Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Board Meeting - 3/9/2023

001I call this pre-meeting briefing with Carrollton Farmers Branch ISD Board of Trustees to order at 6 pm on March 9th the purpose of this pre-meeting briefing is to conduct a briefing section with administrative staff regarding the posted agenda for the regular board meeting schedule for 7 pm March 9th 2023 for the record the board members present are Sally Derrick Tara herbacek Carolyn benavidez Ileana Garza Rojas Kim Brady and myself Les black next item is audience for guests persons who wish to speak during audience where guests must have completed a form for this purpose and placed in the designated location prior to the opening of the meeting no one has requested to speak so we'll move to agenda item number three which are our administrative reports Mr merch are there any reports by the administration yes

002sir Dr Black esteemed members of the board our first item is item 5f consider approved proposed budget amendment and that will be presented by Larry getter thank you Mr merch so the budget amendment that we proposed um it's for the student nutrition program and we did it because you know the last two years we've been on the summer program where every child eats for free breakfast and lunch so we weren't sure what the participation was going to be because now the parents are having to pay for the kids lunches so we were first to be conservative on how we budgeted for Child Nutrition this year so we did a conservative budget and well behold everybody's buying lunch so it's a good thing so we're asking for a two million dollar increase in anticipated Revenue when

003we do our reimbursement claims with this with the with the federal government so once we do that um obviously the food cost is the biggest part of it so this is to help us increase the budget so we can get the anticipated Revenue that's going to come in yeah four members do you have any questions Mr Barron foreign thank you next item is item 5j consider approved the recommendation by The Shack for curriculum regarding topics of child abuse Family Violence Dating Violence and sex trafficking and that will be presented by Miss Sandra leak good evening as you know Senate Bill 9 and the Christine bluebaugh act requires local school health advisory counties or councils excuse me to um to review curriculum involving the four topics that wherefore mentioned child abuse Family Violence Dating Violence and

004sex trafficking the previous law included a provision for parents and Guardians to opt in or to opt out excuse me but now they will be required to opt in for these topics so the curriculum Review Committee members were April Hooper Christensen Victoria Whitley Jonathan Wilk Kathy riojas Betsy McKinney and Sylvia mazawera they the curriculum review process that was followed was first the counseling and mental health departments conducted a review of their curriculums and they evaluated them for any of those four topics the evaluation resulted in the following courses being submitted for review The Counselor guidance lesson lesson on sexting the counseling and mental health High School CTE course the human growth and development CTE course and the health course for secondary students they began the review process by a listening to a presentation from Melanie

005Williams and Lynn Torres and then the committee met five times and it was a combination of both virtual and in-person meetings to review and discuss the curriculums as a result of the process the school health advisory Council recommends the following curriculum be presented to you the school board for approval uh the Texas school procedures guidance lessons the CFB created guidance lessons for elementary students The Nest Foundation high school health curriculum the Texas school procedures for the following lessons the lesson on child abuse abuse excuse me and for the growth and development CTE course the Texas school procedures lesson on child abuse and ACA code of ethics for counseling and mental health CTE course and the lesson on sexting which is a counselor guidance lesson for secondary students I would like to commend the work of

006the school health advisory Council they did a very thorough and excellent job of evaluating the curriculum and they worked collaboratively with all of the stakeholders involved do you have any questions are there questions from the board Mr bochic and so how will parents and how and when will parents be no notified of their is it option to opt in I guess is how you would say it I believe they are still working those processes out so I I can't give you specifics on that thanks Mr clarify this is for next school year for this school year the one we're in currently yes ma'am okay any further questions uh yes Miss Benavides were there any curriculums reviewed that they did not approve yes there were two that were not approved the Texas Tech curriculum was not

007approved they believed that there were so many links that they couldn't really effectively evaluate all of that material and since websites change and we couldn't guarantee that there weren't political agendas or that students could navigate to other areas once they went to that website they just felt like teachers would not be able to to monitor that activity and so that curriculum was not approved and also a Mental Health America guidance lessons they felt like it had very distracting videos they felt like the message was lost and um so that's the reason and they just felt like it was a low quality curriculum so that's the reason they did not approve or did not bring that one before you with a recommendation okay following Ms Derek's question um my mind just went blank I was going

008to ask about oh for this year so it starts now yes this year before the end of the year they will complete if these are you know approved as as we are recommending they will complete those um just those topics before the end of the year so it's a six-week course or how long does it take to go through it it's it's guidance lessons and then opt-in material in the the CTE courses okay thank you you're is Brady well they'd be doing these during advisory time is that the idea or they be in health class I'm confused when that's gonna it depends upon the grade level some of the CTE courses or High School level courses and then some of the other materials would be covered in guidance lessons just during advisor here yes okay

009okay any further questions okay thank you Miss Lee and thanks to the uh Shaq for all their hard work and we appreciate them thank you Miss merch next item is five in consider approved RFP 2022-12-038 for e-rate C2 wireless access points and that will be Mr B.J Welsh thank you for the opportunity to uh talk to you about wireless access points this evening this is a 3700 Cisco wireless access point we put 500 of these access points in in leveraged e-rate Category 2 funding in 2014. in 2019 Cisco announced the end of sale of the 3700 series and later that year they announced the end of support for these access points coming up in January 2024. so we're looking at replacing 500 of those access points in our campuses in our schools we're asking for

010looking at the 9136 access points which looks pretty similar to this access point a little bit more lower profile a little more modernized we will be utilizing our Category 2 e-rate funding at 80 percent so we it that should save the district about 625 thousand dollars once e-rate approves it okay thank you board members do you have any questions for Mr Wells okay thank you thank you very much Mr Wells oh did we have a question hold on Miss Brady you're the only thought you were off yeah so what would be the cost if we saved 625 000. it's 781 000 total that will follow our category two e-rate with okay and based on past performances and our district being 80 percent we would pay we would get a refund of about 625 thousand dollars

011okay thank you that's all I want to know sure thank you okay thank you um Mr Marsh next Adam is item five oh consider approved resolutions transfer fiscal agency of the epcnt Cooperative from Carlton Farmers Branch ISD to ESC region 11 that will be presented by Miss Tammy Craig she's very excited this is her first time here in front of the board at CFB word my voice carries really good so I don't want to pull the mic too close but you can hear me right okay so um I was just going to tell you a little about epcnt so epcnt stands for educational purchasing Cooperative of North Texas and what that was back in 2004 a group of directors of purchasing got together because the purchasing process is very strenuous it takes about six weeks

012to go from start to finish when you do a bid and that's usually the quick time there's all the laws and stuff that go with it so therefore they wanted to create something where we could share contracts across North Texas excuse me a court across North Texas to be able to procure these items and supplies and services and not every District here have to go out for bids for that type stuff so they came up with this cooperative and it was started in Louisville ISD was the one that managed it for years of the Cooperative meets twice a year and so they um each time they go because there's a lot that goes into the Cooperative uh when you manage it there's the managing of funds there's a website there's all kinds of questions that

013come in vendors want to be part of it and so what happens is and this has really grown we actually have 92 members now of school district cities counties and higher education here in North Texas and so it's it is a lot to take on for the Fiscal Agent so um they had asked Louisville was asking to step down and Gary kirbo who was here previous my predecessor he was one of the founding members of the get the Cooperative together and so he took the physical agent here and we have now uh with the membership increasing we have the region service center of region 11. and so they're willing to take on the uh physical agent for this cooperative and we believe it'll be better served for the rest of North Texas because they're already

014in that role of doing things and so we're asking for you to approve to move the physical agency from carrollton's Farmers Branch over to region 11. any questions thank you Miss Craig questions um yes Miss benavidez what's this is this utility kind of cooperative no it's it's a cooperative for um for everything there's uh what it is is it's each school district has bids that we do like for instance the one that uh BJ just discussed um so we all have bids and so if you have a vendor that you needed uh say another District wanted to use a vendor that we had on bid we already have all the paperwork together so we can send them our contract information and then they're able to piggyback off of our bed and the same thing for

015us if someone has a vendor or someone that we need to use we can piggyback off their bid and be able to have that because they've already done all the qualifications for that vendor so it's it's a each district has their own approved vendors and we can share contracts amongst the members of the epcnt to get a better deal is that a bigger purchase yeah okay yeah all right yeah okay thank you any other questions okay Miss Craig thank you very much thank you appreciate it you did a great job for your first time for any time and that concludes the administrative reports Dr Black thank you Miss merch we'll move on then to uh agenda item number four uh board members do you have any questions regarding anything on the consent agenda tonight you've

016left looking right okay if there are no questions regarding uh the consent agenda consent agenda items I'll move to agenda item number five we've reached the end of the agenda for this pre-meeting briefing and we are adjourned at 6 14 pm foreign I call this regular meeting in the Carrollton Farmers Branch ISD Board of Trustees to order at 7 pm on March 9th 2023 board members District staff members and members of the audience you're free to join me in standing as Mark delagio from Northside Baptist Church provides a message followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Brian Marsh the pledge of the Texas flag led by Cassandra Hatfield that's right father we thank you for this evening an opportunity to be together we thank you for Dr Black and the Board of Trustees and

017our Administration who acknowledge your superintendents over the Affairs of men and to seek Your Divine wisdom we thank you Lord for what's gone on here in the last several months as this board Administration has vetted a new superintendent we pray for Dr Eldridge as she comes in to lead us that she lead us to even greater Heights of success we pray that she walks as she walks into a situation indicative of a struggle that's not unique to us but we're the one in the news so we ask for your guidance we ask for appropriate measures and wisdom to be taken to protect the minds and bodies of our young people I pray that you would expose those who seek to destroy and bring down those who are so impressionable and need our guidance we pray

018Lord for teachers and leaders to continue to be careful and cognizant of the stewardship we have to mold and shape the impressionable minds of our kids our next leaders for your honor and Glory we ask for your wisdom we pray for those who will be going through spring break next week to keep us safe and protected May everything go well with this meeting tonight we ask it all in Jesus name amen thank you Mr delalia for those remarks and thank you Mr Marsh and Ms Hatfield for leading Us in the pledges welcome everyone we're glad to see you here tonight um as we move into March of 2023 and we approach spring break as a district we dedicate all our efforts and resources to our goal of high expectations for all the board uses this

019goal to guide all deliberations decisions and actions you'll get to see all deliberations decisions and actions of the board in Open session with the exception of some items which may be discussed in a closed session is stipulated in the Texas government code section 551 commonly known as the open meetings law these items typically deal Personnel matters consultation with our attorney and real estate for the record board members president or Sally Derrick Cassandra Hatfield Tara arbachik Carolyn benavidez Ileana Garza Rojas Kim Brady and myself Les black we constitute a quorum and made it may conduct business on behalf of the district before moving on to the next agenda item I would like to remind you that the board will accept comments from citizens of the district and from District employees persons who wish to speak during

020audience for guests must have completed a form for this purpose and placed it in the designated location prior to the opening of the meeting when the board reaches agenda item number three audience for guests you will be invited to the podium to speak to the board I'm going to move now to agenda item number two two a two B and 2C these are our teachers of the nine weeks employ the nine weeks and recognitions um so Ms Parnell I'll turn this over to you good evening Dr Black Mr merch and members of the board we would like to begin our recognitions tonight by honoring and celebrating our teachers and employees of the nine weeks as you know we were unable to announce our honorees in February due to inclement weather so this month we are

021celebrating both February and March honorees so please join me in watching this brief video congratulating our excellent teachers and staff members teachers of the second nine weeks Miguel caban Perry Middle School Carla Scott Rogers Polk Middle School Carla Hardaway Creekview High School Emeline Fuentes Early College High School Cindrella Bush Ranch View High School Charles Morrison Smith High School Shannon Miller Turner High School Kara stage Grimes Education Center Paula Brown B Salazar Center employees of the nine weeks Brian Singh facilities Elsa Lopez student nutrition Felicia Lawrence paraprofessional clerical Creekview High School Monica Reese professional certified teachers of the third nine weeks Vicki Ward Blair Elementary Claudia Noriega Blanton Elementary Melissa Cueva Carrollton Elementary Claudia Salinas Central Elementary Kendra Kennedy Country Place Elementary kashawa Anthony Davis Elementary Farmers Branch Elementary Mallory Nolan Freeman Elementary Cindy Cook Bernal

022Elementary Jennifer Anderson good Elementary Micah Willis Kent Elementary Amanda harshiny Las Colinas Elementary and in loving memory Rosalind Kelly Landry Elementary and as you saw from the video sadly Landry Elementary School Rosalind Kelly recently passed away tonight principal Eric Cochran friends and colleagues are here in person to celebrate Miss Kelly we would like to ask all of us to stand and show our respect and honor for Miss Kelly [Applause] Thank you new member seated and this time I'd like to ask Dr Black and Mr merch to please come forward and we are going to move on to our student recognitions we are exceptionally proud CFB proud of our student musicians in the district and tonight we want to applaud five very talented Ranch few in Creekview High School students for qualifying for Allstate students as

023we recognize you for your talent discipline commitment we would like to ask you to please come forward as I call your name first we have Trace Bennett from Ranch View High School his tmea All-State small school choir tenor [Applause] David Martini Rancho High School atssb Allstate symphonic band tenor saxophone [Applause] Gavin skorinsky Rancho High School atssb Allstate symphonic band baritone saxophone [Applause] Asmar Flores Creekview High School tmea All-State 5A symphonic band trombone [Applause] Isadora Martinez Creekview High School tmea All-State 5A symphonic band clarinet [Applause] and I know we have some proud parents and teachers and instructors in the audience and we know you put a lot of commitment and time into these student successes so we applaud you as well let's give our students another round of applause [Applause] next we'll move on to staff

024recognitions and our first one is for pier Larson Ms Larson I'll ask you to come forward she is our director of social studies and she has received received the Dr Rosemary Morrow award as the supervisor of the Year award and it's presented by the Texas Association of Social Studies supervisors for an exceptional social studies professional in Texas for years of service and dedication to the social studies profession Miss Larson has been a CFB employee since 1999. she's taught world history all levels of U.S history Law Academy classes and has served as the department manager before moving into her current position as director of social studies congratulations Miss Larson [Applause] and finally tonight we want to recognize our CFB proud honorees and this is an award that's given for excellent customer service and it's sponsored by

025The District in Chick-fil-A at Trinity Mills and tonight we're honoring the front office staff from Thompson Elementary School we have Maria lozanza who's the secretary Liliana Gutierrez who's the team specialist and Alejandra Nava the clerk and we'll ask these three ladies to please come forward and this is what um principal Jamie Foster has to say she says this Dynamic Trio at Thompson Elementary makes every day coming to work easy she said combine this Thompson team has 27 years of experience in CFB and have invested so much more in time and efforts ladies you're excellent and we congratulate you on great customer service [Applause] and that concludes our recognitions thank you another hand for all our our teachers and employees of the last two months and our other award recipients and of course Ms Larson for

026her work and all our All-State athletes excuse me Allstate musicians um so difficult to do so we're so proud of you we will move now to District announcements I'll go ahead and do that okay we're going to move it to uh 2D to District announcements I'll turn it over to Mr merch all right thank you Dr Black members of the board I would like to announce an addition to the CFB family we have Mr Greg Gaston if you please stand up he's come from Keller he's with over 20 years of experience he's a Director of Human Resources and we also have some additional good news Miss Maggie De la Rosa defended her dissertation this morning at SMU successively successfully defended so we want to introduce Dr Maggie De la Rosa [Applause] we have a special

027call board meeting on Tuesday March the 21st at 8 A.M and that's so the board can officially hire Dr Wendy Eldridge and I don't know who's more excited Dr Eldridge or myself [Laughter] and I just want to take this opportunity to commend the board for their time that they put in their their servant leaders I've had the opportunity to really get to know the board and I've been more and more impressed with every interaction and they've worked really hard and really diligently to find the best possible superintendent for us and I think they've done it and you're to be commended so thank you very much and that's the announcement thank you Mr Marsh um we'll do uh excuse me item 2E which is our update from the PTA after this item we'll take a we

028won't break but I'll give people a moment to escape if if you were here for um for a recognition and you'd like to discreetly slip out the door so but but you need to hear the PTA update first because I staff that does not include you so so miss shop uh I'll turn it over to you thank you uh good evening thanks everyone for giving me the opportunity to update about the PTA we had a successful console PDA reflection night on January 18th at Nancy Warden Center at Irving uh capisd students were awarded and recognized for their creative work in PTA Reflections thanks to our team Bonnie Meredith and Emmy for working so hard and putting up a great show we had a great turnout this year at Newman Smith for our Harlem Wizards game

029and we can't thank enough that District we had 24 players from various schools in the district we sold around 861 tickets online and 146 at the tour that was a great event thank you so much thanks Miss Don panel and her team from Central Administration and communication for helping us on Wizards night I can't thank enough we would also like to thank Dr zimni's Newman Smith High School principal for welcoming and supporting us for the game night thanks to our sponsors who kept the cost so low that we can use the money for grants for our local ptas next year I want to thank Cindy our second VP who really worked effortlessly in making this possible and Miss Blackman who got the sponsors for the event we had the console PTO also organized a charter

030bus to Austin to take part in the Texas state PTA rally day we had 32 students from DeWitt Perry Middle School four from Creekview High School and nine from Ranch View High School teacher chaperones were Miss Emily Morgan from DeWitt Perry Middle School Mr Ayan salt start from Rancho High School and Mr Jonathan Ray from Creekview High School students and teachers had meetings with representative Terry Meza Senator tan Parker representative ancia and another great meeting with representative Julie Johnson I would like to thank our advocacy chairs here for initiating organizing and executing this bus ride to Austin he was great in organizing that thank you so much Zohar had a very successful cap ISD Council PTA board election last evening we are still looking for some of the position especially the first VP for the

031leadership position since our dear Kim Brady has stepped down for that position if you are interested in serving at any of these Council level position please let us know and we will be happy to get your help during a delegate meeting we had uh District Representatives who also spoke on bond support thanks for uh um we like to thank them because they opened our eyes what is going on in the district regarding the pawn the local president delegates and the principals were informed to bring this to their membership to request support for this Bond the meeting we will have a special meeting on April 19th at 5 45 pm to vote for the bond support the meeting will also be followed by the life member award ceremony so all of you are invited in that

032life remember award ceremony where we are going to recognize um PTA life members and there will be a little bit um dinner for for their services the council PTA has had made a master link where must uh students can access all the schools offering scholarship so senior scholarship application deadline is on 22nd April so please inform if you have any senior students to apply for the scholarship for various schools and it is if you want more information you can contact me uh our last delegate meeting will be held on May 10th at Sheffield Elementary School at 6 30 p.m please mark your calendar for our council's PDA spring training on 13th May Texas PTA launch is happening again in Dallas Texas on July 21st I'm giving you a little bit Advance because we are also

033have some grants and if you want to but um participate in the PTA launch you can apply online and or otherwise contact me and that for that Grant the due date is May 14th so please apply and you can go to PTA launch you can learn a lot regarding the membership we currently have 5875 total members we are hoping to end by this year by 6 000 but we need your support thank you so much I think I had a lot for because of the two months we have clubbed all the PDM dates it it's becoming longer than you expected but thank you so much thank you thank you Miss Shaw thank you for your presentation and thanks for your work in PTA and to all those who may be listening on the stream out

034there who are PTA volunteers we we appreciate you so much so thanks for everything you do okay um I will take just a moment now um for anybody who's here supporting a friend who's already been recognized who would like to slip out I'll give you that opportunity nobody will say anything thank you for coming and congratulations again to our recipients can you speak people listen okay we will move on now to agenda item number three our audience for guests persons who wish to speak during audience for guests must have completed a forum for this purpose and placed it in the designated location prior to the opening in the meeting I have two names that have been supplied to me as a complete list okay so um before we begin our minor audience members of the

035board's procedures for handling audience for guests anyone interested to speak in person during audience for guests must have completed a forum and listed the topic they wish to discuss prior to the start of the meeting each speaker will be allowed to speak once during audience for guests and will be allowed a maximum of three minutes to address the board dictated by board policy bed local because the board wants to hear from as many of you as possible while also keeping the meeting running efficiently groups of more than five people who want to present a particular viewpoint on a topic should appoint one person to speak on behalf of their group please remember that the board cannot deliberate on any subject that is not included on the agenda for this meeting board members will listen to

036comments but will not respond or answer questions we ask that you not discuss students who are not your own child the timer will be shown on the screen in front of you and will begin when you arrive at the podium to speak again speaker's presentation time is limited to three a minute three minutes so I'll go ahead and call our first Speaker it's Mr William Jones thank you good evening I'm here to talk about the 56 000 we're going to spend to send 270 teachers to the international institute for restorative practices for a two-day training uh so I wanted to know what the iirp was all about so I went to their website clicked on school resources clicked on articles and the second result a toolkit will tell us about the need for restorative practices

037so let me read from that when asked about how to move from systems built on compliance to something more restorative Educators and Scholars alike kept coming back to this there is pre-work to do restorative practices at their best are part of a school culture that prioritizes culturally sustaining pedagogy and authentic relationship building connections that allow for trust openness and inclusive spaces without that Foundation it's hard to move straight into restorative work and they start talking about culturally sustaining pedagogy what uh what's the need behind that so let me quote from an article that they link directly to that no matter how well intentioned when a teacher often a capital W white teacher but as we mentioned in the book teachers of color 2 can be invested in whiteness claims that they don't see color they

038are engaging in colorblind rhetoric that is harmful to communities of color for at least three obvious reasons one they are denying their own whiteness and or their investment in whiteness and all the social privileges and power that they gain from that and two they're denying other folks Blackness brownness or Asian examples in our and all the social discrimination that flows from that and most importantly three they are constructing racism as individual and intentional rather than institutional racism is structural it is historical and enduring the U.S unfortunately for people of color is structured from top to bottom by race all right if the message still isn't clear then consider this saying that you don't see color whenever people of color are vocal about racism and discrimination is kind of saying you don't see gender it is

039dishonest and frankly we have no time for it well we do have time for though is genuine open honest courageous conversations about racism and how education can disrupt racism all right so what we're sending our teachers to by their own admission is a camp where they are going to critically examine the function of race within society and how it structures society that is critical race Theory additionally we heard about the culturally sustaining practices and how the foundation that we have to build is an opportunity to talk about race and relationships as the pre-work needed for restorative practices is this what you want is this the platform you ran on is this what the average citizen of carrollton's Farmers Branch supports I can think of two answers one this is what you want if that's the

040case out yourself we have School Board elections here in about two months put it out there so we can decide whether or not as a community this is what we want two you didn't do your homework you did it this took about five minutes to find it just click on their website and find it all right so with and with that being said whoever told you this was a good idea and you were unaware of what it is that they're actually pushing you should be embarrassed and you should ask that person more serious questions about why they are misrepresenting what restorative practices actually are to the decisions maker here on the board because let me tell you this right here far flung pulling someone's hair and getting them together and asking him to apologize for

041it thank you thank you Administration will contact you to collaborate regarding a Viewpoint thank you for taking the time to share your perspective with the board our next speaker is zohair barmal good evening boat thank you for the opportunity so I'm showing up as a community member and a resident of cfbisd I believe that the primary purpose of the ISD is to teach languages Math Science History and social sciences and our district is doing that I mean I have two kids Once Upon a Time you're all doing a great job but we have challenges where we have 35 percent emergent bilinguals and then we also have kids who are 10 years old who may not know English at all because they're new and and it's a challenge Thursday is also providing so many non-teaching benefits

042to the kids in the form of food Health Care safety bubble school buses supplies counseling Sports career Readiness and other extracurricular activities which is great I've come here to say that spending any money on drugs and Fentanyl related policing or prevention is not the job of ISD this is the job of parents and the community while fentanyl is an is a nationwide issue it is not something that the district should be working on I believe that we should not be spending any money on drugs or vaping or fentanyl related policing or enforcement that is the job of parents in the state and and if you get if you start getting the more and more administrative and policing tasks then we get distracted and we will never have enough money for teachers and the core responsibility

043of ISD and as such you know the district already had to spend millions of dollars on the safety bubble which is a good thing but then you know is that the job of the ISD so I believe that our tax money can be better utilized to produce more programs for producing skilled young men and women and leaders for producing some high quality programs for the talented and the gifted there is no talented and gifted program at High School and the board is doing an excellent job at educating 25 000 kids I mean I can I can appreciate all what you're doing I wouldn't be able to do your job honestly and and teachers are doing a great job but how can we keep those noise and administrative and and push to I mean we need

044to start pushing back on noisy parents who want the boat to do everything that is not the job of the district or the board and then I I thank you all for keeping focus on teaching and trying to keep our Administration tasks low and of less expenses thank you thank you and administration will contact you to collaborate regarding your Viewpoint and thanks for taking the time to share your perspective with the board all right we will move now to um agenda item number four which are non-i uh non-action items for discussion so we'll start with 4A special education and dyslexia update and I believe Ms Smith this is you there you are all right good evening Mr merch Dr Black and members of the CFB ISD board we're pleased to have this opportunity this evening

045to share an update regarding the work of The Guiding Coalition as we work to reimagine special education and CFB I'd like to start by introducing the rest of our amazing leadership team we have our coordinators Dr Karen Ward Monica Johnson and Regina Dr Regina little we have Colleen Bardsley our lead diagnostician Greer Fisher lead licensed specialist in school psychology Kathleen Frye lead Speech Pathology speech language pathologist Kristen seletti lead therapist Michelle Westerfield who could not be here with us tonight but is our lead Behavior resource specialist and I'm Jennifer Wright special education coordinator thank you as we begin our work we look to the cfbisd mission statement as a guide to ensure our thinking was aligned with the overall mission of the district in collaboration with a guiding Coalition team members all special services team

046members and dyslexia interventionists we've developed a vision statement for the special services department that encompasses not only students who have an IEP but also students who are served through 504 our commitment is to serve students equitably inclusively and in a culturally responsive manner it is our belief that by creating a culture of inclusivity and Equity we will establish a community where everyone feels a sense of belonging okay and just as the vision that Jennifer just spoke about communicate communicates the purpose and the aspirations of the department we also created some guiding objectives these objectives were created by our guiding Coalition and our special services department focusing on these objectives we will ultimately move closer towards our vision for the department and these guiding objectives are to develop the trusting relationships with through collaboration data sharing

047and problem solving in order to maximize learning for each student to engage parents and Guardians as equal Partners in the education of their child and to provide stakeholders with the knowledge strategies and services to effectively support student growth socially emotionally and academically so the vision communicates our purpose The Guiding objectives communicate how we are going to get there and how we're going to measure progress the belief statements here convey our why we firmly believe that belief statements are fundamental to our vision as a department so think of this as the wind in our cells this is our why our beliefs Inspire and guide us in the work that we do every day so these belief statements are that we believe in supporting and developing students and staff to meet the individual needs of all of

048our Learners we believe that every child is a general education Student First who has the right to access all opportunities afforded to all students and we believe that it is our responsibility to help every student reach their full potential we also believe that every student deserves access to resources and tools to help them be successful um with that we first had to have our foundation and so with the help of all of those groups that Monica just shared with us we came up with this is what we believe in this is what we want to move forward in the district so the next step came with a reorganization of our department what do we actually what positions do we need to actually move the work forward so we were able to take the staff that

049we already have do a little bit of massaging with those really thinking about the vision for our department and what did we need to do what did we want to do in order to help to make sure that our students are successful so with that instead of just having coordinators of a department or and just be generic we very purposefully put five directors together and those five directors Dr Wright would have been one of them but she retired earlier this year so we have that spot open but with that we said first of all we want enter to pendants among the five individuals who serve in these capacities before it really was one person had Elementary these programs one person had secondary on this and so we didn't have a chance to really work together

050and work for the benefit our students so with this new configuration we have a director of assessment for special services and that person we said what is going to be the primary responsibility of that person and that is to really oversee the assessment and the understanding of the assessments throughout our department so that as we plan for student needs we're really basing it off of data and not just our thoughts about what a student needs the other the second oh excuse me and that is uh Jennifer Wright who you just saw she was will be taking on that capacity the director of Dyslexia and 504 504 was currently under Dr Hamlin's area of the woods but we decided it really fits better in in our department because students will need to move seamlessly in and

051out of 504 special education if that's what they need so when a student no longer qualifies for special education services many times we just say all of the rug is pulled out from underneath you you don't have anything go and be successful with this configuration we're going to be able to say okay no longer do they qualify for services through special education let's make sure you have the accommodations that you need under 504 to continue to help you to be successful so we're really excited about that opportunity this position is currently open because of the the retirement of Dr Wright the next one is the director of instructional support and inclusionary practices this person is really going to be working with students who access the general education curriculum so we want to really have a

052focus on what is the part of the day that they can be included in in an inclusive gen Ed classroom and then how do we provide support for teachers in order to meet those needs of those students when they're in those classrooms the director of instructional support and inclusionary practices will be Dr Regina little the director of centralized Services really is looking at providing support for students who don't access the general education curriculum so if they are on a modified curriculum in some way then we have Monica Johnson who spoke just before me who will be working with this the students and the teachers in that those programs with the split this way it is our goal to not only know every student by name and need but to know every teacher by name and

053need with what's the professional development that needs to go that should be provided to our staff and how do we support them in the classrooms then finally the last one is the director of mtss which stands for multi-tiered systems of support but it didn't fit on the slide that way so we just did the the shortened mtss and behavioral supports Dr Karen Ward will be taking on that aspect as we move into next year we're keeping the current configuration as it is right now but these changes will happen next year and really working at the behavioral on the behavioral pieces and work very closely with the um the services that Joe gilland and her Department provide so that we have a cohesive program again for students in the general education classroom who may need to

054move over and access special education services as well and so we're really looking forward to that collaboration between those two departments with that we then said so if these people are leading the big pieces of the work how do we Marshal all of our staff underneath that and and put them in places that each team each team lead has a group of people who can help them to move that work forward so this um this visual shows you just a little bit of that it doesn't show every single member of our department nor does it show all of the main responsibilities that they have because we would have to go on slide after slide after slide these ladies and these team members who are sitting in the audience do Herculean tasks each and every day

055so with that I'll turn it over to Dr little okay in order to make these changes happen we need to be thoughtful and intentional about the way that about what we say and about what we do The Guiding Coalition has done this by reimagining special education and recognizing that this change won't be easy as the as they challenge deeply held beliefs that have existed for years the last time that we were together we discussed the three mind shifts that needed to occur within our district we have begun work regarding these mind shifts but they won't be finalized until they are ingrained into our everyday thought process our mind shift number one reminds us that all students are general education students first while some students receive special education services specialized pull out Services should only be

056utilized when they're needed to access services and supports it is through protesting in the general education classroom to the greatest system possible that we will have ownership of all by all mind shift number two focuses on collaborative teaching and planning the focus here is on the action verbs collaborative collaborative teaching and collaborative planning with this mind shift teachers are working interdependently and intentionally to plan and deliver instruction to ensure high achievement while implementing a student's individual education plan or IEP that brings us to mind shift number three services not programs as we develop IEPs there will be a renewed focus on students strengths that will be used to support the netsteps in the student learning for students accessing the general education curriculum the re the regular education class will be considered first support services will

057be based on what each student needs not on programmatic offerings or disability labels special education is a service and a support to students through this journey we as a district will continue to shift our thinking and address head on when we lapse back into the old way of doing things and now we will hear from Dr Karen Ward thank you that's going to happen with any new project or initiative there have been a few rumors and misunderstandings one of the most persistent and the one we've heard the most often is that we'll no longer have self-contained programs or fund the fundamentals program in the district we're here to tell you tonight that that's absolutely not true that we will always have a Continuum of services available to students as they need it secondly some of

058our staff have heard that the special services staff will not have a job next year again as a member of the special services team I'm here to tell you that's absolutely not true thankfully um the work is important and there's a seat at the table for for everyone lastly there has been concern that support services will be provided in the general education program we stand strong in our belief that all students are general education students first and when we are considering where to provide supports and services that we are going to look at the general education classroom first but please know that service is important supports will be provided in the most appropriate setting for the student you might be wondering what's next and I'm really glad you asked we have one more meeting with

059the guiding Coalition this year where we will share these strategies for their consideration and refinement as part of the district's Five-Year Plan by August of 2023 all staff members on every campus will have read and processed the book your students my students our students based on the positive feedback we're getting right now we know these book studies are occurring moving forward each campus will use name and need conferences to evaluate student data including strengths and needs of each student to determine if implementation of the IEP and the general education classroom is appropriate similarly problem solving circles will be used to identify alternative strategies to support students who may be struggling in any area academically behaviorally socially or emotionally we are excited to share that campuses are scheduling these now and reaching out to include us

060finally we will focus on identifying and training staff members who are interested in learning more on effectively implementing co-teaching up to this point you've seen documents created by the special services team and The Guiding Coalition for inclusion this Coalition is comprised of 68 members representing each campus in the district these members also represent the various constituents who support the learning of students receiving special education services the members are classroom teachers administrators evaluation staff service providers content area directors and parents who have given their time and talents throughout this year to set the trajectory for our work in addition this group will continue to work during the 20 through 24 school year to provide guidance to conclude our presentation this evening three members of The Guiding Coalition are here to provide information related to our inclusivity

061work and the anticipated impact for students families campuses and the district as a whole our first speaker is Mary Mahaffey Mary we shared that there are mind shifts that have to occur what changes in thinking have you undergone as you move through the process the work of The Guiding Coalition has provided an opportunity for growth in how we as special service providers approach our work with students we were asked to remember that each student who receives special services is first and foremost a student in our classroom in our building and in our community the individual student needs are part of a bigger more complete story that our students come to us with the dialogue within the guiding Coalition broadens our perspective to include the lens through which school counselors administrators parents and in general education

062teachers view the work we do for students the broader perspective results in a broader support system for students to access the services they need to be successful more effective communication through a universal guide for knowing our students by name and need is a promising initiative born of the work of The Guiding Coalition name and need talks which have already taken place on our pilot campuses and are beginning on each of our secondary campuses this spring will bring stakeholders together to learn from one another about each student and lead to collaboration which will most benefit the student in addition we recognize that our enrollment changes each year so will the needs of students enrolled on our campuses annual name and need talks will hold space for flexibility and growth so that as our students needs have

063potential to change so too will our approach to meeting those needs furthermore by identifying the name and needs of each student we can begin the process of Designing our Master schedules to meet those needs with intentional Partnerships among teachers and service providers while providing flexibility for student Choice based on interest and future aspirations this re-envisioned approach to providing academic intervention in the general education classroom provides increased opportunities for our special services providers to be in collaboration with their content area teams each special service provider participates in a professional learning community in order to engage in the planning teaching and evaluation evaluating process by encouraging and facilitating this opportunity to engage with the general education curriculum our service special service providers have a greater impact in the classroom working with our students finally the work of

064The Guiding Coalition has provided a safe but challenging space for us as Educators to recognize to recognize that our mindsets open doors for our students to step through expanding the options for how and where we address the needs of students moves us towards a learning environment that absolutely reflects our belief that each student is your student my student our student our second speaker is Wes Baker Wes what piece of this work the inclusionary practices was outside of your comfort zone and how has the work of The Guiding Coalition made you more comfortable before I get started with my concerns please know that I've been on board with the potential benefits the actions of the committee will have for all of our students our book your students my students our students cited a few studies showing

065the net benefit of increased inclusion on student populations unsurprisingly students who moved from separate classrooms to general education setting showed marked improvements in their achievement accelerated the course of their learning and had improved attitudes towards School in general these students often feel otherized and separated from their peers due to their classification of special ed we've already seen some of these positive effects in our district during the coalition's last meeting I had a chance to talk to Mr Chad Hunter the principal of Vivian field Middle School the students who are now educated in a general education classroom are so happy they're glad to no longer be in that class and the teachers and students both never want to go back to the old model our book study also highlighted the impact of higher levels of inclusion

066on students who are not guaranteed special services these are General ed students this is an important Point students in the general education setting encountered no negative effects from Full inclusion in some cases their levels of achievement increased as well further the emotional and empathetic development of these students saw appreciable gains when it comes to our students all students benefit from having all students in the room before we talk about any other hesitations that people may have for this work that point must be thoroughly established and clearly communicated it's worth repeating all students benefit from having all students in the room my main concern with this work was from the potential impact on teachers both general education teachers and those in the special services department I fully agree with our stated goals and the minds mind

067shifts that we are attempting to make but as teachers our plates are full as important as this initiative is we as teachers do a lot burnout's real we had trouble filling open spots by the beginning of the year this year because of it I'm worried that a new initiative especially one as important as this one with a potentially large positive impact on students would result in more things being asked of already over text teachers further exacerbating our teacher shortage and the stress of those who choose to stay in the profession in this District my concerns were further heightened by a false impression of the work we were doing namely that we were eventually seeking to end fundamentals as a service across the district and at my campus next year especially this felt like too much

068too fast over the course of our meetings as a coalition I found more confidence in our programs our process it helps to know that this is a long-term project that we are in the beginning stages of our plan for next year is simple and not revolutionary name and need conferences problem-solving circles and shifting mindsets there's already time built into our academic and professional calendars for additional conferences thanks to the half days next year campuses are developing plans to read through our book which is where some real mindset changes can take place and the Coalition is taking time to be intentional about any changes we make we are developing a cohesive plan of action but the speed and intentionality with which we are doing so has made me much less worried about the future last but

069certainly not least is Christy McLean Chrissy through the book study we have heard about increasing the voice of parents and students in the process through your participation in the Coalition what most excites you about the work um so again my name is Christy McLean I am a resident in Carrollton I am a CFB graduate I am also an employee serving as the Director of science but my most important job is that I am a parent I have two boys who both attend cfbisd schools and I was honored and it's been a privilege to be a part of the guiding Coalition and book study because the work is very dear to my heart and one of my children received Services through a special education or the special services department his journey began at nine months old

070when he started occupational therapy through ECI or Early Childhood Intervention at age three he was taken under the wing of many of the people in this room of CFB to support his unique needs he has taught me more than he will ever know he's taught me to be brave even though I think I'm being brave for him for myself um and stronger than I ever thought I could be I have learned coping skills as a parent that I never knew I would have but this learning has not come without a lot of anxiety anxiety during his many yards because I don't always understand the language in a very fast-paced setting or I'm unsure if a placement or a move from one campus to another is the actual best decision for my child I have feel

071pressure to make a decision based on someone else's observations of the child that I spend every day with I feel unease wondering what critical grade level learning and amazing experiences he misses out on when he's pulled out for services or his many different Therapies and I feel a lot of apprehension that his beautiful non-standardized mind is going to be forced to fit into a standardized educational system I also recognize that these feelings are not unique to me and that every parent who sends their children to our schools feels the same type of anxiety that I do through the study of the book your students my students are students and the work being done within the guiding coalition I've come to realize that it is about more than inclusion accommodations programs or services this committee has

072come together to advocate for the quality of all of our students lives students like both of my children and every other child in our district too is just as unique as they are whether they are being served through special services gifted and talented or not there's a statement in the book that says students are more than legal compliance and paper goals are something we should develop with our students not for them because of the work being done in the guiding Coalition I'm excited to know that parents and students will have an increased voice as CFB deepens Partnerships with families as we set common goals for our Learners together I'm proud that name and need conferences will support monitoring the progress of students throughout the year outside of our committee meetings I'm optimistic to know that

073problem-solving circles will be used to address challenges a student may have allowing our teams to reflect on the whole child and brainstorm innovative solutions to support all students needs and finally I'm hopeful that the Mind shifts will take hold across CFB that as they take hold across CFB parents like myself will feel less overwhelmed and more assured knowing that their children are our children and that they are known by name and need and that parents are equal Partners in the education of their child thank you we can't do anything more than end with those three wonderful testimonials from our guiding Coalition so with that concludes our presentation thank you very much thanks for the the whole team there everybody that presented thank you for the information board members are there questions comments okay Mr boccek

074first I love your shirts there were several things that were said thanks for your work the belief statements I put a big check mark um by right on the other thing that was mentioned that stood out to me was not only from a student's name and need which we've heard a lot more that that's our Focus from you know all what we want and to know that but that you said by teacher and I haven't heard I don't think I've heard that before in a discussion I really like that because I think by y'all doing that and knowing and providing that that allows our teachers to focus in the classroom on the students and their services and making progress I mean so I love that I love that and then um the services not programs

075I also like that I think of a menu what I would assume is a menu of services and through that name and need y'all are going to evaluate um for um delivery so I just really like that and then the graduation and transition I believe in that because you know y'all a reorganization new things new way of looking new belief all new that's hard for teachers students parents as well I would assume so this graduation and transition and the support after I love it I mean I love that as well so so many things stand out but at the end of the day um like you said this is just a benefit for all of our students so I appreciate the work appreciate it it's Brady I just want to piggyback I'm gonna miss about

076you just said great work y'all I know it's like starting from scratch and you're doing a beautiful job I want to commend Mr Baker and Miss McLean for other complete honesty um it's hard it's really hard um my favorite part of your whole presentation was the name of need conferences that won't be at Arts that's amazing that is building relationships with kids and parents and teachers that's a great great concept I cannot wait to see how this all goes forward thank you so much any other comments questions Miss Hatfield I just want to Echo again thank you and Miss McLean your words mean a lot to parents anyone else I I do want to make a couple of comments I just um that I found very interesting and I think one one of the things

077that I really liked about this was um the idea of kids being gen ed kids to begin with right because I think that's really in line with the whole idea of of the legal concept of least restrictive environments and and um getting him um in in the in the regular classroom and on their home campus and and and then gradually adding adding Services as needed driven by by um those name in need conferences and the data um I also love that you guys are thinking of services rather than programs I and I know there have been many many times where uh you know in my career as a principle where you have X number of programs but you have X Plus 10 or 12 types of you know kids that don't fit in those programs

078right so we can't think of them as categories you know we can't place them in categories can't put labels on them we have to we have to know what they need and and whatever it is that they need in in terms of service provide that for them so I think this is a there's some I like the mindset shifts and and the approach that you guys are taking I also love the bringing 504 and special ed closer together because I do do think that those are are two areas that that need to be um talking more and I think traditionally there's been a little bit of a disconnect um not necessarily here but just in general um between people that deal with 504 and the people that deal with special ed um we just kind

079of get in those silos so a lot of positives here and um I just want to thank you guys all for being here and and um taking a turn at the microphone at the podium and can't wait to see where this goes good work yeah [Applause] all right oh um Miss Brady's has reminded me to thank you guys for the shirts um okay so we will move to uh our next item which is item 4B which is a facility service report but I see in my notes here that it's been that that's being postponed to the April meeting okay so we will skip over item 4B and move to 4C which is um technology update on digital citizenship and Gaggle so this is Dr Stout good evening I am uh here subbing for Scott Monroe

080who is flying over the Atlantic right now as we speak I'm a little shorter and have more hair but I'll do the best I can um my safe and secure colleague and I are here to speak to you tonight about uh the various aspects of online student safety that our two departments collaborate along with every other department in the district to some extent to put in place for our students um our overall safety plan is uh it's a comprehensive strategy but it's a bit like a jigsaw puzzle the first piece of that jigsaw puzzle would be to educate our students and staff on safety both physical and cyber a couple months ago Carrie Gooch and I were here speaking to you about digital learning and you all heard about the Common Sense Media certification that

081the district is working towards we are doing that we're also working to educate our staff on um cyber security fishing safe data practices and whatnot just as a quick update the director of Library Services is doing regular check-ins with her campus Librarians on the status in most on most campuses they're the point person for obtaining Common Sense Media certification for the campus we are also looking for um some posters that we're going to give the campuses when they achieve their certification and also recognition for the teachers who are going above and beyond and getting recognized as individual Common Sense Educators I'll give a shout out to Turner High School there are a number of teachers that are taking that initiative to go on it's happening throughout the district but that one campus has has really

082made it um a project to have individual teachers become certified as common sense certified Educators recognized Educators we're also vetting some additional resources because once we're all certified with Common Sense Media then what so we're putting together our plan for future years in order to move more from um how to follow the rules and more into the literacy how to use those skills in a responsible manner the second jigsaw piece of the puzzle would be to filter access which would be our web-based platforms and products are run through the district filters internet filters the third component or jigsaw puzzle piece is to receive and act on alerts based on activities that students are exhibiting online through the district purchase platforms and the fourth piece of that would be to protect the Integrity of our our

083data and systems and so the cyber security measures would be the suite of tools and platforms that we use to maintain our system integrity so we spoke a little bit about the digital citizenship education this is a list of the topics that students receive age-appropriate instruction in so obviously some of those topics come in at much later grades than others um based on the Common Sense Media digital citizenship curriculum that is grades K through 12. um a note about content filtering the Federal sepa Law requires that all schools Implement a super compliant filter and the contents that or the topics that are listed under sippa compliance would be content that is obscene content that is pornographic and content content that is harmful to minors the students only portion is that students have to be under

084the federal law students have to be filtered Educators or adults do not however we do run the super compliant Web Internet filter for the everybody in the district um our current Internet filter has been in place for a few years it is super compliant but we also added additional layers to the federal mandate and we block categories such as alcohol and drugs gambling gang information hate sites other harmful material that is not goes above and beyond what the federal legislation mandates in addition to that our devices are filtered both on the campuses and at home so they're running through that internet students are running through that internet filter on their devices when they're sitting at home in their living rooms as well um a common question that we get about internet filtering is well but

085a child can get to this video on YouTube why isn't the filter not catching it the short answer to that is that the filter uh goes by um categories and so let's say the example is it's a young child watching a video on YouTube about street racing well that the parent or the person might decide that that video isn't something that they want their child watching but it doesn't rise to the level of pornographic or harmful to minors as established by YouTube so we'll judge the filter will catch overall categories of content but on some of the websites we are relying on the owner of the website that posts that material to determine the age-appropriateness of their own content and so that's where we get into kind of a fuzzy area with YouTube videos or

086Google images or things like that um and now I will turn it over to miss Freeman to talk about our last puzzle piece good evening I'm here to talk about the two filtering pieces of software that we use Gaggle and Anonymous alerts the first one I want to talk about is Anonymous alerts and I want to give you an example of something that we would see Anonymous alert is our anonymous tip line that's available on our website for all students and parents this is actually just a very recent example of something that came through and it kind of illustrates how we can communicate with the person that's setting a tip I'm the person on the green who's chatting back with the person on on the white side and it we're discussing just different things um

087through this text we're able to determine a few things and then we're able to talk to the students and pull them directly and I want next I want to talk about Gaggle Gaggle does a few things it boy that is hard to see sorry it's a very very small um do my best so it actually screens for two different things one of them is called PSS potential or possible student Solutions that's helpful thank you and the other one is QC questionable content so under the QC under questionable content it's specifically screening for sexual content harm drug references suicidal ideations pornographic materials things like that if Gaggle catches it in the filter if it's something that's illegal to have a pornographic or potentially pornographic it's going to flag it remove it and then put it in

088what's called a vault the other types of things it's just going to notify it sends emergency notifications to four different people I've listed them in the green so there are four individuals that receive every single response we filter through them and then we send it to the campus the appropriate campus to investigate the possible student situations will send a text message to the same four people we have five minutes to respond if we fail to respond within five minutes we get phone calls if we fail to pick up the phone the law enforcement group will get notified and then they'll respond on a potential student situation those are generally speaking more threatening more harmful and take a little bit more action do we have any questions about Gaggle or Anonymous alerts any questions for any

089either portion of that presentation from the board no thank you very much we appreciate the information okay um our next item is 4D SLI discussion and for this I'm going to turn this over to miss Hatfield thank you um so SLI is coming up this summer and when the call came out for sessions um I had a conversation with Sally and we were talking about the great work that we did after SLI last year and how when we came back from SLI we found it really important to get together as a group and look at what we learned from that experience and the protocol that we put together and went through and while I've been in leadership tasby I had talked to a couple of the people at leadership tabsby about what we did because

090I think the things that we did which were wanting to go to City Council meetings and we've done that once so far the book study our Board calendar and the various things that not only we've discussed about what we learned but also what we wanted to act on as a board engagement goals were really important and I think it would be really valuable and I'm talking about Sally both of us really felt it would be really valuable that we share that that with other school boards across the state as a way to come back from training and make sure that you put the work that you do at training into action and so I took the time to look at the proposal it's pretty small it's pretty easy and so um put together a proposal

091and then Sally edited it because of course you can only have so many words and I am not short enough at my words and um so we wanted to bring it before the board as potentially something to do I did talk to tasbi and they said that it is their goal that 95 percent of their sessions are presented at both conferences and so I am planning on going to Fort Worth and so I'm happy to present and I would love to have other board members that are available but I didn't want to put this forward without having a discussion with the board about that potential opportunity and to see what you guys thought and what your interest was and if you thought it was a good idea so with that Sally I don't know if

092you have anything to add just a few things so I think that it's important that we recognize that we created a best practice from SLI last year by creating board initiatives afterwards and that that was recognized by Boards that Cassandra has talked to and so if we can take what we learned and the programs that we created out of it and share that with other school districts in Texas then we all have a plan of what we do after we attend SLI so I think this is really exciting work that we can take what we've learned and share with others Cassandra's offered to go to Fort Worth and the June 14th through 17th is San Antonio so I would take that one we would divide and conquer so that we had coverage but we're presenting

093tonight as a conversation piece and to see if anyone else wants to be involved more members Miss Carson Rojas I am happy to help you Sally since I'll be in San Antonio as well I'm also happy to help us in San Antonio okay Cassandra may be the only one in Fort Worth um so I guess I don't know that this is just discussion does anybody have any questions for us about the proposal and the word limit was very small which she referred to so there's not a lot of meat there but I think you'll understand kind of the concept it's just taking the work study that we had where we did the Post-it notes and the discussions and everyone kind of voting and coming up with what to Rally around that's kind of what we're

094going to present as um the best practice okay so if nobody has any concerns I'm going to submit it tomorrow because tomorrow's the deadline thank you Miss Hatfield all right um we are now to um agenda item number five which is our consent agenda it's a mechanism that the board uses to approve a number of routine items together with a single vote in compliance with the Texas open meetings act the public notice for this meeting includes the list of all consent agenda items and the board is sent excuse me the board has provide been provided ample information about these items in advance prior to any action taken on the consent agenda board members May request withdrawal of individual items for clarification or discussion board members are there any items to be removed from the consent

095agenda at this time okay um so I hear none so we'll go to option one hearing 9 and seeing none board members do have a motion regarding the consent agenda missed Eric I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented have a motion from hysteric to approve the consent agenda as presented do I have second second from Miss Brady is there any discussion no discussion so I'll ask all those in favor please show by raising your hand see seven hands raised all opposed none um so by a vote of seven in favor zero oppose the consent agenda carries or is passed we'll move now to um agenda item number six which are are items for our discussion and or action 6A is our items that are removed from consent which we had done so

096we will move from 6A to 6B and this is considered or consider an approved resolution for emergency closure due to winter weather and I'll turn this over to you Mr Marsh thank you Dr Black give you a call from January 31st through February the 3rd 2023 the district was closed due to inclement weather we're very fortunate that you as the board back in August of 21 and put a provision into the policy DEA local uh compensation and benefits that allowed for employees to be paid when they could not come to work due to an emergency closure the policy States during an emergency closure all employees shall continue to be paid for their regular Duty schedule unless otherwise provided by board action following an emergency closure the board shall adopt a resolution or take other board

097action establishing the purpose and parameters for such payments it is recommended the board approve the resolution that you have before you thank you Mr Marsh um do I have a motion regarding this item and I'm just a way of reminder the motion will have to be the official language of the um of the resolution here so do I have a motion regarding this item Miss benavidez oh that's right okay thank you it's Peter on there so a resolution of the Board of Trustees of the Commerce independent what Commerce Center Carrollton Carol oh sorry Carrollton Independent School District a payment of employees during emergency closure whereas the recent inclement weather resulted in the closure of all schools and facilities in the Carrollton Farmers Branch Independent School District from January 31st 2023 to February 2nd 2023 due

098to inclement weather and for the safety of students and staff and the community as a whole and whereas through circumstances completely beyond their control cfbisd employees were forced to miss work days due to the closure of schools facilities and operations and whereas board policy DEA local requires the district to continue to pay employees for their regular Duty schedule during an emergency closure as further provided by this resolution and whereas the board determines that a public school purpose exists for forgiving or excusing the absences of an employee on days when the employee is not able to work due to the closure of school facilities or operations and now therefore be it resolved by the Board of Trustees of the cfpisd that one all employees will be compensated for their regular Duty schedule during the emergency closure

099with the exception of any employee who were required to work during the closure and who was absent from Duty for a reason unrelated to the closure two non-exempt employees who were required to report to work on school property during the closure shall be paid at the rate of one and a half times the rate of pay for all hours worked up to 40 hours per week as provided by board policy DEA local and number three the board hereby authorizes the superintendent to take steps deemed necessary and appropriate to fulfill the purposes of this resolution adopted by majority vote of members of the cfbisd Board of Trustees present in voting at an open meeting of the board held on ninth day of March 2023 at which a quorum was present thank you very much Miss benavidez

100we have we have a motion do I have a second the second for Miss Brady is there any discussion all those in favor please show by raising your hand all those posed by a vote of seven votes in favor zero against the motion carries we will now move to uh to agenda item seven which is our closed meeting pursuant to government code sections 551.071 to consult with the district's attorney in person or by phone on a matter in which the duty of the attorney to the district under the Texas disciplinary rules of professional conduct with the State Bar of Texas clearly conflicts with chapter 551 of the Texas local government code pursuant to Texas government code section 551.074 for the purpose of considering the employment employment evaluation reassignment duties discipline or dismissal of a public

101officer or employee or to hear complaints or charges against a public officer or employee pursuant to the Texas government code 551.076 discussion and deliberation regarding Safety and Security so item 7A will be discussion review of the negotiated contract of loan finalists for superintendent and item 7B is cyber security update audience members you're welcome to remain in the boardroom as the board members recess and move into the executive conference room for deliberations the time is now 8 23 pm that's why technology and Technology we are back on the record in Open Session having returned from closed session the time is now 9 36 pm the board will move on to the next agenda item number nine which is comments from board members regarding posted agenda items board members do you have any comments you wish to

102make at this time related to posted agenda Miss Benavides I just want to say thank you to all our nine weeks 18 weeks now teachers good job and to have a great um spring break and thank y'all for your service thank you Miss Benavides anyone else I do want to make a comment on related to uh Mr merch's district report and he mentioned the impending arrival of Dr Eldridge our new superintendent but for those listening there's nobody in the room left anymore except for us but for those of you who may be watching the video I just want to give one more shout out to Brian Marsh who served as our interim superintendent during this period and um and thank him for the guidance and and the hard work and it's been a tremendous sacrifice

103I think for for him in terms of additional hours and time away from his family and he's really dedicated to this district and a just an unbelievable asset for the district and and so I want to publicly thank him it doesn't feel public when there's empty chairs out there but I know somebody might watch this online so um and your wife may see this too so um and um like Miss benavida said um happy spring break to everybody out there you guys um have a great time and be safe thank you Brian thank you any other comments before we move to adjournment um okay we will move to agenda item number 10 agenda item number 10 we've reached the end of our agenda we are adjourned at 9 38 pm thank you guys all very

104much