001All right. Well, we are right at 1 pm. Hello. I'm going to go ahead and get us started. So, um would appreciate if we could start off um if you're uh with cameras on for our council members. Thank you all of those of you who are joining us um remotely. And as a reminder to our council members and attendees, our meetings are open meeting. And so while we have the ability to see each other and interact, we have a general Zoom link um that members of the public can can click on and join and observe our meetings. They are also recorded um and posted um to TEA's um YouTube site. So, if you're ever interested in if you miss a meeting or are interested in um re-watching um all or a part of a meeting
002um you can um always access uh archives of our previous meetings through that channel. I am going to so hopefully I've already gotten a thumbs up that I'm showing the right the right screen. very excited about um some special guests that we have from the National Headquarters for the Military Interstate Children's Compact Commission with us today. We're going to start with them so that we can um hear from them um ask any questions that we have and then let them them go. Um but we'll start off though with our call call to order. We're missing a couple of folks that I that I am expecting and I've seen some people come and go um that may have had um technical issues that were here just a minute ago. So, if um we'll we'll um add
003them to to the queue if they're not here for the for the official uh call to order. Um I'll kill a little bit of time just walking through our entire agenda and then we'll come back to uh to roll call. Um public comments are a standing item on our agenda. We did not have any public comments submitted to address. Uh so we'll move through that pretty quickly. And as I mentioned, we'll we'll officially start with our agenda items with our update from national headquarters. Um, I'm going to introduce those guests um when we get to that item. So, if y'all will hang hang tight with me until then and I will give a brief introduction and then let you introduce yourselves. Um, we have an agenda item about C council membership. I mentioned there's at
004least one or two people who I saw online that have uh that I don't see now. So, I'm not sure what's happened there. But, in general, we're a lean council right now. Um, but I do have some updates um on some new membership as well as um some uh next steps we're taking to fill some of the vacancies we have as well as opening up for some discussion um because there's a couple of those positions that um I could use some input from the council about what might be the best next steps in terms of outreach um for a couple of our vacancies. I then want to move on to talk about our 2526 council priorities. Um, part of that discussion will be if we want to continue to identify our priorities by calendar year
005or fiscal year. Um, because it can be a little confusing when we talk about a a year and our priorities, but um, we'll look back at 2024 um, and talk a little bit more. We started this conversation um, back in uh, our April meeting. Um we'll revisit some of the discussion um from that previous meeting and then talk about how the council would like to move forward um with the identification of of of new priorities um for the upcoming year. We are count uh in quarter 4. So officially we're wrapping up of fiscal year 25 and starting our next meeting will be uh the first quarter of of fiscal year 26 although we'll still be in the 2025 calendar year. Um along those lines, we'd also like to talk about our meeting dates uh for
006the next fiscal year. Um I'd like to to establish and nail down our October date so we all have that on our calendars and have some discussion about um future meeting dates for the remaining quarters. Um we have also um uh an exciting staff report from our colleagues in the highly mobile and at risk division here at TEA. Um they have an honorary position on the council. Um we'll talk a little bit more about that in the council membership. Um but that team um always um or most usually brings an update from some of the a exciting work that they do to support military connected families. Um so I'll have an update for them from them and then also I'll open up the floor um for um any other council members who have uh updates
007that they would like to share. We'll wrap up with upcoming events that uh folks might want to mark their calendars for. got a couple of counselor trainings um scheduled. So, we're excited to get those going again. Um and then we will adjourn. So, we have a full agenda um lots of discussion items. Um so, I hope to keep folks um somewhat active and and engaged. Um starting with our roll call. Um I will call off please identify yourself as present and if you are serving um as a proxy for one of our members, please um identify that as well when I call that member's name. Dr. John Craft. >> Good afternoon. President, >> thank you. Lena de la Cruz. >> Captain Bo Huffler. >> I'm sitting in for Captain Huffler today. >> Thank you, Heather.
008Nancy Patterson, Dr. Bernie Roer, >> present. Simone Whitland Hendendricks. I see Simone here. Um, but Simone, you're you're currently muted. If you're able to to confirm as present, you could use the chat if you want to use the chat if you're not able to get your audio to work for you. Madison Yandel, Kelly Kravitz. Kelly is not present today, but has two staff members from her uh division. She is the division director for the highly mobile at risk division. So, Ann and John, if I can count you as as proxies for Kelly today. >> Yes, present. >> Thank you. Yep. uh two vacancies here and I apologize I skipped over a vacancy up at the top um our representative from the Air Force which is Colonel Dolby who retired in June but I believe I
009saw him logged in at one point Dolby are you with us this afternoon okay well we'll check and see if he is able to log in I have reached out to his office and so we'll talk more about that in our our membership updates um that hope to have a replacement for that position um by our next meeting. Uh Jessica Garcia, >> it's Jessica Garza, but I'm so sorry. >> It's okay. >> I think we actually have that correct on on another slide, Jessica. Jessica Garza will get that corrected on our roll call. Thank you. Glad to have you with us today. And then we have two vacancies um that we'll also be talking about in our um membership update uh a little bit later on our agenda. All right, as I mentioned, no public
010comments were received. And so we'll move right into um what I consider to be our our first true agenda item, which is our update from the national headquarters. Before I turn things over to our guests, we had talked in April about having a refresher training um on the compact itself from our national headquarters. Um however given that we have a couple of vacancies that I really think we're making good progress on filling um for our next quarter meeting of the next fiscal year um it seemed prudent to wait until we have that new membership to do that training and it was also timely um I have mentioned that we are um anticipating a budget uh a dues increase um for the dues that we pay as a state participating in the military interstate compact. Um,
011I also was pretty um upfront about not being as a as a new commissioner feeling um up to snuff to really best explain um the dues structure um to the to the council. And so I have brought in a phone a friend uh I'll go ahead and bring that to our next slide. Gregory Lynch is the commissioner from the state of Washington. and he is also the finance chair and he has graciously uh joined us today um to provide some information some additional information about um the dues and um and the upcoming increase that we're we're we're expecting and will be available for questions. But I also wanted to point out too of um our supports from the national headquarters um and I'm going to let them just introduce themselves just to make sure I
012get pronunciations right and then we'll turn things over to Greg for his update. Can we start with you, Shares? >> Sure. Hi everyone. I'm Shereice Sim, the executive director for the compact. Um, I've been with the compact about nine years and prior to that I was in Hawaii doing the same thing as you, um, staffing the commissioner for the state department of education on the compact. Lindsay, you >> Yes. My name is Lindsay Dabble. I'm the training operations associate for the military interstate children's compact commission. Like shares, I have been with the organization. I'm in my eighth year. Um, and happy to be here with you all today. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. One or both of uh of those two from the national headquarters will will be with us in our I
013anticipate an October meeting for that training that I mentioned earlier. Um, but with that, I'd like to turn things over to to Greg to introduce himself. Before I do that, Greg, um, I believe you're running your own PowerPoint show and I just need to give up sharing or do you want me to do that for you? I do have your deck. Yeah, if I could I don't know if Lindsay or Charice has access to the slides. Lindsay does. She'll go ahead and put the slides up and run the slides and hopefully I I will be able to talk the slides. >> Okay, let me stop my share and Lindsay, I think you'll be able to do that. Great. >> Well, good afternoon everybody and Jessica. Thanks for thanks for inviting me. Uh well, just a
014little bit about me. I am into my I think it's my 16th year uh as the commissioner for the compact. I'm the the first and only commissioner in Washington state. Uh I'm a retired Army colonel. Uh spent nearly 30 years in active duty and I'm also recovering school district and region superintendent. Uh had had done those jobs for for nearly two decades. Uh so I've given my background, you know, I've had a child in the school system. I've done what many of our uniform parents do and that's move around a lot. When we moved out to Washington, it was actually our 19th move. And so our daughter uh attended countless school districts. So I'm coming to you from an educator standpoint, but also a dad, retired Army officer that basically lives some of the things
015that we're going to talk about with a compact today. I'm not an expert by any means uh but I've learned a lot over the years particularly working with the compact and Washington was also one of the area earlier adopters. So I've been the finance chair now for this is my second year I believe going into my third year. I'm going to talk about the readers digest version of the dues increase. I would invite your questions at the end. Hopefully I can get through these slides in about five or seven minutes and then uh love to be able to hear your questions and we can have some discussion. Jessica, I'm on your schedule at that point. So let's go to the next slide, please. So talk about compact member benefits. In other words, what do you
016get for uh for the dues that you pay? These are the some of the things that we talk about and we'll talk about them more at our annual business meeting this fall. uh we do gather all the commissioners together uh across the United States once a year uh to discuss some of the things we're going to talk about today. So very very beneficial in terms of staying a breast with what's happening not only in the compact but also the service uh families and members that we support. Uh Charice and Lindsay scratched a little bit on the advertise and promotion. You'll be the benefactor of some training coming up in the fall. We talked a little bit about that uh which is a wonderful thing. Uh the team is always available for technical and legal assistance
017and so if you have questions Jessica I know won't be bashful uh and engaging the national headquarters but that's certainly part of what we also advertise that we do. Uh and then you can see the other couple things there. Um next slide please. We um our source of revenue only comes from essentially the dues. 99.9% of the money that we collect for the compact comes from the states basically paying a fee per student to be part of the compact. We've got some small donations uh from other outside organizations, but they are relatively small. We're not a taxing authority. uh some school districts in the United States, depending upon what the state uh legislation and tax structure looks like, can levy taxes on the local populace. This commission cannot do that. So really totally dependent upon
018those dues that we're going to talk a little bit about today. One of our challenges is inflation and I'll talk a little bit more in detail about inflation in a minute. Uh it's always something that we chase and many of you are familiar every year when you go through your own budgeting process trying to account for cost of living based upon inflation. Uh we've got a lot of different commissioners from different backgrounds across the United States. One of our challenges is the fact that we've got a pretty good leadership turnover. Uh and we also see a lot of differences between states in terms of how they budget. Washington's in a bianial uh process. As an example, this year we just wrapped up a longer term uh conversation around budget in our state legislature. Next year
019we go on a shorter schedule. Some states that we provide support to basically have long sessions every year. And so it's a challenge to try to synchronize when we start to talk about dues increase and Jessica alluded to it in the beginning to make sure that the state council's informed and whoever provides the authorization for those dollars, we give you enough runway to be able to have those conversations in a manner that's helpful and understandable to your state. We hope uh every couple years and I'll talk a timeline in a second to talk about future dues increases. Uh and so more about that just in a minute. Let's go to the next slide, please. So, uh what makes our compact a little bit more complex than most of the compacts United States, and there's right
020around 260. We're only one of six compacts in the United States that's got every state as a signatory to the compact. I just want you to know that because what that means and some of you will appreciate the more stake you have the more difficult coordination and communication is. So we not only have to, you know, synchronize obviously what's happening in the national headquarters but across all 50 states and DC. And so when we do proposals like a dues increase, we got to account for the fact again uh that we're very very uh we're in the minority when it comes down to compacts. Uh we've learned a lot over the last 15 years. Uh but we still got a lot of room for growth going forward. Next slide, please. So, I alluded to a runway
021a little bit ago. Uh, last year was the first year that the compact since its inception in 2008 actually now has got a five-year budget. And the reason why we pushed for a five-year budget is some of the things that I've already talked about, inflation, leadership turnover, uh, cycles for budgets, planning processes at the state level. And so right now, for the first time, we're going to institute this dues increase that'll be effective in fiscal year 27 that'll go essentially five years through fiscal year 31. And so we've done the best we can, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute to be able to project what those increases look like over five years. Over the next couple years, we'll start to talk about what the next five-year budget process looks
022like and a potential dues increase or not. beyond fiscal year 31. Jessica serves as the commissioner for Texas and part of her duty will be to vote on this dues increase in the fall during our annual business meeting. And so this gets a little bit confusing around timelines, but right now we're talking about essentially a vote that will take place in the fall, fall of 25 that'll be effective for fiscal year 27. And so what that means is when we get to next summer on the 1st of July 2026, we will start fiscal year 27. So we're voting this fall for an increase for fiscal year 27 that'll actually take effect in calendar year summer 1st of July 2026. And I know that some folks may be on a fiscal year cycle, some on a
023calendar year cycle. When we say five years, we're talking about our fiscal year that begins every year on the 1st of July. Uh so just if you got some questions about that, we can talk about it. But that's the five-year runway that we're talking about. Next slide, please. This is probably the most important and the most complex uh topic to talk about as far as the dues increase goes. That stairst step you see started about the time that the compact started in 2008. In 2008 we decided because we had very very few states at that point that we would charge basically a dollar per student. That's what each student each state pays $1 per student for your uniform connected children that are in the public school system. We've done one increase in dues circa 2018
024and we went from a dollar to a $1.15 and in hindsight when we take a look back we did not do the best job we could accounting for the inflation factor. Now some of that is absolutely unpredictable. You'll see a couple years and you probably remember not too long ago in 2022 there was an 8% basically inflation factor that we had to deal with in a cost of living. So in the aggregate since the start of the compact up through basically fiscal year 2023 we've seen about a 35% increase inflation in the aggregate. We never accounted for that when we did our one and only dues increase before. So as we go forward in time the next five years we've done some averaging. We've done some pretty decent analysis over the last couple years and
025we determined that in 2027 we'll do a 4% increase based upon what it is now $1.15. And in 2027 each child that participates in the compact public schools will be charged basically $1.78. When I say we'll be charged, the state will pay $1.78 per kiddo in the public school system. That 4% will hold constant right now in our five-year projection. And you can see come fiscal year 2031 on the right hand side of the slide, we'll go to $28. So, we'll make adjustments along the way. Uh hopefully inflation will do what we think it's going to do. Uh we'll always be ready to do adjustments, but right now that's the plan. So, fiscal year 27, $1.78 per student. Fiscal year 31, $28 per student. Next slide, please. You can see where Texas is. It's the
026number two largest state in the union in terms of supporting a uniform connected uh students. You see Washington is number seven. How that manifest itself for the state of Texas because you're paying basically for 59,760 students is next slide, please. It looks something like this. So in fiscal year 26, the year that we're in right now, $1.15 per student, the entire dues for the state of Texas, 68,000. Fiscal year 27, next July, we'll go from 68,000 to 100,000. And then you can see if you follow that bottom horizontal line, we'll top out at 124,000 at fiscal year 31. So that's the way it lays out right now for Texas at 4% over the next five years. Next slide, please. So with that, Jessica, I'd like to be able to open up for some questions and
027for discussion. And if I could, I can certainly turn it on over you to facilitate that or I'm happy to facilitate whatever works for you. Of course. Thanks, Greg. Well, I think in one that the council hasn't had an opportunity to to preview some of this information. So, I do understand if folks are absorbing the information and processing. And so, I also want to put out there there's an opportunity for us to to think through as a council or for you independently to think through any questions you may have. and I'll make sure that we either run those through Greg or or through the national headquarters to get you responses. But I do want to to pause here and see if we have uh any any questions now for Greg while he's while he's with
028us. And I might um Lindsay if you want to um stop share and we'll uh look across and and see if we have any questions. I do want the council to know that this is um this decision and this a lotment is really made through our general um our governmental uh regulations division here at TEA. And so I have already started that process and had those conversations to ensure that we have the budget in place. Um, as Greg mentioned, the the the vote of the commissioners will take place at the annual business meeting in October. Um, wanted to give the the council members just an opportunity to to be aware of of um of the process um and the rationale. Um, and as I said, um, an opportunity to ask any questions should you have
029them or while we have our military headquarters here, um, any other questions you might have, um, related to the the dues or the support that we receive from the national headquarters. >> So, silence either means that I was absolutely clear and and and you understand exactly what I said or I absolutely confused everybody. And I hope that's not not the case. Jessica, you said it. it it's it's a lot of information to absorb. Uh we tried to break it down in simple pieces. I'm always available as you know uh for questions by you or anybody else that's got questions. You're welcome to access me. You already have my phone number and my email address, but I'm happy to help out the great state of Texas. Uh where I had lived previously for three years outside
030of Fort Hood uh in Harker Heights, Texas. So I know I know Texas pretty well. uh one of the many places that I've had the pleasure to serve and one of the best places I've had pleasure to serve. So with that, Jessica, I'll hang around if you need me, but I'm not seeing any questions at this point. >> All right. Well, we will we will keep you posted if that changes. Um with that, my teacher wait time is is not is not the greatest because I also want to be respectful of our council members time. So, I will keep us moving, but know that that um that window o remains open while Greg's with us, as well as anytime in the future between now and our next meeting. I'm going to go ahead and need
031to take over screen sharing responsibility again here. Give me just a moment to do that and we'll move to our council membership. Um, first and foremost, I want to share some good news. We have and a welcome, a warm welcome. We have a new council member, Jessica. I thought we got it right at somewhere in here. Jessica Jessica Garza is uh joining us as our new council representative. Um, she joins us from Fort Sam Houston ISD. I believe you're still um with them, Jessica, but if I misspe, uh, please correct me. And so, I'd like to turn things over to you just to introduce yourself. Um and uh well just that introduce yourself to the council. >> Thank you. Um yes, like Jessica said, I am a school counselor for Fort Sam Houston ISD. I've
032been at um the middle and high school for 13 years. 10 of those years were at the middle school and for the past three years I've been that one of the high school counselors and also the district lead council counselor for for the district. Um our district is a unique district in the sense that we are located on the military installation of Fort Sam that's part of um JBSA but we are a public school. So we're not a DoD school. We're we're a part of TEA and in and ISD. Um our zone is the military base and so like 90% of our students are military connected. Um they either live on the base or if they live outside of the base. As long as they're military connected, they can apply to come to our school.
033And then we have a small population of employee students that that attend our school. Um because we have such a high um population of military connected students, we also have military family life counselors um on our campuses. So we work very closely with them and we um service our students like support group and um other types of you know um issues that come up that are directly related to the military. So we run support groups for students that um have parents that are deployed or grief groups if we've had any um of those situations going on. and then your typical you know um high school support groups that we have. Um I have also served as um our studentto student um and junior studentto student sponsors one of them while I was a middle school
034counselor. So, I worked um really closely with that um with our group here at Cole in welcoming those um our students that are new to our district that are PCSing or coming from a different base to our school. So, it's been um a great district and um it's definitely I've had um it's been an honor to be a part of the district and to serve as a counselor for them. But, thank you. you, Jessica. Um really excited to have your experience and background um on the council and so we're we're really looking forward to working with you. Any questions um for for Jessica before we move up to our next staffing announcement? Well, again, that door remains open as well. We're looking forward to hearing more from you. >> Thank you. The second update that
035I have is not a council membership update, but a staffing support um update that I'm very excited about. Um those of you who um were with the council um last year will recall um Sher Mer was a TEA staff member who helped support the logistics and planning of the state advisory council. That position has been vacant um and we've just recently filled it. Um the the position title is our career and technical education curriculum specialist and we've made found just the perfect person not just for that position for all things CTE. Um but to also uh support this uh council and the the military interstate compact. Um so I would like to introduce you to Dr. Lively Briner and um Lively I'll let you uh take it from there. >> Hi everyone. Uh so good
036to be here. Um, what an incredible honor. My name is Dr. Lively Briner. Um, I am very new, a new CTE curriculum specialist. Um, a little bit about myself, I served in the military for a little over 11 years. Um, and then, uh, during that time, I went and sought after my college degrees in construction science and management, uh, both a bachelor's and a master's. And then I recently just graduated in January with my uh doctor of education. So uh super excited to be here um and I look forward to working with everyone. >> Thank you Lively. So again really excited about the experience and expertise that you bring as well. Um, also hoping, you know, this has been a piece the the coordination um and communication piece that I feel like as a new
037commissioner and a new division director here at TEA um has has been a challenge this year. And so I'm very excited about having the additional support um so that we can be more timely um and efficient in our in our support of the field. Um, one of the things that I'm excited about getting to work with Lively, um, right from the starting gate, and again, as he mentioned, very new, he's just joined the team this month, um, is addressing some of the vacancies that we have on the council currently. Um, we have, um, Colonel Dolby let us know, um, he was retiring. I have reached out, he is our Air Force military representative, um, or was, I should say. um I have reached out to his office and also extended the opt uh opportunity to
038that office to to join the meeting um to observe um as they identify the a candidate who can fill his his position. So that may be um who we see they might just be watching to join. Yes, I see a hand up. >> Hey, this is Pat Smith from Goodfellow. Colonel Olsen has received that invite and I'm actually sitting in for him today. I think he's going to want to do that, but we'll definitely get back with you on that. >> Fantastic. Thanks so much for letting us know. Pat, remind me. Are you the the school on or let me What is your position there? >> I am the uh mission support group deputy and so Colonel Dolby was the former mission support group commander and that's the role Colonel Olsson's in now. >> Wonderful.
039Well, we will um as I mentioned, we um record and archive these meetings. So for that budget update or any other pieces that'll be available uh to to Colonel Olsen. So there you go folks. That's great news. We've already won one out of six uh five to go. Uh the other position actually that we are very close to and will um be relatively we anticipate filling um pretty soon is our is a tea position. It is our military family education highly mobile coordinator. Um that is out of Kelly Kravitz's shop if you recall. um she was included in the roll call and I think we're just identifying what makes the most sense um for that team in terms of our serving voting member. Um they joined us a couple of team members from Kelly's uh
040shop join us for updates from that team and we're we're just needs to have some additional conversation about who will serve as the voting member from from that um from that group. So really um that's really kind of takes us down to just four to four four to go. Um the next two of our full um voting members are the two design from our uh branches of the legislature. Um the Senate Education uh committee chair and the House of Representatives education committee chair both um have uh either the ability to serve or to identify a design um to serve. um they have historically chosen a designate, but because we have new um chairs since the last appointments in those in uh in the committee, um those are currently vacant. And so we have I mentioned
041our government relations um team, they have um now that session is over and they were um very busy in their offices um with u various incendary pieces of legislation. Um we are still busy with the implementation of course a special session starting soon but we've started this that conversation again and hope to have those designated again. My my goal is as early as our our quarter 1 October meeting. Um which would bring us up to just two additional positions. Um which we've talked a about a fair amount as a council. Um but I need a little bit of additional support um uh in u reaching out and identifying and filling um these last two positions. So the council um finalized their decision in April to add two exeicio positions. Um a representative of the Texas
042National Guard and a representative from a reserve component from any military branch. Um what we had talked about was reaching out to the installations um for recommendations. Um I still as a pretty green um commissioner um thought I had my marching orders. um went back to um my documents. We have which I knew we have several installations. I'm not sure I have the most upto-date information um in terms of how to reach out to our installations. So, some I have an actual individual um which I can try that email. Some is a more generalized office. Um, but I wanted to talk to the council a bit about whether that that is in fact what you think is the best approach. It's my just sending out an email. We've drafted one um to each of the
043installations. It's my understanding that the reserves administratively might be structured a little bit differently and not necessarily the the installation might not be the best point of contact. But that's something I'm I don't have a lot of information about. And so I'm gonna kind of pause here and see if uh council members might have some other ideas about might what might be the best targeted approach um to reach out um for for recommendations to fill these two these two positions. Folks have been pretty quiet this morning. Dr. Roer, thanks for coming off mute. >> Can Can you put the positions back up again so I can see? >> Oh my goodness. Am I not sharing my Am I Well, I think >> you >> do. You just see me. Mhm. And the capital. >> Nice
044picture. >> Oh my goodness. Well, that's Let me try my share again. I must have not shared my screen correctly. Apologies for that. Vacant council positions. Is it still me? >> No, it's out. >> Okay, great. I have been screen sharing the wrong uh the wrong uh slide deck. Great. Thank you. So, it's those two exeicio positions, Dr. Roer, Texas National Guard and and a reserveist from from uh any military branch. Well, I I guess my first thoughts would be to um as far as the Texas National Guard is to go to the you know, the command um and get um some recommendations from them. So, whoever the I don't know, I was in the Army Reserve, so I'm not sure exactly how the Texas National Guard works. Uh but going to u probably the
045the top level office uh in each of those and getting uh an opportunity to speak with someone to see what kind of recommendations they could make. That's the first thing that comes to my mind in terms of trying to get those positions filled. >> Is that a single for the reserves? Is that a single office or do you think there's one for each branch? And this is one where I I don't have the background um that I know exactly where to go from there. >> Uh you have I mean you have reserve units all over the the country, right? um everywhere. But um it it probably helps to to go there's there's one person there's one I think that person either is either a two star or three star uh who's over the United States
046Army Reserves. So that's there's a commanding general that's over the United States Army Reserves. So obviously it would probably be difficult to to get to that person, but at least starting with um that uh office and I could probably track down that information for you and and try to figure out who it is we need to speak to um and go from there. >> That would be great. We will take any any contact information that that you have to share. Um, I also spoke with Captain Huffler offline. He wasn't able to join today and he he also offered if I send him the the letter that we've drafted that he could forward it um to the right points of contact through his joint base. >> Yeah. And it would be the same thing for the
047Texas National Guard. There's someone there's a general that's over the Texas National Guard. So, um, if we could find out, um, I don't know where that person is housed, but I'm sure they have someone who can, uh, help us, uh, track down who could possibly help us fill these positions. >> Great. Other ideas or comments, recommendations? Dr. Briner, I know that you have have served with the reserves. You'll have to to um correct me and um at what level um you participated, but I'm I'm wondering um if you have any thoughts or ideas as well where we might send our communications in this effort. >> Uh certainly. So for I can speak to the Texas Army National Guard. Um it would be Camp Mabberry uh would be my first uh point of contact. Um and
048then they can certainly uh push that communication out to the appropriate personnel. >> All right. So I think as next steps I can reach out to Captain Hut Sidler. Um uh Dr. Dr. Roer, if you have any uh additional context that you would want to share, but it sounds like Dr. Briner has um an avenue through Camp Ma Camp Mabry that we might um forward the request. I guess my next question for council members are are there other um well no actually I was going to ask I do have a list of installations. Um is that still a good idea? Um, or should we stick with these first couple of more targeted contacts first, but any start is probably a good start and um, they should be able to get us. It may take a
049few phone calls to to get to the right person, but as long as we have a starting point, we can go from there. >> That sounds good. see what comes back and then if we need to widen the net um we'll do that. Okay. Any other uh thoughts or ideas on this topic? Okay. Well, I expect if we uh get moving pretty quickly, I I actually feel somewhat confident that we might be able to fill one or both of those positions um before our first quarter meeting in October, which is a few months away. um uh but at least have identified uh two um additional positions I think that we can be expecting to join us in October which again was the thinking of putting off a more of a a training refresher um on
050the military from the national headquarters group from uh MC 3. I do want to to mention though, I'll be sending out some information. Um, Greg Lynch mentioned some of the services and support that we receive from national headquarters. Um, there are uh, Lindsay dropped in, it should still be in a chat, a link to a one-pager, anformational um, brochure. Um, but also there are a number of trainings on the site um that both are a requirement for our council members. So, we'll be doing um kind of it's not a very nice word, but audit uh just checking in to make sure that all of our council members have have gone through that training um as well as making it available to the new members who join us in in October. So, Jessica will get you
051that information as well. All right. Um the next topic we have I I think might a deeper dive might also be a a a good idea when we have additional council members um that join us. But I would like to just touch back to some of the things we talked about in April about setting um priority priorities for the year ahead. Um and so I'm going to operate from that's really our our fiscal year and uh starting with quarter one and October. So this will just kind of be a primer for that conversation and then I think we can come back to it in in October hopefully with again some new membership as well. Um we looked at this slide in April. It is a list of um the of the role of the state
052advisory council uh on education opportunity for military children which is our full official name. And the first uh I'll go through them, but the first thing in the list um is where the council has chosen to focus in previous years um which is just the assistance in dissemining information about the military compact. And we talked about this um uh in April and and I think most of the responses that that I heard from council members were still just having people know, helping people to know that the compact exists and the support that it provides. Um most of the conversation really went around um that that is that is still a need. I think what might shift or look a little different in the future is how we go about doing that. What what kinds of
053activities but there seem to be interest in we we still just need to stick the basics of making sure um that that line of sight and that that awareness um is exists which is going to be really which can be really hard in a state as large as Texas. I'm going to go ahead and say there are the last things in this list are kind of taken care of by the council and our meetings um alone. We are required to convene. Our role is to convene once a quarter which we do um abide by our open meetings act which we do. Um we actually have some in-person attendees um in which may be a first um in our meeting space that we reserve where we webcast the meeting. Um, so welcome to those in-person attendees.
054Um, and we established policies and pro procedures governing the operation of the state council which is our operating procedure. So those are all kind of just taken care of. Um between where we focused before and the things we're already uh just administratively taking care of um are number two through five um which all focus on identifying topics of uh of topics and issues of interest um but broken out for parents and students for districts and schools um as well as raising those up um to the commissioner of of education. Um I don't really see these as separate priorities. Um again they're they're our role um is disseminating the information and I think what two through five say is that information is relevant um to to each of these different groups. So for in 2024 the
055members had identified had focused again the dissemination of information but I chose to prioritize certain stakeholder groups um parents principles counselors and registars and I pulled this I was not here in 2024 um as you know still relatively new um started last fall um but pulled this from a previous deck as a priority that had been identified and then I also pulled told what some of the activities were that the council had undergone. Um there were letters that were sent to installation commanders regarding the month of the military child. Um there were uh some trainings that were conducted for districts. Those were specifically for counselors. Um and um the creation of a of a of a compact flyer that's available in English and Spanish. It's posted to our website. Um not sure if it's posted
056in other places. Just putting um that out there. Um, so one of the things that the council could talk about if if it is to continue to support um better informing um our stakeholders what activities the council might want to um pursue um in in the um fiscal year. And so it's I will say and it's been pretty quiet out there. I know we're still building our membership and so that's why I think we want to bring this back. But while we have the group we have with us today, I' I'd like to open the floor and see if we have any ideas or thoughts about what these opportunities and activities might be in the year ahead. Good afternoon. This is Simone. Uh I just feel that the the portion where we uh you know
057have awareness for parents uh school staff, counselors and registars should be an ongoing activity even for the next school year because you have so many uh um changing staff, you have new parents, you have uh new counselors. Uh and I think it uh should be an ongoing effort. Thank you so much for coming off mute. Simone, do you have any thoughts on looking at things that not to say it didn't happen, but just looking from the slide I found from 2024, I didn't see specific activities for the parents. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about um and these are things to think about because remember we'll bring it back in October. Um, but any thoughts today about what that might look like, what kinds of activities we might consider um to best engage and
058support parents. >> And this is just off the top of my head right now. So, uh, I felt that the, um, the military compact flyer that we did for school staff, uh, I thought that was a very beneficial tool that we can just, you know, as the school leazison office, we can just, uh, uh, send to incoming, uh, new counselors or whoever it is at the staff, uh, level for school. So maybe that is something you want to consider for parents. Absolutely. So, um I am sharing a slide deck, not something that I can interact with or take notes on, but we'll take notes and include it in our minutes. So, I'm recording like just promoting that flyer. We have it. How can we get it out better? Get it out there in the hands
059of school liaison officers, counselors, and the parents. It's a great suggestion. Leveraging things we've already done. I would also and and this is a second thought I had. uh you know so as school leaison officers many uh of my colleagues we encounter issues and problems uh that maybe we can create uh frequent questions answer um type of flyer uh with you know collecting information from the slows that what are the the uh issues that you are encountering and what are the questions uh and answers to those just another Yeah, that's a great suggestion. The trainings, and we'll talk about that in a moment. Um, I mentioned we're going to be re revamping or restarting those um, trainings that have been on a little bit of a pause um, as I've onboarded, but they're set up
060as a Q&A. And I think we get really good responses from the counselors who attend those trainings um that are really applicable taking kind of some of the broad language from from law and rule and policy and putting it in a real context of you have a student who needs this or comes with this and and and how to best serve that student. So an FAQ document I think is another really good suggestion. Thank you. Could that flyer be something that the school districts post on their websites? Because a lot of military families, they they especially when they're PCSing, they school shop and they visit a lot of websites and if that is something that's posted on the school district's website and they could come across it and if they come across it a few
061times, then they may click on it and and gather the information that way. >> Yep. that actually um we have a representative from Colonel Dalby's office, not Colonel Dalby, but actually it might have been Dr. Craft who mentioned that I can't remember it was one of them who mentioned it in April was visibility on the website. So using the the flyer andor a QA for that visibility um are both helpful. I wonder, you know, I just started to think about if it's even um I don't know if it's a corner or a web page for military connected students that would have could have more than one of those uh resources available. Maybe highlighting them during the month of the military child to bring attention to a reminder that these resources exist. Um I think and
062um uh John and and Dr. can speak to this. Um, I think they that might be a component of the the purple rise schools. Um, I don't know if it's a requirement or just something that's encouraged that districts get points for I don't know points is the right word to use. >> Yes, it's one of the criterias for a purple star campus designation. So, if a campus is uh trying to earn that designation, then yes, they would have to have it. But there unless they were looking for that purple star designation then it's not required. So it is a yeah it's a requirement which I think one of the things we talked about in April are so many of our purple the the schools that go through the um the purple star process are are
063the ones that that are already doing it. Not to say that districts aren't doing it right, but have that information, have more direct connections, um are are close to to bases. Um but I will say most of the calls that I have been been getting and trying to support counselors with might be one off a couple of districts over or um it's it's not a district in an area with a high uh level of enrollment of military connected students. So wondering how we we promote um the resource um with those districts and those counselors. >> Miss Jessica, in the in the chat you have Miss Sheree saying, "Would it be possible for the department to send letters to the district superintendent informing them of the compact?" I think that is a really really good suggestion
064because this council hasn't been uh uh you know in existence for that long. So maybe area superintendent are not aware. I just wanted to um bring that to your attention. >> Thank you so much. I will um if you would be willing to continue continue to monitor the chat for me, I would be forever grateful. I'm not um not great at monitoring. I'll I'll just get distracted. Um, thanks for calling that out. That's a great um idea, Shereice. I mean, we've we've got a lot of superintendent. Um, but a a targeted communication. I'm starting to wonder to the administrator addressed if the timing is right. Um, sometimes we need some an event or something around that, but like the the month of the military child or um some other uh finding the right timing of
065putting that out in a taa um might be the appropriate mechanism to communicate um something across the state. Charice, did you want to add to that? >> Yeah, I'm sorry. I wasn't sure if we were allowed to speak. I'm not a member of the council. Um but you know, it's your military highly impacted districts. I really aware of the compact just because they work it all the time. For us at the national office, we notice the ones that inquire or have no idea are the ones that are less impacted or very low impacted, especially with garden reserve or just a smaller base within the states or states. So again, or you're farther away you are from the bases or the installation. So again, you know, this might be something you the memorandum could be sent
066out to all districts um throughout the year. I mean at the beginning of the year or at the end, whichever is most appropriate. again. Um, some states do beginning, some states do the end, some do it right in the middle around December or so. It just depends. We can surely send, um, copies for the council, for you, commissioner, to to consider as you move forward. But anyway, it's just an idea other states are doing. We thought would be good to share with you. >> That would be great. And, um, just one of the types of resources that Greg was talking about, the national headquarters can offer us. And so I will definitely take a draft of that communication um and um and look at and talk with our leadership about what timing and and and
067best meth method of communication might be for putting something like that out. We've got a couple of activities that we've thought at. Um, as I mentioned, I I would like to bring this topic back again in October when we have um fleshed out our council um even uh a little bit more and have that new membership um and finalize some ideas. I can give some updates on progress that we've made in planning for some of the ideas we already have. Um open the floor for some other some additional um um activities um that we think we we might be able to um engage in next year. Any other thoughts or ideas before we before we move on? All right. Well, Dr. Ripper, I will, if I can put you on the spot as a as
068a superintendent. Um, other ideas about how we might best get the attention of your cohort. >> Are we still talking about the activities and things? how to just best message to superintendent. >> Yeah, I just think the communication piece is just really important. I like what Tim Simone said. A lot of the activities um that are listed here are I think activities that need to happen every year. So, there's a month of the military child every year, right? So, those are we we're just going to have uh carryover activities. Um there should always be compact training for districts. So, I don't want to repeat everything that she said. I just want to um just support what she said because it's important because there are certain things that I believe need to happen every year. And
069then um if there are some other things that we come up with u that we think are good for uh military connected kids, then we can add those. Um I probably would have thought a little about about this a little bit more. Uh, I guess had I knew that that was coming up, so I could have thought of some things or got some input uh from my staff. But it'll be something that um I'm thinking about to see what we can do or share um to help support our military connected kids. >> That's great. And this is that preview. We will bring this back um in our October meeting for additional ideas. So we will um it will not be too late at that point in time. Um, one value ad um that I wanted
070to call out that um from you Dr. Roer was um be doing every year and I think I heard you saying something even possibly at the same time. So building some routines perhaps so that we've got a a schedule or a cadence of communication um that can be that can be followed. Um I think that's another thing that we can look at and think about between now and the next meeting. my team and our and our planning. Um there was one other um this basically what we just talked about. One other thing I wanted to to raise that had come up in in April. I think it might have been Simone's idea. Um it's something Captain Hudsettler had also suggested after a a situation with a district, a unique situation um with a district that
071he got pulled into. who I was pulled into working with the the SLO to address and and ultimately resolve. But case studies, it kind of ties into that frequently asked question um like what are some of the issues that are that are coming up that are that are um uh and and and the solutions or or the responses. I'm just looking at 2, three, four, and five. And it's you disseminate information is is a role but identifying the topics and is and interest uh and issues that are of interest or I would say that impact our students and their families. um we I think had kind of floated the idea of perhaps bringing um providing an opportunity within our meetings um to include a case study um possibly coming from the SLOs's could could suggest
072I've got u something that's come up or something that was raised to my attention that I could ask that if they'd be willing to share. Um I am wondering if that is something that the council feels like would help you better understand though I know you're very connected to the work what some of the issues are. Um so my question is um if if you would like to see a case study component to our to our meetings with the resolution >> and it can just be an informal response today. Yeah. Go ahead Dr. So, I think that that may help. You know, uh I know we just went through some of this training uh this summer with Mick 3, and I don't know how many case studies they have, but they probably have a ton
073of them. Uh as a matter of fact, we went through several of them this summer uh that are very applicable to to what we do in situations that we run into uh or that schools run into. Uh, so I know that Sheresa is still on here and and I know she's familiar with different uh scenarios and stuff that they could possibly share uh to help us better understand the different situations that come up that they at their level address when it can't properly be addressed at the district level. Shares, you want to add something to that? >> Yes, sir. We do have a huge uh server server of the cases that we have encountered and can certainly pull out especially the ones from Texas. So that might be helpful. Um but I think um with
074commissioner stud suggest there could be some that the school leaison have encountered that are a little bit more challenging that they were able to fix because remember we only get the ones that come to our level. So that might also be another resource. We could send you what we've got for consideration um to see what you folks would like to address. But yeah, we could definitely put something together for you folks. Not a problem. Especially Texas. You know, our in looking through our cases, most of the cases of course come from tier one states, which are high level states like Texas, Florida, California, Hawaii, Washington. Um, so I'm sure we've had a number of Texas specific cases, right, Lindsay? I think at least per year. She she >> Yes, ma'am. You're correct. >> Okay. I
075think that that would be very helpful for the trainings that we're doing as well as for the FAQ that was mentioned. Um, but I'm I'm also wondering if there aren't some some real time, real life examples that are coming up that are um specific to our state that our schools on officers might be encountering. Simone, I think you um >> Yes. >> spoke to this last time. >> Yes, ma'am. So yes, the the school leaison officers in every installation uh will be able to provide you with mostly uh uh um cases that you know they solve themselves but that come that we come across very frequently or that we reached out to you on. So uh I want to say yes and I also feel that would be a a great benefit. >> It's not
076a part of Thank you. Um, agreed. And I think I've said I don't know the percentage. Um, this is a goal. I guess I can, this is within our agenda because we're talking about priorities. Um, I would love to have um some more data about what our are almost an incident report of of how many issues our our SLOs's are are are resolving. Um, I don't know what that that collection would look like or or interface just yet. Um it's just an idea right now, but I keep saying our SLOs's are taking care of 95% of of the the issues that are coming up um in schools and districts, but I don't actually know. Um and so um one of my priorities for for this year that I'll bring to the conversation um in October
077is um um establishing some some better communication with our schools on officers. Um um no details available yet, but but one of Lively's uh Dr. Briner's first activities um will be scheduling um a um kind of a a kickoff conversation with our schools on officers. Um it's long overdue. Just an opportunity for us to introduce ourselves to our school as officers um u just establishing ourselves as a point of contact and then building upon that with a a follow-up um training before uh for SLOs's before the end of the year. And so there's good opportunity there as well to collect some of those case studies and also potentially setting up um a cadence um Simone having our um one or more of our SLOs's presenting to the council. Um so very excited about that more
078information in the future, but just kind of a personal priority um that I have for myself in the in the coming year. Can I just add that as uh uh Texas school leazison officers ahead of the annual business conference, we do uh collect uh you know the the top three issues that uh so every installation will submit what the issues were uh with the MC 3. So we also you know work on that data. >> I will definitely be reaching out to you Simone. I'd love to have more information about that and the timing of that and maybe you can help us plan what the best timing would be for these um sessions that we're we're hoping to to get started with the SLO community. All right. Well, with that I am um moving to
079council member and staff reports. Um I have um mentioned that we have staff from the highly mobile and at risk student program unit with us today. I think I'm driving the slides for them, but they just have a couple of updates. This is kind of our sister division um in this work. They're in a different um part of the agency um but as the highly mobile and atrisisk student programs unit. They support um our military connected students as as well um and provide other um resources. And speaking of data, they've got a lot of great data points. So, I'm going to turn things over to you, John and Dr. Le. Um, I'm going to go ahead and start and thank you so much for sharing. Um, good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to
080speak with you today. My name is Dr. Ann Le. I'm the manager of HMR and also the program lead for our military connected student programs. I have with me today um my counterpart, John. Would you like to introduce yourself? Good afternoon. I'm John Dobbins. I'm HMR program specialist here at TEA. Thanks for having us. >> Um we are honored to represent TEA as we continue our commitment uh to supporting military connected students and their families. Um, we're excited to share some important updates and upcoming initiatives for the 2526 school year that reflect our ongoing dedication to this unique and resilient student population. Jessica, if you can go on to the next slide. Um, here is a highle overview of um what we have in store for this upcoming school year. For the first time ever,
081our military stakeholders will have access to a comprehensive bank of professional development opportunities. This includes the launch of a five-part series of Purple Star PLC or professional learning community along with targeted professional development sessions including college readiness for our military connected students and their families. Um and then also an introduction of two Texas military summits. Um these offerings are designed to build capacity, foster collaboration, and ensure that educators and leaders are equipped to meet the unique needs of our military connected students. on the next slide. In addition to our professional development, we're excited to unveil a suite of innovative new resources. This includes four micro videos uh tailored for educators and four designed specifically for families, each offering practical strategies and insights. We're also launching a self-paced online military connected uh student overview course through
082our TEAL Learn um platform. This provides flexible and accessible training that supports continuous learning and engagement across our school communities. And I'm going to hand it over to John and he's going to speak a little bit about data and resources. >> Thank you, Ann. Next slide, please. We would like to highlight several additional resources and initiatives that will be available for the 202526 school year. First, we've updated our military student identifier infographic to reflect the latest data and guidance. These are designed to help districts and campuses better understand and utilize MSI data to support military connected students more effectively. Next, we've released the 202526 military connected students programs events one pager. This will serve as a quick reference guide for key events, trainings, opportunities, and opportunities throughout the school year, making it easier for educators
083and stakeholders to stay engaged and informed. We're also proud to announce the formation of the inaugural Texas ESC cohort network, a group of military champions from across the state's educational service centers. This network will foster collaborations, sharebacks practices, and strengthen regional support for military connected students. And finally, we'll continue to recognize excellence through the Purple Star Campus Designation Award for the 2025-26 school year. These awards honor campuses that go above and beyond in supporting military connected students and their families. and we're excited to see even more schools earn this designation. On the next slide, to close out our report, we wanted to take a moment to highlight the significant growth we've seen in the number of military connected students across Texas over the past three school years. This growth not only reflects improved identification and
084reporting practices, but also underscores the increasing importance of targeting uh targeted supports and resources for this population. As we continue to expand our initiatives and partnerships, this data helps us guide our efforts and ensures we're meeting the evolving needs of military connected students and their families across the state. Finally, on our last slide, we have a QR code so you can visit our military website to learn more about available supports for military connect connected students. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thanks, John. I'll be sure to include in a follow-up communication um both the QR code and a link um to council members if you want to access the resources that were just shared. Um, I wanted to go back to your previous slide and um, I noticed your numbers for Texas National
085Guard and Reserve Force. Do we have district level data? Do we know where these students are? Um, >> yes. Uh, yes. The the data has been disagregated by also our 20 ESC regions and also by school districts and whether they are charter schools or Texas public schools. So, that information we do have on hand. Um and we usually when the ESC's uh reach out to us, we provide the um that information so that they can better support the school districts within their region. Great. Um just a thought as we're looking for individuals um from those two um sectors that that might be there might be some areas of concentration that we want to might want to focus our our efforts around. >> Definitely. Yes. any other um questions or comments about me about any of
086the data or uh or uh resources provided by the team. I don't think I had pulled up the last um graphic on your slide, John. um the the state of Texas, the counts that are there um is that that's the number of uh purple star campus designations within each of those regions >> or the the last slide that we have >> the the state the one I'm showing now with the state of Texas and the numbers in the different regions. >> Oh no, that wouldn't add up to the number campus designations. That would be much more than that. That's the number of military connected students. >> So in terms of Purple Star, we are wrapping up our designations and so we are working on um the award list and the announcements coming up and so
087those will be announced in September. >> Got it. And I'm realizing that the Texas it's just showing the the numbers of the re the ESC region taking them as numeric count that took management. That's just identifying the member of the region. Um, I think most folks on this call would know that our state is so large that we're broken into service centers to provide support and technical assistance across the state. And so we have those 20 regions which are identified in that last graphic. So, I mean, additionally to um to Jessica's point in our earlier conversation about having um a website and access to information, well, we have the compact um that the curriculum division supports. And that's something we haven't really talked about as a council, but in part why the the compact and
088support for council uh uh for the military compact that work was in the curriculum standards and student support division is because so much of the compact revolves around enrollment withdrawal, award of credit issues, high school graduation, and that is really our wheelhouse. Uh Dr. Lei and John's division is supporting that transient population. um and uh including military uh uh connected students and that that the mobility um as I mentioned their division's title is highly mobile and at risk. So we both provide support. So not siloing and bringing together our efforts so that we can share out our resources and our support for this community um is is also a really important conversation that we need to have I think as a part of the the council both promoting and publicizing each other's resources as well
089as um coordinating um our support to the All right, I will ceue us back up. Um, any other announcements or topics or issues from other council members to share as a part of the council member reports? >> You have something in the chat uh from DAS Air Force Base. I would like to see each regional office website have a dedicated section for military connected support. I was able to meet with region 14 and they willingly added a link for the military families in our area. That is a great suggestion starting with the ESC's and then just as we were just talking about using that as a launching pad um to communicate those those expectation and sharing those resources to the school districts they support but but starting there. Um so can I can I add
090something real quick? >> Of course. Okay. Um yes and that's what we're going to be working on in terms of our military connected uh student programs in HMR. um the inaugural uh Texas cohort that Mr. Dobbins had shared, we are starting that this year and so a representative from each of our ESC's uh they're going to be part of a capstone project and we're working towards providing uh more transparency and information across all of our ESC's. The barrier that we do face is our military champions over at the ESC are voluntarily designated and so they do play another role and so we're working really hard to ensure that the information is there so that school districts is able to reach out to those ESCs but we do have to keep in mind that they are
091volunteers um uh in the in the role of our ESC military champions. >> Thanks Dr. Lee. So that is and I attended um one of the um I might not title the meeting correctly but one of the military champion sessions that you had with that group >> um which was very informative um and you mentioned the project they'll be working on is this idea of kind of a those volunteers advocating within their ESC's to to have a web page dedicated to military connected students is that something that could somehow fit into that conversation and those projects. >> Yes. Uh we're trying to ensure that we have very similar content that goes across the state of Texas. Um but they do uh they will be catered a little bit based on regional needs, but we will
092be working with our ESC military champions to include some information um for support of our military connected programs, but also tying that into our purple star campus designation. as we know, our school districts and charter schools across the state of Texas are really wanting that designation moving forward. And so, any way that we can help support that um and and the ESC supporting that, that's what our goal is. I I realized that we were talking about website and that that expectation is already there for those applicants for postar can would love to work with you to include like being as specific about including the military compact flyer as as uh as one of those resources as you talk about standardizing the web page if that's a place where we can get that flyer we it's
093available in English and in Spanish um would love to to have more conversation about sharing the resour source out through through those um those websites at the ESC level. Great suggestion. >> Yes. And I dropped the link to our TEA military families web page and that has been uh recently updated to include the compact um flyers and all of our resource and information on the compact and we're going to be providing training to our ESC's regarding how to use the TA web page and and also including that information on the ESC's. >> Great. Um, I want to um reflect kind of something else I heard from Dr. Roer. It's true. It is a little bit of the broken record um syndrome of like we just always need to be talking about and promoting the compact.
094But I I want to come back to what you were talking about talking about a timing like even having a strategic plan so that it's not a conversation you have we have to have again every year. It is these are um this is our strategic communication plan. um having that in place and then it's just something that that you activate each year um and could um streamline the conversation as well as the activities and make it with a little more automaticity and then eventually getting at that to be kind of a fun um welloiled machine. Um so um really appreciate the conversation about how we can do the same things that we know that we need to do every year but thoughtfully with intentionality um and maybe some automaticity would be great. All right with
095that any other issues, topics or announcements and thank you Simone Simone for watching the chat for me. All right. Well, then I will move us to our 2526 meeting dates. Um, we have proposed meeting dates that we would like to share. Um, the first date I want to go ahead and say that that is an established date just because of TEA's availability to keep our cadence on Mondays at 1 p.m. Um, hopefully that will work for for most of our members, if not all, as well as our our incoming members. So, um, would like for you to go ahead and save the date. We will in our follow-up communication send all of these dates. Um, we may, um, what I wanted to ask is if you would rather us just finalize the full the four
096the four dates that you see here or if you think uh, you would prefer that we set up I don't think we've done this in the past, a polling mechanism that we you give we give you a couple of options within the month. The month stay the same. October, January, April, and July. Um, so we could do that. Um, giving you an opportunity to pick a more ideal dates before we finalize in October with the exception of the October date. Or we can just move forward with the four dates that we have. Uh, and so wanting to check, oops, sorry, looks like I have a a typo there on one of my um on my last date there. I think you'll have found two mistakes today. Um but uh fixing >> I just I recommend
097that we just move forward with the dates that you guys have established. I think it'll be too difficult to start getting everybody's individual uh preferences. So we I can work with the dates that you guys have. >> Uh Miss uh um Darcy is putting in the chat that October 13th is Columbus Day. So yeah, >> which is is not uh an agency holiday, but but to your point as it's coming through, federal employees will be off, which is an excellent point. I am not sure that we have uh an alternative for for TEA because of other conflicts in in the schedule. Um I'm not sure how we missed that one. I apologize. So, in part, the reason why we had, and I'm glad Sherice and Lindsay are here with us, why we mo moved this
098back from having the Monday of the following week is because it's the week of the annual business meeting and we thought you guys would be too busy um to come on a Monday and provide a training to us. Is there any uh flexibility? I mean, we could potentially postpone our training, but that was actually the logic and why the the following October was eliminated from the options. >> Lindsay, I think I'm looking at your calendar. I think we can make it work because we don't travel, right, until Well, that's the week of the ABM, right? The following week, 23rd or 23. >> Are we looking at October 3rd, 2025? We're looking at we were >> we were looking at um the original date that was was selected by staff was the 13th but there is
099it's Columbus Day and we missed that it's not a state holiday so I don't think it was on our calendar as a but >> folks are reminding me there it is true we we can record the meeting but uh wondering if our um the reason why we didn't select October 20th is because we weren't sure that that Mick 3 staff would be able to come and do a training that day. >> So, Shereice, I think actually we're okay that day because we won't be able to leave until the following day. >> That's correct. So, um, Commissioner, we can do the 20th and that's that's open for us. So, it's not a problem. >> Well, that was really the only issue with the October 20th. So, I've displayed that on the screen. Um, and the point
100is has been raised. Thanks. Um, uh, Pat, that is true that that we, uh, we do record. Um, it is always, especially since we're expecting some new members, I would like to have as as many people in attendance as possible. Um, really the only concern about the 20th was again our our MC 3 staff who are going to come and do a training, a compact training for us. And so, if it works for them, I will I move that we make that adjustment. Any objections? Hearing none, if you took a screenshot or wrote those down, you may want to make that revision and I will do that as we go because I've got that date a couple of times. And so, uh, as well, Lindsay and Sherice, if you can mark your calendars. Gives me
101one more week to get new members on board. >> All right. So I am going to make that change here as well and move to our next slide. We will send these dates out as well. Um thanks Dr. Roer. We wanted to give people the option if they wanted to vote but we are happy to move forward with these dates and so it sounds like um if there's no objections we will do that. Hearing none I will move to our next slide. Um just a couple of we are winding down folks a couple of upcoming events that we wanted to put on your radar. Um Simone um I want to promote your education summit on September 19th. Would you like to share any details with the group? >> Oh sure. Yes. Uh so we have
102a bianual education summit here on Fort Bliss. Uh where we invite our 10 uh area school districts. Uh we uh share information. And we have breakout sessions that are geared towards our military uh um to towards educators such as you know Mick 3 training. Uh we have our R2 resiliency uh um team coming that is going to share some uh uh resources with our educators and uh we have a panel discussion where we invite students and parents that are sharing you know their experience with uh um uh transition so that the educators can put a face to it and see hey these are the families and students that come to our uh um campus. every day and just kind of open that conversation and and kind of make it relatable for our educators. And then
103right after that um morning session of breakout sessions and uh professional development, we have a seated lunchon for our area superintendent and Fort Bliss leaders and the VIPs that we invited for that day to just uh kind of have that conversation a little bit more in depth. what does the installation need to know? What are some things that the installation can support the districts in? So, we're looking forward to it. We do it every other year. It's always uh uh very beneficial and it gives us a lot of um things that we can work on following that event. >> Great. Thank you. Not including us as VIPs by any stretch of the imagination, but Dr. Lelay and I are are hoping to be able to attend in person. um very excited about the opportunity and
104appreciative of the of the invitation. >> Oh, we are too. >> Great. Uh we also had and I may want to coordinate this with you Simone since you include your area districts. We have an invitation to um present a counselor training at Easta ISD um sometime in September. We're looking for those dates. So, we may want to spread that out. um the uh summit we would not actually have a training but so we just want to make sure we don't um overlap dates or um since I think they I think that's just internal to to Isla um versus the the larger community um but that's coming up soon and on that note um I recognize that the focus on this call might not be necessarily the best audience for this ask it's one of the
105things we may want to talk about in October as we talk about dissemination of information But we are happy to expand and do additional trainings across the state in other districts. Um Jessco, love your ideas. Since you're tapped into the counselor network, um we could promote um potentially at one of the counselor um uh conferences that happen in November and February. Um but if there are other communication streams that we might identify, we can't turn around and do every district. We're such a large state. Um but would would love to get a calendar of training scheduled for this year um this upcoming year. Um and if we are if it's more than than Dr. Briner and I can handle um Shereice and Lindsay um can replicate the training that they'll be doing with with this
106group in October as well and we can tag team if if if needed. Um that would be a great problem to have to have more training set up than we can we can feasibly do. Simone, did you have a thought? Uh so I'm I'm uh typically what our area is doing and I uh it's not just this letter from my understanding it is the epidogs the El Paso uh area uh um guidance counselors from all 10 districts I'm not sure that is what I'm tracking >> I think yeah we have um been in communication within the past and just need to reestablish that that communication um but also interested in other parts of the state with those high populations of military connected students but potentially some of those adjacent areas too where where we're finding
107Charice made the point earlier that there's a smaller population and so not as much support but just as as many big problems because it's about one kid's graduation it's it's a big problem. Um so we want to want to build this communication network. I'm getting kind of excited about what I'm going to call Dr. Ripper's idea of having a strategic communication plan and already thinking that Dr. Briner and I might bring something to um the next meeting to look at and think about um kind of a schedule of these different kind of communications and outreaches that we do that will just again become kind of um routine for us um and for the field. Um and um more about that in at our next meeting which is my next line item October 20th. And here
108we go. another I apologize. Oh, no. Still 2025. Got almost got my wires crossed there. Um, still in 2025. October 20th will be our next meeting. I did make that adjustment um while we were talking. And then the annual business meeting just a few days after that will be in Indianapolis. That is when um the commissioners will will vote and make official the dues increase. Um and so we'll put an agenda item on our October meeting as well just in case there are any additional questions, comments or discussion uh about those uh the information that Greg Lynch uh uh presented today. Um we will share both the resources from highly mobile at risk um division that was shared with you today as well as our slides and the slides that were presented by Greg um
109with the council including our dates for next year so you can start um marking your calendars. Um with that I believe that that completes um our agenda. Oops, didn't update this one. Don't look at that date. It'll just confuse you. Um, let me get that updated here. We've got a couple of those. Um, uh, you will receive your your meeting agenda in advance with your link before the meeting. If you have agenda items that you would like to see added, um, you can send those to Dr. Briner and communications will start coming from him for these meetings. So, you'll have his direct contact information moving forward. Um, it should speed up response rates from me as well. Um, because he's going to pass them along to me, answer what he can and pass what he
110can't along to me um, so that we can be more responsive to your requests. I know that that has been um, a little bit challenging in this transition year. It has for me as well, but want to make sure we're getting back to you and getting you the information and the support that you need. That wraps us up our agenda and calls us to adjourn. Thank you again for your time this afternoon. Um, have a wonderful what's left of your summer. I wish folks who are gearing up for a new skill year that it goes smoothly for you. Um, and we will look forward to seeing you in October. >> Thank you, Commissioner. It was great to see you all. >> Thanks for joining us. >> Thank you, >> everyone.