I've labeled it as as a planning document. So what I've done is taken in and placed the the priorities that the council has identified. And I would say that I think a priority with a verb is a goal. It is an
108action that that you would pursue. And so I've identified them as goals and broken them into two types of of goals. There are cultural goals. Cultural goals are goals that impact our families, our communities, and our military culture. And then structural goals, They're on row 7. Structural rules focus on organization, processes, frameworks of a system. They might take a policy or legislature or memorable and understanding in order to to enact, but they're more systems and process oriented. So I've I've taken the the priorities and goals that the council identified in the previous discussion placed them here. I've pulled over the priority plan category and started to lay out some action steps that I'd like to look at briefly with the council today. And we, we don't have to dig all the way into this document
109and make decisions today. What I'm bringing to you today is just a tool, a planning document that the, that the council can use again to document to ensure we have some accountability for the things that we say that we're going to do and, and have a way to, to document progress and decisions that are made. So if you start with the cultural goals section, that's where we have the reinforcing connections with school liaison officers, promoting the criteria for purple * campuses, and increasing outreach to school districts and personnel with those low numbers of military connected students. I've also included a in that first column if it seems like this is something the, the the council could do on the short term, if it would be more of a midterm goal or if it's something that
110would take a longer more trajectory to, to consider it as been accomplished or to make significant progress in. So starting with reinforcing the connections with with school liaison officers, I identified that came from our strategic partnership and leadership priority steps. One of the things that I was talking to at the annual business meeting, some of the other commissioners is that they include what 1 commissioner called an SLO or a school liaison officer spotlight that they include in their agenda meetings an opportunity for school liaison officers to attend. Now some of the other states are not as large as Texas, and so that might be one or two. So it's always the same person. That might be something that we could do on a on a rotating basis. And so I included that as a potential
111action action step. What I would like to do is potentially bring this back for approval, give folks an opportunity to look at and bring back for approval. Since these action steps are ones that I identified, we could add to it or you could change it or revise it. You don't, I, I don't want the council to think you're stuck with these. This was just me showing how this tool might work and, and laying out some ideas about how you might want to take on approach each of these goals. So that was an idea that I added here as an example for you. I also listed for myself because I recently received an invitation from Simone to attend one of the SLO quarterly meetings. That would also fall under the goal of reinforcing connections with school
112liaison officers. So while that might be a broader longer term goal, there are a couple of of really of short term simple things that we could add and integrate to strengthen that strategic partnership. So it's just an example of how going across that first row of how we might use a planning document like this to again, identify the priority, set somewhat of a of a timeline for it and some action steps to go along with it. So I'm just going to kind of go through the rest of this relatively quickly. Again, giving council members an opportunity, Excuse me, to review this document and and approve it at your next meeting. In terms of the criteria for Purple Star campuses, this is a training opportunity and resource dissemination topic. There are lots of resources that Doctor
113Leigh is going to review in her update next that are available that we just need to direct people to. But it could be something that we add to future council agenda if we want to 1st. Like what are those criteria? Do we as a council want to familiarize ourselves with them? That's all I had placed for action items. There may be other things that the council wants to include. There is potential action steps and then the third thing, outreach to school districts and personnel with lower numbers of military connected students. This is a stakeholder engagement and outreach opportunity. We need to reach out to these districts. As a potential auction step, I identified here, we may need to collect and review military connected student data that is reported to the agency to find where these
114students are. And then once we know where they are, then we can perhaps address a more targeted approach to reaching some of those schools. And I think we always think of like outliers. When we think of districts with limited information, we think of, I know I have a habit of thinking of like small schools or rural schools. That is not the case when we're talking about low numbers of military connected students. I had a case referred to me that was in a large metropolitan area that had few numbers of military, one of our highest enrollment districts in the state, but had a relatively low number of military connected students. And so this is not necessarily just, you know, small, a small school problem. In some ways it's even more so a large school program where
115our kids might be getting lost in large enrollment districts. And so just moving to structural goals. Again, this is just a walk through kind of a preview is not one, it didn't make the priority slide, but we talked about establishing some form of a, of a communication plan that was maintaining the things that the council is already doing. What are some of the the, the communications that are already in place that we want to reinforce and ensure that we're we're carrying through. And so I identified that as that we put that in the stakeholder engagement and outreach bucket. And an action step would be identifying what are some of the key events and types of mechanisms for communication. And I'll show you a tab just briefly of where we can lay out some of those
116steps in the communication plan, reviewing case studies. That's a training opportunity and it could pair nicely with including a state liaison officer spotlight into meetings. If we want to incorporate that into the agenda, that would be a great opportunity for the school liaison officer could bring in a case study. It wouldn't always have to be a case study every meeting. That's something we could work with Simone who participates in those meetings. We could kind of task that group with identifying what they think would be the most helpful or useful update if there's a, a spotlight part of the agenda. But I think case studies would would, this would be an opportunity to bring those case studies into the into the meeting. And those are the folks who deal with the highest number of of of
117cases. Every now and then there may be one that comes to to the to the state level or national level though that might be helpful to share out as well. And then the last fully staffed the council, we've talked about that earlier. We've identified the current vacancies and we've already started a bit of a plan about how we might are going to approach each of those. So again, just some documentation for accountability, organization and. I think once with this document, we can talk about is it something we might want to look at at every meeting? Is it something that we just want to bring out the beginning and the end of the year. But it helps me to to again, to to visualize and see the things that the council has has committed, is committed
118to doing and ensuring that we're making some progress. The columns we didn't talk about our results, that's where and status. I think that is something that we can plan and mark as things that are done and complete, things that are ongoing. And then the council can also talk about it's complete, but we want to continue doing this thing. Or if it's something that can fall off because you feel like you've accomplished that goal and are ready to identify a new goal in its place. Next, I won't go into a lot of detail here, but the council discussed having this a communication plan of the different notices that come out. So this is something I'd like to look at with the council at A at a future meeting. What are some of the things that you
119would like to communicate to the field? Just to get us started, I've plugged in our state Advisory Council meetings. There is an open meeting notice that comes out, but there may be other types of communication that can help promote the the meetings so that the the field is aware and feels invited to participate or or to view the proceedings. Let me go through the columns here. This month, if it is just a month long commemorative month that we might want to celebrate, it's identified by month. If it is a date specific action, I've identified that and then the event and topic and just going through them briefly. As I mentioned, our Advisory Council meetings, National Military Family Month, which Doctor Lei is going to talk about next. We purple up month of the military child.
120And so this is just a, a basic list that we can go through and refine. But I think the other important thing is if you use this as a standing item and the agenda is you're looking forward and making plans for that next event. The National Military Family Month is already upon us and Doctor Lay's office has already been doing some outreach and events around this topic. So I don't think there's anything that council needs to do this quickly. But in our January meeting, looking ahead, April is the month of the military child. Lindsay mentioned that there is a month of the military child toolkit. So that's something that we can pull out and look at. So what I'm suggesting is using the communication plan as a standing item in future meetings so that we
121can look ahead and see what might need to be communicated and have a plan in place for how and what the the council would like to do around those events that are happening between quarters. So I think we've got not so much happening that we need to to take on or, or just with short notice worry about taking on at this meeting. But in our January meeting might want to look ahead and make some plans for what communications the council may want to put out as a part of its outreach and engagement for other upcoming events. There are a place for other topics where the council can brainstorm what other events they might want to add and then what some of the different types of communication and mechanisms that are available to the council that
122could plug in and how you would want to communicate. What mechanisms do we have that exist that you would like to use for those communications? And there may be things to add there as well. The last thing that I want to show you is in the planning document is how we want to handle our agendas. We have a list of existing items, things that we always do, roll call, public comments, council priorities, and then I've also got whether columns to identify the frequency and the timing of those events. Is it an agenda item that you want to take up at every meeting? Is an agenda item that you that has a particular month, for example, military child month planning in January because it's in April and then acknowledging in some way in your April meeting.
123So that might just be two meetings, but you have other items. I mean, you're kind of stuck with roll call and public comments for all meetings. Do you want to discuss your council priorities at every meeting? So I've just shown you the document we can use to document those priorities and identify action steps. If you want to set goals in October and review and your previous meetings progress or identify new action steps. Is it? So again, these are some decisions I'm going to be asking the council to make, but I think kind of laying out this infrastructure in advance will be helpful in the coming year for count for going back to, if you remember the prep, the the role of the council, those first five steps, how you want to make progress towards those
124other those other pieces. Because of our role beyond just meeting four times a year, there's some new items that I'd like for the council to discuss and approve. One, we have not been doing approval of minutes, which is fairly common item in other state groups. And so we may want to integrate an approval of the minutes at the top of our meetings. The communication plan might be something that we again, look at each meeting looking ahead, what are the things we may not want to communicate? So adding that as an agenda item, the end of the year report that we turned into MC3 seems like that's something that the council should review together before we turn into MC 3. And so that could be a July meeting. And then as I mentioned the spotlight, I
125would like that was an idea of an action item. So I'd like the council to discuss at our next meeting. Do we want to add that? Is that every meeting? Is it every, is it what cadence you would like for that? So laying out for you some decisions that I'm going to be asking you to make with me in in January and there might be some other opportunities for training you. You don't need to train every meeting. Maybe it's not every every year. Maybe it's every other year. Would like some feedback for especially from folks who are here today about what what cadence you think it would be helpful to hear from the national headquarters. And Lindsay's been developing some new training. So it wouldn't have to be the same training over again. They actually
126that was one O 1 she did this morning. This afternoon there's a two O 1 so we could discuss bringing some other trainings in. So that was a lot of information. I went through it really quickly. I wanted to share this planning document with you and so you would have an opportunity to preview it. I will share it with you in between meetings. And then when we come back in January, we'd like to take a little bit more time looking at plans, identifying some action steps and making some decisions so we can use this document to again, help help plan and organize our work in the coming year. Questions or comments about the planning document? All right, well, you've got, you've got some homework between now and the next meeting, which is really just to,
127to take a look and, and come to the January meeting prepared to discuss and offer suggestions for action steps as well as making some decisions about our, our agenda items on on this tab here there is a commissioner priorities tab, which is some priorities I'm setting for myself that I will share with you at a future meeting. With that, I'm going to keep rolling rather quickly. I'm going to transition things over to Doctor Leigh, whose department has been very busy with some stakeholder engagement with really probably all three buckets of work. Give me just a moment, Doctor Leigh, to get your slide up and I will turn things over to you. OK. Thank you so much. So thank you for this opportunity to share updates with our TEA military connected students programs. As we continue
128our work with military connected stakeholders, our focus remains on aligning compliance and programmatic efforts to ensure unified meaningful support for our military connected students across Texas. If you go on to the next slide, OK, our goal is to highlight three key areas today. So the first one is professional development and capacity building events that we've completed. Our second one is newly released resources to support both military and educational stakeholders. And lastly, reminders about upcoming professional development opportunities. Each of these updates align with our council's priorities and supports military connected student work stream as outlined in our TEA charter. So it does reinforce our shared commitment to coordinated impactful support. On the next slide, since our last update in July's council meeting, we've completed five key professional development opportunities. These include foundational training on supporting military
129children through school transitions. We had two professional learning communities, professional development and office hours that are combined and then a training and resource development day for our regional education service center military champions. And these champions are they're voluntarily designated at each of our educational service centers, so 20 across the state of Texas. And we also participated in M sex global training summit that was held in Austin. And each of these events helped us to build that capacity across the region and deepen our collective impact. So on this next slide here, if you click on it, Texas is home to 20 Education Service Center. Jessica, if you can click one more time, it'll show a map of OK, It'll show a map. This is the map of all of our 20 Education Service Center regions across
130Texas. And I'm proud to share that each region now has a designated military connected ESC champion who also knows who their military school liaisons or school liaison officers are. So they're going to be coordinating with our installation and also school districts to help bridge that gap of awareness and knowledge and support for our military connected students. These champions are part of a newly formed voluntary network dedicated to advancing support for military connected students statewide. And so with that, in partnership with our Military Child Education Coalition, we hosted a powerful global training summit and it was preceded by a specialized pre conference day for our ESC champions. And so I wanted to highlight the summit because we had some inspiring addresses by Commissioner Mike Morath and Major General Larry Broadwell. And so on the next slide,
131this will give you a shot of our ESC military champions. They represent our our military support regionally and it's also followed by our partners with MSEC and our TA program staff members on our next slide here, very excited, we unveiled new a new four part micro video. The short impactful videos are designed for both educators and families, and they offer practical strategies to support better understanding and just services to military connected children in schools. These series covers topics including military culture and lifestyles, supporting families relocating to Texas, addressing the needs of military connected students with exceptionalities or special needs, and fostering emotional awareness through strong school community partnerships. And each four of these have one version for educators and one version for families. And the QR code actually leads you to where you can view
132those videos today. And just like Commissioner had said, our National Veterans and Military Families Appreciation Appreciation Month toolkit is available. So we wanted to help schools and communities across Texas and honoring our military connected students and families during the month of appreciation. So we're excited to unveil this new resource. It was developed in partnership with our grantee and it is providing ready to use materials and ideas for schools and educators to recognize service, sacrifice and strength for our nation's veterans and families. And it's another way that we're supporting campuses and creating inclusive affirming environments for military connected students. So that QR code actually leads you to the toolkit. And we already know that schools are planning on using this. So it's been very, we've gotten some very good feedback from this development and this is
133something that we're going to look forward to. Month of Military Child. We will have a toolkit for Month of Military Child as well. Doctor Lee, if I can jump in. I know we're getting close to time and I realize I, I have over planned ourselves for this meeting. So I think it was rather ambitious to to, to roll out the planning tool and have a have a training. So I think one thing that we can do is bring back some of these pieces, particularly the videos that you mentioned in January, because so much of of of the pieces in the priority planning document really align with some of the activities that are already happening and with the military champions that like they're one of those potential communication mechanism levers that we can use. So how
134we can integrate both the, the, the council's priorities plus the activities from your office? I think it's a real opportunity just on the tool kit. I'm wondering if there are any other that the council or the curriculum division, your, your your partner here at TEA can help with pushing out this resource. Really it's just it, it's just really about promoting it. What we've been doing is sharing with our ESC champions that if they can just spread the news that this toolkit is here and it's very self-explanatory. There's instruction pages that will tell them how to use it. And so it's just really promoting it through the the avenues that you are able to. Well, I do think there will be an opportunity as we we do some planning and look at the communication in January,
135as you said for the month of the military child that we can think a little bit more about what other communication streams that we have that we might be able to help promote the toolkit that your team has developed. Thank you. And this is actually the last slide. These are some upcoming professional development and capacity building events that are available. We have a specific college bound financial aid and college preparation for military families. And because this is geared for families, we are making it during the evening so that families are able to access it after work time. And then we also have a professional learning community a based on developing a Purple Star advisory committee. And this is just a team of support that can help support school on staff members and military connected students.
136And then lastly, we have our upcoming military connected student support Summit in January and this will be in San Antonio and it's open for all military stakeholders. And so we do have Lindsay who will be presenting on MC3 and hopefully commissioner will as well. We have our tea and our ESC staff members and then we're hoping to have a student panel as well for for our professional development and that's it. And then you think this link in this QR code, Doctor Lee council members would be on the web page will be able to see any of the professional development opportunities and the presentation. So this is the link we will share in our follow up communication this actual slide deck as well as the the planning document to prepare for the next meeting. I'm going
137to go ahead and stop sharing there since we're just about at time. I do want to forward ahead to a reminder about the next our next council meeting. So give me just a moment to share that visual with you our our next meeting. And Please note this was a revised, this is a revised date from what was initially discussed. We will not be meeting on MLK Day. We will be meeting on January the 12th, a little earlier in the month. Apologies for that oversight. And prior to that meeting, we'll send out the agenda item again, anticipate we'll be bringing back the planning tool, looking at the communication plan and future meeting agenda to take on how we want to structure and take on some of the the priorities that the Council has identified for this
138year. You'll receive a tentative agenda 3 to 4 weeks before the meeting that will include your general audience link list as well as your stakeholder list and an opportunity for you to submit any additional items if you would like to submit an agenda ad hoc item. And then the week before the meeting, we'll send you a reminder again with your panelist link and that general link. So we'll go ahead and meet. As said, we would go to three today and I and oops, I'm sorry, I did not click the final share button here. Give me just a second just so you can see what I was talking about. So there you go. There's that date, January 12th. Please mark your calendars. We will again send out in advance, but go ahead and save the date
139for us. Now we have a tentative agenda. We'll, we'll talk about the membership update, our priorities update, which will include the planning document I just referred to. We'll have that planning session on how to promote the month of the military child. And then again, you have an opportunity to submit any additional items. We are right at 3:00. And so I will move us to our journey slide. Thank you so much for your time this afternoon. We look forward to seeing you January. If you have any questions between now and then, please don't hesitate to reach out to us and let us know. Thank you and have a great rest of your week. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. The training was great. Thanks so much. Looking forward to working with you, Brenda.