001Good evening everybody and call this board of trustees work study farmers branch ISD to order at 6:02 on May 15. For the record, board members present are Terraic, Marjorie Barnes, Carol, Kiana Gar, Cassandra Hatfield, and I'm Randy Shack. Kim Rainy, our secretary, is with us tonight on fire video. She had a vacation scheduled, trip scheduled, and then we we work centered, but we're glad that she can be here. We do the quorum and they conduct business on behalf of the district. Uh as always, we are providing an opportunity for people to speak to the board and audience for guests. Uh there is no one that submitted a request for audience test tonight. So we'll skip there straight through to our work study beginning and we're going to be starting with our budget workshop number two
002and this will well good evening president Shackman and board of trustees and Dr. Eldridge. I just want to thank you so much for providing the opportunity to to share a little bit on our budget progress for the 25 26 fiscal year. I've also invited uh Carlos Statsy, our budget director, and Dr. Tammy Smalls, the assistant director, assistant superintendent of human resources to share their work as well, just so that you see that we all are on the same team working towards the common goal of good fiscal stewardship. Um, so we're going to go over a few things. We're really focusing on the general fund tonight. We're going to go over a few of the factors that significantly impact the general fund and then provide a little progress on where we stand um with five months
003yet to go before the school year end. Uh major things uh that affect the general fund are uh legislative sessions and we are currently in the 89th legislative session. Um we are waiting on a school finance bill to cross the finish line in the governor's desk. But when this slide was prepared last Friday, uh we had a different reality. And today it's completely different as does happen often. Um and this this um trading of of opinions between the two uh chambers of the House and the Senate. And so we're we're still in a difficult to be able to predict what um opportunity for additional revenue might exist or just how we will strate strategically invest that uh for the next bianium. Uh, so the Senate's hearing of HB2 actually began this morning at 9:00 am.
004So my first point and the House bill substitute added a $55 increase to the basic aotment instead of the house's proposal of $395. So that's a significant shift. uh they also have a different uh perspective on uh the kind of investment towards teacher salaries only and how special education funding might change. So, you know, we're in this very awkward phase of the House's version of an overall increase with specialized spending requirements and then the Senate has a whole other idea of how to do that. And since it all has been released 5:00 pm yesterday, uh we're still digesting and there is no revenue template at this point to be able to help inform our decisions. But in the lifespan of a bill, you see, you know, charts like this run around and I think it's
005very handy uh to the lay person to see that one uh chambers committee brings a bill uh to the chamber at large and then um it has to go to the other side's committee and through the entire chamber before it gets to the governor's desk. And none of these uh finance bills here have gotten there yet. This is as of last week. Um so key dates in the session and I think that's the most important takeaway is the timing of where we are at today is uh Monday was the last day for house committees to report a house bill. Tomorrow is the last day for the House to vote out the House bill. Uh so and then the Senate has a few less restrictions on how their processes go. Uh so we're really not going
006to know much uh until we get to um maybe seeing where the Senate lands on May 28th. And ultimately June 2nd is sin die which is the fancy Latin word of we're not having any more meetings after this. Uh and then we'll see if there's any subsequent sessions. So with all that um you know it does this timeline does make it increasingly difficult to announce any kind of compensation increases or um you know move forward with significant commitments within our budget. uh because of the way the different approaches are on both sides of the chamber. Um so but the district isn't new to this process. This happened in 2019 with House Bill 3 and and the district has just uh delayed those announcements to to fall in line with appropriate commitments that would le overleverage
007the district. Um but what we can talk about today is um local share, how we generate our local revenue. And that's generated by taxable property values. And over the last three years, we've seen some changes there. And you can see how it's kind of flattening out there on the on the last three SL uh three bars there. Uh these are April estimated preliminary values. And so the the changes in the homestead exemption have mitigated a lot of that taxable value that we as you as a board are able to levy a tax rate against. Again, keep in mind that the final values don't um come out until July 25th each year. But you know, it's a good good first look. The district not only has been limited a little bit in taxable values, we also
008have some compression when it comes to our tax rate since House Bill 3. Uh and you can see that now the district is below $1 of $100 of property value. Uh so it's a good day to be a taxpayer and CF as we do have one of the lower rates and we'll we'll talk a little bit more about an example that you can see how how this whole formula shapes out. But the assumptions that we'll continue to put in front of you so you uh see a continuity and and the metrics that we put into the very complex funding formula are are things like this where you know our projected taxable value growth is 2% this year. Um we're projecting that that maximum compressed tax rate will be uh just under 75 cents per $100
009of property value. Uh we will remain at 20% or 20 cents on our debt service rate to give a projected tax rate at 95 for $100 property value. And here's a most sensitive mouse in the district right here. Um here's a history of uh how homestead exemptions would have affected an example home. So, if in 2022 a CFBISD resident had an appraised value of $200,000 for their home and they experienced that maximum 10% cap every year, good taxpayers protesting their values, right, to the to the cap. The way the homestead exemption has changed the taxable value combined with the compressed tax rate has essentially lowered that property tax bill every single year. Um so the good stewardship and the all the information that has gone out since well before our bomb election has materialized for
010our taxpayers. So how can we generate additional revenue? This Not a new slide. You've seen this one. This came from our demographers report. Um, but we the only way that this district can generate additional revenue is through number of students and how often they come to school. And that's not a new concept. That is just our our current funding formula as it is. Um, so when we look at our average daily trend, average daily attendance trends and our enrollment um like we saw in our demographers report, we have a a decline and we are working towards keeping a positive attendance rate. And I just want to keep in mind that that refined ADA is a is a a complex formula. It's not just percent in attendance. It has um other factors in there like days
011of membership and uh it is why we have such good partners in our team's department so that they can um keep track of those metrics while my team track dollars. And so uh going forward uh we're going with the enrollment uh projection that was in line with our demographer uh trending out the same ADA. Uh but I can just tell you that the the best time to validate the refined ADA is after that summer submission in July. That's when the entire attendance clerks and everybody has validated all the student characteristics and validated all the the pinks calculations and that refined ADA is is the best time to to calculate to make sure that we're all in alignment. Not to mention all the the recent EDFI updates and the and the challenging nature that we are
012in with reporting. This this will be the best time to get our And with that, I'd like to yield the floor to our budget director, Carla Stats, to share a little bit about the progress thus far in our budget. So, um, for the 25 26 budget preparation, I'm just going to kind of go over what we've been doing and where we're at in that process. And so, on April 10th, we we had a budget workshop and we asked you guys for your top priorities. And so, what we came up with, what y'all came up with was Number one, ensure employee compensation um so that we can remain competitive and attract and retain highly qualified staff and faculty. Number two, develop a sustainable financial plan that supports ongoing operational needs and strategic goals without compromise compromising
013future viability. Number three, invest in infrastructure such as upgrades, preventive maintenance to support safe and secure um learning and working environments and also some capital purchases like buses and that type of thing. Um, number four, prioritize initiatives, training and infrastructure that ensure the safety of all students and staff um across the district. So, that was our our top priorities. So, we have somebody on um Zoom, so you're going to have to use your coaching voice. That's just not my nature. I'm at a game. Pretend like you're at your husband's game and you're like, let's go. Yeah, we'll try harder and I'm not as a good speaker as a C. So, um it's it's not as easy for me. Um on the on the revenue slide, um the district remains reliable in terms of how we
014um receive revenue. Um but but for the 2526 budget school year, we anticipate a decrease in federal revenues. Um and that reduction is because of a reduction in funding for the SHs program, which is the school health and related services program. And and on this slide you can tell that 84% of our revenue budget actually comes from local property taxes where only 14% is supplemented by the state. Um so that's kind of where we're at. And the only way to influence this again like Carly said was to is to um increase that average daily attendance or to actually increase the overall um student. So that's really the only way that we can affect the revenue. On the other side on the expenditures um what we want to do is we want to maintain a balanced
015budget right um so the expenditures have to align with the anticipated revenue in order to to to make the budget um balance and over the past two years that's been increasingly challenging due to persistent revenue shortfalls. Um so currently about 80% of our budget is allocated to staff hours and benefits. So given this structure and to bring expenditures in line with the available general fund revenues, um it would be necessary to reduce the number of positions supported by the general fund budget and will talk a little bit about that too in the next um portion. Um and the last slide here um the district has a longstanding history of responsible financial stewardship as you can tell. Um what we our target is four months of operating expenditures first reading awards full points for three months.
016So we've always stayed above that. So that's great. Um in alignment with this tradition we are taking strategic steps um to ensure our continued financial stability. Um so for in our budget process so far what we've had is the campuses were allocated their non-pay budgets based on the um enrollment at the um October snapshot. They were required to do a budget reduction, which is great because we want to make sure that those funds stay there with the students. And then after the consolidation of schools, what we will do is we will make sure that the budget follows the students wherever campus that they will then be at. Um but however um we have asked the departments to to um cut their budgets by 10% over the next two years with 5% in the 2526 school
017year and then another 5% in the 2627 school year. So what we did is we calculated their non-payroll budget plus the payroll at each one of those departments and we came up with a total number and on that total number they have to cut 5%. And I just want to make sure that you guys realize that that was a lot to ask of them and it's been a hard process and we just want to thank all of the departments and the SLT members because that that has been a hard task but they have really worked hard and so with that reduction we um we think it's going to be about approximately $6.4 million in reduction. Um so that that's huge for the district. So, um, this reduction is a critical measure that will help us
018make meaningful progress toward balancing the budget and more importantly, it supports our commitment to long-term financial sustainability, which aligns with uh the board's budget priority opport one slide because we are seven months into the fiscal year. This is the part where and I start meeting on a monthly basis to make sure that what we predicted and what we budgeted are what's going to hit the reality before August 31st. And um you know at this point we we feel very confident we're going to meet the FY25 budget if not uh you know come under um the shortfall. And so we're uh we're optimistic. I want to stay optimistic because we have a great partnership with our campuses and departments in uh planning for their spending throughout the summer. Uh so we can be very um laser
019targeted on whatever is left for um available budget as permanent savings if that makes sense. Uh so we but we look at where we're going to land and we keep a zero eye on that fund balance because we took to heart that CV 2030 goal. Um, Carla and I are both very competitive people. I'm more on the board game side. I would never mess with her on the basketball court. Um, but we want to exceed our goal. We want to make sure that that we meet that four months of fund balance. So, it if you know, we want to keep it where it's at right now at four months of fund balance. Um, but you know, thinking about all the changes on revenue, you know, we're not able to say this is absolutely where we
020are today. Um but one of the things that are not or a couple of things that are not factored into this operating expenditures budget. Um there's two critical savings that we still need to um nail down as a total. And the first is what our total consolidation savings is on on the positions. So we want to give uh Dr. you know, full latitude and making the smartest best decisions for our campuses because this is a rough time when it, you know, we have retirements and and teachers um moving on to different districts and so that we haven't nailed down that total number of savings just yet. I expect we will get together in the next couple weeks to be able to present that that actual number. And then we've also identified hiring freeze. We have
021just under $9 million in vacant positions. Um so a hiring freeze, you know, at the beginning of this calendar year in January was a strategic decision to curb the the payroll budget so that as people left and we could examine um what those duties were in the district and if they could be absorbed by other positions or how we could replace those. um we've spent um you know a great deal of time in cleaning our position inventory so that we're working from the same data. We have the good systems in place going forward and so that's been a a huge deal between our departments um that we're really proud of. But, you know, if you have you see $9 million and you're sitting in my seat, I'm super excited. But I know that Tammy is
022going to come tell me that there's going to have to be some people hired, right? So, we're going to come up and uh come up with that actual number that we're going to be able to save there. So, I really feel confident that we're going to get really close to um putting our expenditures in line. It's just going to be remain to see what revenue shortfall there might still be. So that's uh the the other thing that I'm really encouraged by is the partnership with the members of SLT that they have really dug in and identified their reductions this year and know they have a whole year to plan for the reductions for the following year. So I feel like that's that's in a good spot. Um I was asked to put some compensation scenarios
023and mind you we did this last Friday when we still thought HB2 was gross as it was. Um, this is no longer the case, but we could just throw a a what if scenario. Um, the 40% required uh spend on new revenue on the old HB2 was going to shake out to um, you know, a little bit under $6 million and it was going to require 75% of that trunch of money to be spent on teachers, librarians, nurses, and counselors. Um, so that's $4.8 million on that what if scenario. And just as perspective, in 2324, the district underwent a TASBY um adjustment. Um, and and I believe all the teacher salary schedule was adjusted to an average of 3%. And that was a $3.8 million in those three um salary bands. So, it didn't didn't
024count counselors, but in perspective, you can see that 3% increase would be in line if that was um the the what if that actually materialized. Um, but just keep in mind that the Senate bill version, the Senate Bill 26, which that language is what's now getting substituted into the HB2 that's being heard by the Senate today, it had like $4.3 billion versus the House's version, which was 7.6. So, you can see how that horse trade isn't going to make this scenario necessarily a reality. So, um, but you know, we in a very difficult legislative session like this one, we really lean in on some of our strategic partners who can watch the legislative session all day and make all those phone calls. Um, and so everyone in the Texas Strategic Alliance on the last call,
025we did an informal survey on who was announcing compensation and who was not, and there was only one in our area that has announced. So, as a board, I feel like you have a little bit of time um should you, you know, want to act in solidarity with with our neighbors. Um just a few other expenditure impacts that I think that are significant to note. Um the market when I met with our our property casualty folks, uh seems to indicate that our property insurance premiums will stay flat. So, that's good. Yay, I got to say some good news. Um, I mentioned the current vacant positions and and where we're going to target um some permanent reductions there. Um, and then I just also wanted to make sure you were aware that the investment in the
026capital outlay budget from last year was continued in this version of the expenditure budget. So, when you make an investment in replacement cycles, you want to keep replacing what's time to be replaced each year. Um so again with replacing some of our bus fleet and our white fleet that's a that's a critical uh studentf facing um you know capital investment that it's important to continue each year or you have so much deferred maintenance it shows up on a bond. So um and again I reiterated the the comment about the compensation increase. So at this point if I was talking about people and compensation I will toss Okay. Are you gonna you're gonna drive? I'll drive away. No, because I I don't know how to run that thing. So, um I am going to give you
027kind of an overview of what we've been doing in the HR department over the last few months in regards to what I've heard efficiency with our staffing. And um I know when I was hired, I remember having conversation with Mr. Morris and and Dr. Elbridge that um my marching order is we've got to clean up our PCNs, our position control numbers. And as as Carla said that uh we've been working hard at that. I will say as of today we've probably touched over,200 PCNS in our department. Um we have taken time to look and reviewed at all all vacant and future um openings. Um we have uh looked at needs of each campus maintaining the staffing ratio. I'm going to go into some of those details here in a few minutes. um and obviously some
028u efficiencies through our consolidation and where we were able to absorb any type of excessive of uh positions there. So you could go to the next one. Um obviously staffing is based on enrollment and um what we have to do as an HR team is make sure that we have the correct data when we are looking at current staffing needs. Um in the um early part of January, we sat and met with every single principal looking at the enrollment at that time. Um we dug deep into the master schedules at the high school level. We went teacher forteer class uh class period per class period because we know that um even though it's a full-time unit, as a teacher, they may only be teaching three classes because they have LPAC duty or they have um
029another additional uh non where there's non- students in there. So, we took into consideration all of that. We took into consideration um you know, some of our special education teachers might be counted as a full-time uh unit, but we know in some of our uh self-contained classes, they only teach maybe five kids, six periods a day, you know, and so uh when it when you get get into the the nitty-gritty of all of that, you have to be very conscientious of of how we calculate that ratio. Um, and so we worked really diligently to make sure we met with those principles and then when PASA came out with the projections, we brought them all back again to look at one more time with their enrollment counts um and then identified some opportunities where we could
030absorb some of our positions um but maintaining our staffing ratio. So if you can go to the next one. So, um, our district, I do want to say that we have been very faithful at keeping the 22:1 staffing ratios for our elementarymentaries and, um, our 26 to1, which is a very, very, um, low, it's a lower number than what I'm used to, but that's what the district has in the past few years calculated our secondary staffing at. It's 26 to1, so we've not touched that. Um keeping in mind that uh most of our secondary um campuses especially the high schools teach six of eight classes. So they all have a common plan they al they have a a planning period and then they all have a PLC. Um and so we took all of that
031into consideration when when we did the calculations of here here is the number of staff that really would uh uh be efficient for um your your campus. Okay. Angel the next one. And so this is very very preliminary data. As Carla mentioned, we're working very closely to um I'm working constantly with the the technology department to get a good report because you really have to dig deep. But right now I can say through the consolidation and through the staffing formulas um there have been 21 positions closed based on the staffing ratios at the elementary level. Um which is a cost savings of approximately and again this is based on salary of uh uh 70,000 and again this is just an average cost. So there's about a 1.4 million savings uh cost savings there at the
032secondary level. Um and this does the secondary number here is only through the absorption of the 26 to1 um teaching still six of eight. The principles were able to say you know what um this teacher retired we have enough staff to cover our class sizes. We we can we can give that back and All of these positions have gone, it's through absorption, um retirements, resignations, um those that have uh left the district perhaps. And then um the other side to all of this is the actual position closures through consolidation or um excessive vacancies that have may have been vacant for um three or more years that have never been filled. Um and so that's the one here that that's a very preliminary set. We we know for a fact that we have 180 positions or
033more. Um that's what we're trying to really um do a good audit on. And so we would like to bring that at our next workshop exactly what that's going to be. Um and I feel good that as Carla mentioned um we're we're getting it cleaned up. We're getting it very um there's going to be some real good cost savings um through that process as well. Okay. Um and so in addition to cleaning up our position controls and the consolidation and absorption of some of our staff through our um student enrollment and RA um ratios um is that we have also launched a comprehensive uh study with TASBY. We're doing another salary study with them and even though I have here we're focusing on teacher pay, professional pay and bus drivers and stipens. They're looking at
034all um all all pay grades, all positions, and are we within market because obviously we want to attract and we want to retain our staff. And so, um they're hoping I'm hoping we're going to get our first draft here early next week, if not 1 of June. Um and they'll come back with a recommendation. They will do a comparison market comparison of midpoint. And typically the best practice there is are we within that 5% of market um to the midpoint of of that pay grade. And so um we have launched that. So I've been spending a lot of time with the TASBY team um giving them data um giving them job descriptions. You know what does that job description do and then are we effectively paying them appropriately. Um the reason why we're looking at
035some of the really on the bus drivers, pair professionals, and teacher pay, those have been the especially our bilingual and some of our special education. Those have been our hardest to fill positions. Um and so we're wanting to make sure are we are we competitive enough. Um and so that's like I said, we are looking at all we're looking at counselors, nurses, we're looking at all positions, but um so we have we have launched that and we hope to have that in the next week or two. So and with that, I think that's my last slide. And so you're going to summarize. I was just going to say in summary, I just want to keep in mind the timeline. Um because of all the unknowns, um I'm not sure that, you know, we will have
036all the information we need by the next budget workshop on May 29th. Um but we will continue to provide all the information we have as we get it. Um but I have a very um kitschy rhyming uh takeaway slide uh because that has been the theme of this month is to celebrate uh the celebration reduction and legislation. Um I establishing systems is probably one of the best things that you can do in the first year of leadership and the fact that Dr. Smoskus and I are coming in at the same time and and aligning our systems um it's a it's a an assurance for success in the future. Um, so that clean position inventory and I know it makes uh Carlos super smile too because um attaching the number of positions with a clean dollar
037amount um allows us to use our our ERP system the way it was designed uh to predict the budget in in a way that will be able to be um using that budget as that living organism all year long. And she'll be able to uh you know validate that all all year. But then uh I just want to reiterate how grateful I am to my partners on the SLT for really pwning up um and and doing doing the hard work uh in the last couple of months. And then of course legislation will continue to um impact our draft that would be ready in June. Any questions? Can you go back to slide number 12 which was the average daily chart so we can see that ADA is dropping but enrollment's also dropping and it looks
038kind of like a consistent trend but while sitting here I did a ratio calculation on the last three years and our ADA to enrollment is actually increasing. So if we were to actually pull those two together, we see a positive trend, meaning that our students are coming to school more, even though there's a downward trend on this. So the work that's been done to support attendance is working. We've gone from 89.8 to 90.7 when you compare that ratio. So, I just want to make sure people see that it looks like it's this grim downward trend, but that comparison to ADA enrollment is showing that the work that's being done to keep kids in school is actually increasing that connection. And subsequently, after we're done with questions, I've invited uh Mr. Graham from Mo Casey to
039provide um the results of our staffing study. So, uh TASBY is helping us with the dollars and is is assisting us with the number of people and he has a great slide coming up. I don't want to steal, but it I'm glad you picked that up. There's there's 35 slides, one of them great. So, y'all hold on. Um, and then I think for the benefit of the public, when you look at slide the slide that has the deficit, it is May. It is not August. Correct. There are a lot of variables at play. Absolutely. Especially with the legislature and I just think it's critical. Um we've been I've been on the board four years, so you've been on longer. Like this is a ongoing process to get to the right numbers and so this is
040nowhere near where we're going to end up. No. All the potential changes to expenditures would be decreases. Uh it's been very um well distributed information amongst my peers that we would not be entertaining any increases unless it would essentially emergently affect kids. Um and so uh everything else has been planned for whatever got you through this year should be able to get you through next year. So when you spoke of the 10% that's over two years, right? So 6 million is okay. Um question [Music] on that. Um will we still we still be double blocking athletics with the schedule change? Uh we have not sorry we've not had any discussion about changing our schedule. So as far as I know everything's maintaining the six of eight double block athletics. We've not had any conversation about
041any of that. Don't wait for me to talk because I can't hear any answer. Oh, no. Kim, we have not changed our block scheduling. I know that there were some principles that um had met to get together to suggest that. But we have not done that. We have not changed six teaching the sixth period day. Would that change the blocking of athletics for two periods if we did back to the 8th period day? No, Kim, we're not we're not touching the block schedule. Um, an average uh equivalent unit is calculated for one when they teach six of eight. Now, we know u coaches, they have six of eight. They just might have four of them in the athletic field. That's their class. They're out they're out there doing their athletic classes. Um so on the
042staffing ratios um ratio slide the position control success elementary secondary and position um closer closures. So I just want to confirm the the 21 and 16 um mentioned these are vacant positions closed right combination of vacant positions or retire or yes through retirement through res natural attrition natural attrition absolutely okay so just for some terminology clarification um I guess in those savings in those situations through the attrition um those would be a cost savings because we were spending the money but now we're not spending the money, right? We don't have to but on the other vacant positions that is not a cost savings, that's a budget savings because we're not spending the money on vacant positions, right? So, it would improve the budget position but not no change on the spend discretion. That is correct.
043Okay. Y and then um on um the same slide that Miss Hatfield um mentioned projecting the fiscal um year end, um I'm going to go back um and revisit my exact same comments from one year ago. And you know to the board, it is a absolute priority that y'all figure out how to insist on a forecast. There's no longer an exception to this. I mean, that request has been flat out ignored and y'all need to see how it's happening throughout the year. So, spending is where that that drives spending decisions, spending review, all of those because we do not want to be in a position again where we can't see what has happened. And additionally, I know y'all are making spending reductions. I mean, I know y'all are working on them. And it's the same
044thing as last year on the request. You know, yes, it's on staffing, but where are the details on the other things? The list and and the information and not just an ask ask, but it's here's to give give. with the 180 positions there is that impacted by any funds as your teachers or whatever that was those are removed completely okay that's correct yes so um another thing is so we talked about departments are making this 10% cut over two years 5% each year and um that was payroll and non payroll so We're taking it for both areas but not to campus budgets. Um how can we know that every stone has been turned? So energy efficiency like I I need to see a list of the stones that have been turned because I know you
045guys are turning stones but this all talks about people and it doesn't talk about the other other than to say we did a 5% reduction. So if we got refrigerators in classrooms, that's electricity. Like there's so many things that I need to have confidence before we go into another stage if the legislature does not come in. We we cannot hope the legislature can do anything. So how do we show that we've turned every stone over? And I need to have some more confidence going into the next step of like these are the stones we have turned over. that would really help me um because I can turn to this and I can show the community this presentation. I can explain this, but I can't show the stones that are under the hood that aren't positions
046right now. So, that would really help me other comments, questions. Thank you all for the presentation and I think we're probably ready to go to Mr. Graham's fabulous slides. President Chapman, ladies and gentlemen, board all who's coming on and Dr. Eldidge. Thank you'all for having me this evening. I'm glad to be here. Uh when President Shman introduced himself, he said, "Oh, you're the bright person that has all the answers." And I said, "No, I'm just the Roman messenger. You know, I'm the guy they sent to be killed if the message not well received." But I did bring that bright person with me, Dr. Amber is saying who knows quite a bit about Carolton and she's seated behind me. You'll have to forgive me for a couple of things if I I'm not trying to ignore
047you by not rotating my head. I was blessed with a little head, deck, and throat cancer. And so this is about how far my head turns now and my spine and so I'm kind of just this old stiff body. And so if I slur a little bit, it's the radiation. I've not been drinking. I apologize. any more reasons. Is that what you're saying? You know, they got my attention when I got here when I I realized where I was. I do before I begin would like to to tell y'all what a pleasure it is to work with Carol Farmers Branch. Carla and Tammy, if I may refer to them by their first names, have been wonderfully responsive. The data has been accurate. It's been timely and it's been a privilege. And and I've told you
048superintendent u I was never her peer. I was employed as superintendent at the same time, but I've never risen to be affair of Dr. at all. Uh, but it was my privilege to be a superintendent for 25 years in the state. Uh, I have been superintendent of three districts with the planning enrollment. And it is difficult at best. And so I commend the administration and the board for the president manner in which y'all are planning and moving forward with this. I tr I truly do. So I look at a couple of slides that inform what I'm going to say this evening. I see 80% of your total budget is being in payroll, but that doesn't feel like it's across all funds to include debt service. And so we're talking about just I think the percentage
049is slightly higher because there's also recapture in there and that was not a net of recapture. My experience tells me that we need to turn over every stone. We do need to turn over every stone, but that you'll find less than 3% of your budget to be discretionary. I mean, that's that's just the fact. It doesn't mean we don't pick everyone. look under everyone and I applaud everybody for doing that. So, a couple of ground rules. I act like it's my board meeting. It's not, but I have ground rules anyway. Uh, one, I would like y'all to accept that um we're not here to tell you what to think. We're just trying to tell you what you might ought to think about. And it's not at all important to me that a board think together.
050It's important to me that they think alike. It's important to me that they think together. And I also believe that well-informed, respectful disagreement is the opposite of democracy. That it's got to be well informed and it's got to be respectful. So I commend Dr. Eldridge for trying to get it and her team for getting as much information to you so that you're making informed decisions as you'll try to decide amongst yourselves what the best answer is as you move forward. Um Carla systems. So a couple of things about systems. I'm glad that y'all are systems thinkers because uh research is very clear that 85% of the time when something goes off the rails somebody blank team doesn't win they're going to change coach right but the research is very clear that 85% of the time
051that things go ary it's the systems fault only 15% of the time is it truly the people that are involved the only people that can make strategic decisions and work on the system so the system system does not work on their people are assembled here tonight and I really appreciate the as a as a observer for many years of boards and superintendent the manner in which y'all are approaching this. Y'all are not responsible for the causation in which you find yourselves in right now but you are responsible for the response and once again I'm appreciative that y'all are responding. just to kind of set the framework in my people mind and the way that I view Carolton Farmers Branch. We've not had an increase in B. I'm telling y'all, y'all need to know what time
052it is. I'm going tell you for a second how to go watch. Y'all just have to forgive me for that. The state's not had an increase in basic office since 2019. HP3 was $6,160, you know, child in attendance. If we use the comproller uh Texas comproller CPI and we adjust that number for inflation it approaches $7,600. So inflation is you know has consumed $1,500 of that 6160 and I am an old observer of our legislative process and I'm not at this juncture I'm not speaking for Mo Casey I'm speaking for Lloyd hopefully most good is going to come to school districts out of this session. Okay. Now, hope is not strategy. The creation of hope is out here creating hope, but causation of the issue as exist. If we take $1,500 a child times your
053current enrollment, then you're about $37.5 million behind the ball where you were in 2019. If we add the decrease in enrollment to that number approaches a little over $5 million in my people mind all done with my mind and not anything else then you're about you got about a 4242.5 million dollar fordoll nut that you've got to crack and that is very difficult and so I was taught to believe that there are management decisions and there are ethical decisions and that ethical decisions are deciding the harm you must do and there will be harm to some programs and be harm you know, organizations and things as you move forward, it will be unavoidable. That's the nature of an ethical decision. But y'all are getting the best information that you can, and I'm very appreciative of
054what it is that you're doing. I'm sorry. Am I not speaking loud enough? Well, Kim was struggling, so I just said move the mic over by I apologize. I'm generally I'm self-conscious about how loud I am. Okay. Yeah. I I truly am. So, um, Farley, if you'll hit it, I'll get off my soap box. Okay. table of contests enrollment. That's wherever you want to start. Here's our ladies and gentlemen of the board. I know that y'all seen this and so I won't relate it, but uh the districts that we used to compare were done in conjunction with some demographic studies that we did and once pointed out by the district, Garland, Lewisville, McKenna, and Richardson are your peers when we look at this study, please. Okay. Enrollment of the peer district. You ladies and gentlemen,
055the blue line, the dots, you can see where we are. This is the 2425 uh data as it exists right now at 2465. Having a little difficulty reading it, but fact of the matter is when you take a look that you're down or 800 kids in that 4year period. It's not a precipitous drop, but the smallest hole will eventually drain the largest container. Now, here's something, and Mr. Cassandra spoke to this earlier. It is it is always of interest to me to take a look at ADA to enrollment ratios. 21 you were at 92.8, 91.1, you know, when you look at the CO year, y'all up in the CO year, uh, and 2223, you dropped 89.8, 234, you're up to 90.6 and to the point that was made earlier and 2425 with the data as
056it exists today, not the data as it will exist after graduation, you're at 90.7. But what generates money is a child being president of school. not just enroll but president school. Okay. Thank you. M demographics. Uh this once again is is showing the what is a steady decline uh since 2022 uh in in enrollment through 2025 as just now. But I want us to stop for just a moment. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. I'm probably going to tell you something I don't know. It's difficult for me to see from here. That's my alltime used to up and pacing and being that pastoral for us I guess. But I want you to look at your sped numbers. Not only is percent representation up, but the hard numbers on special education are also up
057from 3414 to what I believe is 4328. Uh so that's about a 900 child increase. 900 is about 28% of 34. Uh that's a significant change. Uh if you look at your e your emerging bilingual your EL numbers. Uh you're going to take what is this not quite 2000 I don't think but I'm going to use 2000 2000 is 25% a so that's about a 22 or 23% emerging bilingual uh but it is also curious to me that the economically disadvantaged numbers are declining. So this is simply to say that there's a shift in demography that I know that you're all aware of but it will affect the type of staff that you will need. It's just that simple. We uh we minister to children where we find them at their level of need. All
058right. This is just a staffing profile for the 2425. Uh this will be a 4ear period the 5 days mark. Uh we take a look. You began this slide at 3358. Peak of this slide was 2324 at 3682. We're now at 3636. Uh we can see you know your auxiliary personnel has moved up even in a decreasing year. Uh teachers aids which I think are the best value in public education. That's just me editorializing or up but an increase in teachers age to me as a practicing superintendent also to me indicates an increase or change in demography and the need to come from changing demography. Uh the blue number student services personnel is up about 10 type programs that have kind of derived services. Uh central office administration and leadership. You know there's been some
059coding changes here we'll talk about that appear to be slightly up and it looks to me like your teachers to u earlier point are are tracking enrollment the way they should. That's kind of just an easy bread and butter calculation to make and and so we have declining enrollment. We're going to have to have personel you look at the line share of the percentage that they are. This is just something I find interesting. This is how you spend your base pay. And if you look at the pie charts for the region 10 total base pay, for the state of Texas total base pay, and for care for the farmers branch total base pay, you don't really see any of the pie charts that are out of any pieces of the pie that are out of
060line without the region or the state trend. I'm not always sure that the state's the best measure. I always think the region is a pretty good measure. Okay. But nonetheless, uh the folks that are in Austin making decisions will use the page don't need to be covered. All right, staffing profile. This tells us something. Okay, this is students per employee students per total staff in this school district. And so when we look that y'all are at 6.65 65 number of students per total staff. The region's at 7.5 and the states at 7.23. So ever since 2122, y'all had fewer students per total staff than either the region or the state. Now the downward trend that we see from from uh 22 23 to 2425 is incremental and that's likely occasion not by the addition of
061staff. We just saw that staff went down to 2425 and 23 24 to me that's an indication of your enrollment but nonetheless staff is going to have the following enrollment or it's simply not going to work long term. Yes ma'am. How about teaching roles and things? These are your teaching roles. Ladies and gentlemen, y'all have although your pupil teaching ratio uh moved up what appears to be six or seven. It moved up 710. It moved up 6% uh from 23 24 to 24 25. Y'all have very low pupil to teacher ratios. very low fuel teacher ratios and you can see the region and state fairly well mirror each other and your fuel teacher ratios remain cons remain consistently below although if we were go back and look at the bar chart at the start where
062I noted that it appeared to me everywhere that your your uh teacher was teacher enrollment was starting to track uh the enrollment your teacher number of teachers were starting to track your enrollment trend the chart we were just looking at to bear that out given a curve in it. So I also think that's stressing proper campus administration leadership ro these are just principal and assistant principal this is number of students for principal and assistant principal ladies and gentlemen your uh camp administrators are carrying 272 children region 10 258 state 259 and the scale on the graph may skew this just a But what I want you to look at is that if by comparison, I don't think one could argue that you're over staff in campus principal and assistant principal. This is the opposite. Yes,
063ma'am. The higher the graph, the better when you look at the ratio versus some of the other ones, we want to be at the bottom. Correct. We want to be at the opposite. Well, but I'm tell Yes, ma'am. That is correct. And often to your point, these are kind of, you know, misinterpreted because we tend to think higher, you know, personnel at work, but we're measuring children to units at this point in time. And so y'all, you know, y'all are good there. I know you've got some consolidations and things and people are going to need to be uh shifted around, but I think the slight drop from 23, 24, 24, 25, if you're operating a campus, you got to have x number of APS and fees and and so you know, to me, that's just
064an indication of the enrollment trend. I don't believe was added in there. My dad mouse there. I can't work that mouse. I mean, it is the most sensitive mouse I I ever had. I hope I trust that steer that way. I'll be in the ditch. Um, these are the roles that are your leadership roles in central administration. But what I want you to look at and we'll see it on the graph that blue light blue and check thing that Carla is circling instructional coaches were shifted over to central administration several years ago and that has really skewed the data. Okay. So what I want you to look at when we see this you can see where everybody well not everybody the region in state were at 2122 and that the angle the drop of teachers
065excuse me of students per these roles in central administration follow the same angle as the state and as the region. Okay. Now once again we ticked up slightly. We saw the reduction in uh personnel in the first bar chart. We picked up slightly going into 23 24. We dropped going into 2425 and I think that's enrollment drop. May we go up to the pie chart for just a second where we had the money how we were spending our salary. I'm going to go back to what go back to this pie chart. That's coding and that's people but that's not dollars. I mean it is dollars and it's not dollars. What I mean by that is y'all are 4% on central administration. The state is 4% on central administration. The the region is 3% on central
066administration. But if you look at a couple of the other parts of the pie at the region, you'll see where that difference truly lies. And so whereas we'll go back to the uh students per I don't know because I don't work in care performance branch but when we see the number of students per central administration role uh in where we are now and and lower but we do not see the total payroll cost out of line without region of the state. That tells me, I don't know this, but that tells me that y'all probably have a lot of teacher support in the central office and instructional coaches and programmatic specialist and those types of things. Okay? And so this is not this is not superintendent and cabinet and this is not those types of roles
067that are driving this. Thank you, ma'am. Student services. a lot of folks in student services. You know, we have teacher facilitators, truer, physical therapists, live preparing, LSSP, you know, uh now we have our instructional coaches up here on the left, but I will note that's historically where they were. And and so on part of this slide, historical coach, instructional coaches are in there. On part of part of the part of the dates in this slide, they're not because they shipped at the central administration. Y'all blow both of these measures at 55 versus 64 versus 66. So let's say 56 or 64 I guess it's 15 50 and 12% of 56 and so um y'all are caring about I mean we can see the percentage spread there and so student services the number of students for
068student services has been below the region and the state and is trending down once again it's likely enrollment but this is some place that I might pay some attention Ed a we track educational aid not because there's a ton of money in education a because they seem to trend changing needs in the district and they tend to eliminate that very I also firmly believe that wellrained heart for children is about the best value that you can have and so when we looked at the change in emerging Finally, when we look at the change in sp over on the one of the previous charts, I see that the increase in age would be in response to a change. I would also tell you that this indicates to me that the demography in Carol's branch is coming
069more in line to the region, more in line with the states. Okay, these were to my mind as I look at these roles, these are the non-temper but if you look at the numbers there 27.12 states at 28.39 that's one I don't I'm not changing meaningful that concern me here. Once again, you see that down trend that I believe is driven by the continual decrease in here comparison. Okay, when we look I want to see I told people staff here it's 57% I can't read the list number 62 62 is at 55 is at 61 but when we look and I see de I see de at 1% I'm not picking on but when I see debt at 1% of civil administration I think a quoting of knowledge there and I see you know, the
070the total support staff is up some and and that camps administration is 3%. So when I see somebody that is that far skewed from uh what I would consider to be a mean or a harm and I don't I don't everybody in Denver I don't know you're watching and listening I'm not picking on but I think they've got folks that are on contracts that are doing some way things trying perhaps better value perhaps not but that's kind of how I I read that story that does not cause me any cause and concern careful Our next I would say McKenna democracy sh 4% 4% we didn't know any of this when we picked the peers based on demography and who and who y'all neighbors were wor together but I see that these things falling in line
071each I don't see anything here that can be hard except that McKenna doesn't employ. We know McKenna doesn't employ and so you know when I see that 68% in total base pay for teachers in the penny but I don't see they have four or 5% in age that kind of makes me wonder how I'm not on penny either it's not I say all this to say I don't see anything here that occasion student staff ratio there you go take McKenna McKenna is the outlier here if you were to remove McKenna your regression to the mean would be tighter but you would still have the lowest uh student enrollment per total staff just gra the of the region student enrollment per teacher ratio over here and this is the pier as opposed to the state of
072the previous at 13.59 is 13.56 at 13.75 13.97 this peer group is pretty is fairly tight okay still below the average here but I don't see spread I don't know what's going on with it. Looks like to me that's anomalous student enrollment for campus administration. We talked about that and saw that earlier, but this is compared to your peers. And so, yeah, y'all y'all are right at the meeting, right at the average. And I think this is awfully good number that you all be proud of as regarding leadership on your campus. All right, I'm back to something for central administration ratio. This is everybody in central administration. We looked at it earlier and so y'all do have the lowest number of students per central office administration total administration that would be it's everybody in the
073office that's I'm an exemp employee I'm a non-exemp employee certificate specialist I am a register I'm a receptionist I'm whomever this is everybody that's here and so this total number is lower and I will also remember to remind you in here when you see that ship just dropped that instructional coaches got looked in right total dollars aren't out of line at the bottom to number of people something to be looked at but it's not something that alarms as practices support services on that educational aid ratio is kind of all over the chart that I've spoke to y'all how I see that and I think that precipitous downward drop not precipitous but incremental downward drop from uh 2021 today and I will note to you that these 2021 today but that's our declining that's our declining
074that's driving and declining in educational find educational aid is one place where enrollment directly affects number of ways but not in an inverse way because if the need is driven by emergency by label and so forth and so on that's probably a number that's going to stay up there auary staff laduary staff you were low compared to the state also low compared to peers So that's you blow the mean there. So that's something I'm not paying attention to. Teaching experience is just situational awareness. That's all that's all. It's just something I think that that generally need to be aware of. I know that your administrators already are you have a large number a high percentage not so much higher above region 10. If you think we can get 11% going 12.3% 11 or 12% higher
075on getting teachers in the region as a whole and you know I stop and I think about that and in my mind that tells me a couple things number one farmers branch desirable place to work and number two that you can afford to live here might be able to afford to have a home so I don't think that's a bad thing that's not the one to five number, you know, you're right in line with Richardson. The mean's a little lower, but region 10, you're a little above region 10. That's where the that's where you're beginning to get this drive. It takes at least three, if not five years. So, I'm looking for balance of years uh experience. So, these two together are 45% 20% 6 to 10 pretty sweet spot. 114 20%. That's a pretty
076sweet spot. And then our next Oh, there we go. 21 to 30% and over 32.4%. So 21 to 30 years where you're going to find the folks that are going to be eligible for retirement. Certainly those 30 years old are likely 30 years. So, y'all got some experienced faculty we're here with you. Uh, and I think experienced faculty and and stability is a wonderful thing. And because I know y'all focus on improvement, retention, capacity building, capacity building, I know Dr. not in Carolton farmers branch, but in some districts there are people with 30 years experience and there are some people with one year's experience 30 times. But you've got your system set up with uh the way that that we eight ways your systems are. I have looked at that seen that what your goals
077and leadership are. I know you are building capacity people. Is that all I have? All right. I think ladies and gentlemen, the the key word here is draft, not NFL drafts. Uh it's something that we're still working on. Although I do have some footnotes in executive summary that I want to show you. If we looked at your high school, the block schedule, there was a question by the online if we had changed that block schedule. student had said we had not had not done that but we did an analysis of the cost of running the block versus running a seven of eight and this is with 70% efficiency assuming only 70% of the teaching staff would teach seven of eight at the secondary level and 30% would not. So you say why would that 30%
078not? Well, you know, we do have some coaches. We do have department chairs, you know, uh we do have, you may or may not share a assistant or associate a fine arts band director between campuses or so forth and so on. So there's never 100% in 78. Uh and so we use 70% of 70 of of teachers being able to eat seven of eight. And the investment in the block schedule with that analysis is 93 full-time equivalent. And if your average salary is 70 without burden to me like 7 * 9 is 63 and 3 * 70 is another 210. So the investment we're making to run in Carol Performance Branch, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I'm saying the investment in Carol Performance Branch to run the block schedule is six is
079$6.5 million. And I did the math in my mind, which is a scary place to go, but uh 6.5 million looked to me like 38,510,000. And if I take that and I get the ratio or the percentage of that to total payroll as I would understand it in this district that's 2.6% of your total payroll and that's across all all employees in the district payroll for the district. Uh that 93 unit which is going down. I know that y'all are absorbing some secondary position. I I get that. I see that. I don't assume all the secondary positions being absorbed are at the high school. It's assume to be at the middle school. But all things being equal and we've done a complete and detailed analysis of about 45 or 50 pages of this I think
080that's still in draft form. We're fine because we've not had a complete conversation uh with Tammy and Carl about it. Certainly not conversation about it. And that's just we're not off. We're not off on that number. That number is is a solid number. My belief is that it might up and I don't think it metriculates down because of 30% of the set aside for only five or six month you know I know your name Wendy I'm sorry my tongue my tongue's not working u I I would say I stand for questions, but I sit for questions. Yes, ma'am. So on the the block is would it be possible to be able to tie student performance or achievement data to prior to us going to block to coming um back to understand is their student success
081at risk from the financial. about I mean I remember when we went to block and aside the education factor of remembering whether it was a day or b day um you know for students and parents um you know did we see a benefit you know I remember at the time it was that students were going to be learning for longer more focused more diligent so did we see success or any kind of difference in that data to compare. Yes, sir. How long have we been on block? I don't I don't even remember. Probably four or five years. Okay. So, five years. Yeah. I think that's an easy enough analysis. I believe well taught is well taught. I And that's just law. I don't speak for you if you understand. I don't speak for anybody here
082other than me. I I believe wellought is well taught. I also know that the total number of we did an analysis on total number of instructional minutes. Uh and if we look at the total number of instructional minutes teaching seven of eight versus teaching six of eight if you want to say it that way the total number of instructional minutes go up in a seven of eight versus a block. Well that could be a driver and I I honestly I can't remember why we went to you know the specific reasons on the block and I mean that wasn't board you know decision. So worth looking into, right? No, ma'am. It's a fair It's a fair question. It It is a fair question because I'm not arguing for efficiency. I'm talking about investment. This is y'all
083are y'all are stewards. And so this is how you're investing these instructional dollar. So if we were just going to be, you know, we'd be looking for an ROI, which is what you're talking about here. And and often there's a cultural shift or so forth and so on. Going to six to eight and it's new and it's fun, it's good, and it needs to work. And uh I'm not a I'm not anti- anything. I don't work against anybody, but I prefer seven of eight. Actually, the truth of the matter is I prefer a completely accelerated block on a 9week quarter, but that's just impossible to run today. Okay. Achievement. Well, that that number goes up substantially. So, we're not even talking about that. My point is is I'm not against the block. I'm not arguing
084against it. Y'all are spending 5 million and that's a hefty cost but I want to make sure I mean we've always talked about money and making sure that savings don't come at the impact or risk of our students is a risk and I think that's why um to Miss Brady's point earlier this idea was tossed around in finance committee but in order to quantify the amount that we could potentially save we still have to involve leadership and learning and That's a that's a lengthier discussion. In this one instance, math is easier and that's a big number. But speaking to the leadership learning piece, we also have well this data shows we got a variance in our teaching staff. But at the same time, we know that new teachers coming into the profession have less professional
085development that's been provided. That's a fact. and when they teach six out of eight blocks, the planning time if used well could be supporting their professional growth. So my question would be if we were to give up it it's the impact to student achievement like Mr. Votic said but also the impact to teacher professional development. So does that mean that yes we give it up but we also recognize that we still need to build in more PLC time once to nine weeks and we do it have to invest in that piece because we're not just yes the savings is important but our whole goal of student achievement and supporting our students and when you take planning time away from teachers it's going to have some impact somewhere so but I also see you know teachers
086time is extremely valuable the landscape has changed so I would just ask that like you said that this not just be financial but this also be leadership of learning and if we're going to give up time or are giving up time to put teachers in front of kids, then how are we going to support them and make sure that they're still able to have high quality instruction in the classroom? And and to your point, and I think that's why um it can't just be a finance committee decision. This is a collaborative decision that takes uh and when I spoke to my peers, I mean, they're asking for a minimum of 12 months before you can lift this off. This is not a, oh, this sounds like a great idea, let's launch it in August. It
087takes a significant amount of time to plan for calendaring all the and to your point and back to that 30% that's teaching five or six of a, you know, leadership and learning, superintendence leadership. When you stop and you think about this, do we say our first year probationary teachers that will be with us for this amount of time are going to teach six, you know, with a mentoring period and fill that PLC time. I mean, there's there's in that 30%, you know, in that 30% that that's there with that 70% factor, there's room to give leadership learning that type of opportunity to play with your point. The planning piece is critical. everybody else. Um but I think that also leads to the discussion on the number of campus um administration as well because with the
088percentage of the what was it one to five year teacher and supporting staff I mean that's what part of the campus administrator's role is is maintaining that staff to not only support support those early year teachers but handle all the other things they have to do I mean that they're required to do um but ensuring that we support those early year teachers so they move into that next um that next stage what was it 10 to I don't remember the next the next stage and we're not having that kind of turnover and reinvesting the time or dollars on mening in teaching and learning you know for that so I think it maintains the need for campus administration it it does not off but I Dr. He and I have known each other for a while
089and you know I know that it it's improvement retention but the only way you do it is capacity build you know I I am proud that that numbers within 5% so long but when you look at the research if you're within the top when I say research I don't it was written on the internet so it must be true peerreview research would tend to indicate We looked at at HR research. If you're in the top 20% of total compensation, I just take the total compensation within an area with which I can still live in Carol Bronson Drive that you know people probably aren't leaving for South. Okay. Affirmation or lack thereof and this building of capacity that you're talking about is an awful thing. It is. Y'all are in a good place with good people.
090I would just also ask that as we think about working with the leadership and learning department that we also work with campus administrators and make them a part of this because it's going to impact them and they're really smart people that can give a lot of insight. This originally was their idea. Yeah. Our high school principles started meeting to discuss that. They were concerned. You know, some of them have more programming than others. what does that look like when we have CTE programs extracurricular you know they they felt like you know where do students get to participate and where is that time um is it blocked or are we going to be responsible for getting our students there so all of those factors they have made list and that's what started the um research behind
091that was from our principles so looking at the best use of time because there's also a 30 minute advisory period um built in at the high schools that the it's the consistency is not consistent. Some of them are more efficient than others. What that was designed to be was help with intervention and everyone that 30 minutes is a significant amount of time along with the block scheduling. So what does that look like? So we all I have a question. Okay. And maybe this is just confusion on my part, but going back to the staffing study you looked at the you pointed out in the demographics that our numbers have grown, our sped numbers have grown and our uh EB and numbers have grown. And then going into looking at like the student to teacher ratios
092and then even at peer comparisons and seeing that we're kind of below um like on teacher ratios we're below some of our peers. Um but also we when looking at the enrollment sorry I'm all over the place. No we're good. Look, looking at the enrollment, um we have uh this doesn't go over the sped numbers, but in terms of the um EDL numbers, we're much higher than everyone else. How does that affect those teacher ratios? I mean, and is that could that be one of the reasons why in terms of why we actually have a smaller ratio? I would say to you that that's a driving force. Um, but I would also say to you that, you know, with regard to your neighbors, there may be some difference, but y'all haven't reached the state numbers
093on SPE or EB. Okay. LL and so, you know, and you're thinking the way and you're looking at the right things. That was kind of what I wanted. I'll speak up. I'm sorry. I'm so cognizant of how darn loud I am. I try not to be um when I talked when I was speaking to you about you needed to see the significant change in your demography. Yeah. And and so you know I don't know I do think the type of teacher needs to change. I'm not sure the total number of teachers needs to change, you know, from that standpoint. And I and you know, we're a I don't have the state's demography off the top of my head, but I think we're 26% white, non-Hispanic, okay? About 13 or 14, maybe 16% black today. And
094you know that our uh that we're well north of 60% free and reduced, you know, and and we're well and and we're majority we're looking at enrolled in public schools, we're majority Hispanic. And so, yes, ma'am, you you make an excellent point and you're asking the right questions. And so, I'll say this, you know, leadership is not a tropical call of self-importance. It's a call to service. And it's not about telling the board, it's not about the answers you give, about the questions you raise. You've got a good group here that does a good job of trying to anticipate and answer your questions. So, please keep answer asking them because they'll get a better answer than I've got for you. Okay. I just want to make sure I was in the directory. You are. I'd
095like to add to that. So that would be an increase in expense for the ED teachers as well as that. Is that correct? And on the flip side of that, it's more revenue for the step children, isn't it? Well, depends on the version. Okay. Well, just seeing these figures and the impact that may or is occurring Is there any additional for the EB growth? There may be. Maybe that's to be determined right now. I mean, there's proposals out there for that, right? And I think you might be referencing the additional like title entitlements like the the title fund entitlements that come with emergent bilingual, but there is a spending requirement on the general fund, too. Um, but to your point, add additional ED students doesn't always mean or additional special education students doesn't mean that
096um you know revenue that exceeds our already uh established spending because we don't have problems in those two areas meeting our spending requirement. We almost always exceed our spending requirement in those two areas. And thinking just one step further about the block, they would benefit being in that longer to understand or learn to deeper concept but emerging bilingual versus yes ma'am your point has taken on time and I'm not trying to I'm sorry I'm used to answer your question um but I would say that most of this effect most of the effect of EVL is at the lower grade for block is I'm concerned okay okay we should be exiting the children out as they metriculate into the high school I just said that we had a rash We had a high enrollment in middle
097school. So, we added quite a few aids because we could not find certified teachers. And so, that accounts for our pair professionals um that were helping our children that could not uh that were new to our to American schools. And we felt the ratio um to students to our uh pair professionals was the right thing to do for kids because they were teaching them how to you know perform. It could be on a computer or just teaching them language lessons and in a big group the levels of language were all different as we took that assessment. Best value, right? Lloyd, I want to go back to page eight. Um and the coding of our instructional coaches that were coded for central administration because this has been um you know questioned at length um uh regarding
098um central office positions. They are coded as central admin but they aren't housed. they are we went to areas and um how our uh areas are served by different people to be strategic and I'm going to change the chart I just like I don't I don't have 40 new administrators that is the coding ma'am I know you don't coding all right here here's where it shows up okay I'm not you know Dr. I'm not trying to take you off the slide you want to be on. But you can you can see the shift and this this is just what the state's requiring you to do here of where they're housed. Correct. Okay. I mean I don't think that I think if you had 40 new people running around inside your building that everybody would know
099that everybody would know it, right? And you don't. But that was just a mandated shift that happened very quietly. By the way, uh I learned that when we did this for Waco over those two years and Dr. King was going, I don't trust what you're doing here because I know I am coming down in central administration, but this big number, you know, he was calling person, but most of the rest of us did not. Uh and so when we see these numbers, let's be mindful that that jump from 411 to 261 that that was absolutely driven by uh by CO and you can see it shifted up going to 2324 and then that slight downward shift in teachers perhaps per uh people coded 41 to leadership that's got to be simply the simple decline of
100your enrollment that I I don't think there were a lot of people out there. Am I addressing your question? Yes. I just I I just wanted to make that clear because you know when I was researching it at first I thought it was the counselors because we you know we absorbed some counselors um that were uh funded through ESSER and you know we didn't want to lose our counselors and you know that was a a board decision after our ESSER funding went away and I think I think some of our counselors were coded admin but when we did our due diligence of looking at it and we found our instructional coaches were the majority of coded admin. Um there's been some discrepancies regarding that and I just wanted you to clarify it since you've been
101doing all the research for that. Have have I done that for you? Yes sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I mean it and it has it raised a lot of eyebrows with a lot of boards and a lot of uh constituents of boards. Are there any other questions? We look forward to settle to next stage of our budget workshop. Thank you to all four of you for informing us. We must remind us that money is important, but kids are always the driving influence. And uh we're proud to be able to say high achievement for all students has always been what this board has been about and thank you for your support, your information this evening. Well, that's it. This is your staff. Thank you. But ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Thank you for your time.
102Ladies and gentlemen, what for those of you that speak Spanish, I apologize pronunciation. Those of you that don't, what I said was, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time and thank you for receiving me in your home where you believe every child is a is a genius. Every head is a world of its own. My point is is that I was saying the right things, but we weren't in the same language. And what these ladies and your superintendent is doing is trying to get you common decisions for the ethical uh common language for the ethical decisions that you're going to have to make. And Amber and I are deeply honored to be participating in this and we stand ready at any point in time just thank you. Thank you very much. We're going to
103take a break and then we will resume in close session and work on the last part of our evening. questions or comments tonight. Oh yeah, we are back in session. 8:31 then I will bang the gable and we will conclude this meeting. Thank you for your participation. Budget workshop done up to this point. All right. Have a good evening. Okay.