School Board Meeting | November 10, 2025

001and that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551. Reminder so everybody knows, we're here for what is best to promote and encourage achievement for every student in our district. And at this moment, Miss Maryl Martinez will do our invocation. Dear Lord, we ask that you guide the team's efforts tonight and that we all collaborate and keep our focus on the children of this district. I pray for thanksgiving for all district. We all come together when it is most important. do what is best for children. I ask for prayers for those who have personal uh emergencies tonight. I hope that everyone is safe and we keep them close in our prayers. I ask all this. On to item three, communication from citizens. Uh

002we appreciate you being here this evening and we always welcome communications from citizens of our district. Individuals who wish to participate during the portion of the meeting designated for public comment shall sign up with the presiding officer or designate no later than 1 p.m. the day of the board meeting and shall indicate the agenda item or topic in on which they wish to address the board. Miss Branch, do we have anyone who wishes to speak to the board tonight? Yes, we do. We have Eric Riyle here to speak with you. Uh, individual comments to the board shall not exceed three minutes, just a reminder. And also board members age in discussion with citizens during a board meeting in response to a citizen's comment. The board president may direct the superintendent to research items and report

003to to the board at a later meeting. Thank you. Welcome. board superintendent Smith Bner. Good evening. Been here before, so hopefully you guys remember me. I'm here to speak about the T and uh you know, I'm I'm I'm pretty sure you guys are well aware of where I stand on everything, but in case you're not, quickly, I'm against the reappraisal plan as it um has it's implemented and we can go down that road for whatever reason. But um I want to I want to address something here real quick this evening. Um if you guys have been watching the TAD meetings, you know, there's a meeting this Wednesday and then there was a and there was a motion made that didn't get a second to terminate the chief appraiser. So, I just want to say that

004I would not be in favor of um removing the chief appraiser at this point um based on all of currently available public information. They're in the middle of switching that software system over from Amentum to um True Prodigy and I don't I don't think you take the lead architect out at at this time. Um so, that's what I want to say about that. Now, the other thing I want to talk about is just want to talk about me real quick. I'm going to tell you a little story and it's a story that I haven't told anybody. [clears throat] Last year I was me that I wasn't going to um have enough votes to be on that board. I started going around to different entities and I started speaking on behalf of not me but you

005know other people that I thought would be good candidates. So one of the smaller cities and I told them do not vote for me. Please don't vote for me. It's just going to be a waste of time. No matter how much I tried to convince them, they still voted for me. They gave me all 11 of their votes. And after that meeting, I had a had a conversation with one of the council members and she told me, she said, "The first time I ran for city council, didn't make it. Second time I ran for city council, didn't make it. Third time I ran for city council, I finally made it." And it stuck with me. And so when when it was all said and done last year, I thought what could I do to stay

006involved and you know try to affectuate difference being on this side of the dis and that's where I came up with the idea to go around and get these conservation this year. I I read a section of the tax code and I thought well guess will give me something to doodle and I sort of turned a hobby into like this quest to make a difference. And I think on some level, you know, the issue that that that meeting was called for on Monday was because I was just going out trying to make a difference. Um, but you know, it shows I had tenacity and that's one thing I promise you. If you do decide to throw some votes my way this evening, you're going to get a guy that I just don't quit. I I

007just don't know how to quit. And so that's all I got to say. I thank you all for your time. have a great meeting. Next to speak is Miss Wendy Burgess. Good evening. Thank you first and all for your dedication to the children and the families of Castleberry ISD. My name is Wendy Burgess. Uh you've seen me here before. Uh I had the honor of serving you on the Taran Appraisal District for seven years. And like yours, it's not a glamorous position. I promise you, there are darts being thrown all the time. And yours is not a an easy job as well. And I know that because I've worked with you for seven years down in the trenches. And I want to continue to do that. And I'll tell you why. I'm here not only

008as a board member, but as a fellow community member who cares deeply about fairness, accountability, and earning your trust. Sincerely appreciate your nomination this year as well as last year, allowing me to continue working on your behalf on crucial items. recently noise going on and misinformation circulating around about our work and me personally. I want to make something very very clear. My commitment has always been people of Tarant County. Make no mistake about that. And that proof is in my work. And that proof was in my vote on March 12th of this year when I voted to go back to the annual reappraisal. That is my proof. So other people can uh try to bring me down and say bad things about me, but I stand tall because I talk about myself. Every decision I

009have made has been guided by integrity and the desire to strengthen transparency in an organization. I too am against the firing of the chief appraiser. I want him to do things correctly and I want him to follow code and I want us to get better every single day. But we can only do that together. At our last meeting, the board voted to launch an independent investigation into the previous election, but we know it wouldn't have changed, but we can make it better in the future. That's the result. It is a step designed to build confidence the public knows the process is fair and above approach. I support that fully because public trust matters more than politics. However, I'm concerned that it can easily be twisted in ugly ways. I certainly hope that I am wrong.

010We all should remain vigilant and watch for unpleasant truths. I stand for reappoint and ask for your full vote to thank those that have supported me in the past and challenged me and made sure that I stood with you and I will continue to stand with you and I will be there every single meeting, the entity meetings, board meetings, anytime you have a question, you call me. your superintendent uh knows where I stand and I stand with with her in all of those meetings and I stand with you as well. Thank you so much. Last person to speak is Mr. Joe Bennett. caught me mid mint. Daniel Bennett, I've been here probably eight, eight, nine times in the past. I see Miss Burgess and Mr. Kles here defending their territory apparently. I want to point

011something out to you. The other day for Worth ISD almost forbid his right to vote and say came in saved the day because they had backto-back meetings and because she did make that phone call which Miss Burgess didn't neither did Mr. trial. They cancelled their July 29th meeting of July 29th. This me their no their October 29th meeting and rescheduled for November 4th securing their right to vote. And then who did they give the votes to? You think they gave it to Miss Sid? Absolutely not. 108 votes went to Mr. trial. 108 votes went to Miss Burgess when they should have taken their votes and thrown them into the trash. Neither one of them called up with ISD to protect the citizens, protect the property owners, protect the board. Messiah did and she didn't earn

012any of those votes. I'm asking you to rectify that situation. Miss Burgess was actually there and she commented to me, I was having a grand baby. asked why I wasn't there in August and then moved on. But she also said she supported the two-year plan. There's many other things Miss Burgess has done on that board that I think should disqualify her from serving. I have a list of them. I won't bore you with them in one minute. So, it's one of the biggest ones in my estimation was making sure that Katherine Aler, the attorney for TAB, earning $32,370 a month, she agreed with that with no contract. That's not transparency. She's gone. I worked diligently to get rid of her. But Burgess tried to give a $1.3 million contract to line barker for a homestead

013review contract that they were one of the biders, but Tyler Technologies won the bid. That was staff recommendation for 380,000. She made the motion to give it the Larker. She wasn't a voting member then, but she made the she hooked in Katherine Wyman and Mr. Martinez and fortunately it got voted down. Those are just two. $380,000 homestead review contract or 1.3 million. It's not even in your packet. That's where she went. I could go on and on and on. I hope you'll consider sad of sed protecting the citizens of Tarant County. Thank you. Miss McFaulner, were there any questions called in regarding the consent agenda? No. Board President, move on to item five, presentation items. 5A. Uh, yes. At uh this time we have Damon Cooper. Uh he is here to uh present the 2425

014fiscal year end financial audit and management letter. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Uh thank you for your time tonight and uh thank you for another year of allowing Henus East to be your school district auditor. Uh I won't take up too much time of your time tonight as we go through the financial report for the year ended June 30th, 2025. Uh if you have your report in front of you, we're just going to follow along to a few pages here. Going to jump right on into page three. I like to start here as this is our independent auditor's report. This is where we essentially provide our conclusion or overall opinion on how the audit went. If you skip down to the second paragraph there, you'll see that it states, "In our opinion, the financial statements

015referred to above present fairly in all material respects the respection of the governmental activities each major fund and the aggregate remaining fund information of Castleberry Independent School District as of June 30th. In a long way of saying we're reporting an unmodified opinion, which is a clean audit, no findings in relation to the financial statements. We have a couple of other independent auditors uh reports that I'll get to at the end of the package here. I want to stop and actually just take a moment to thank Mr. William Wooten as well as Miss Faulner for all their assistance and help during this year's audit. Um assistance and support that was provided was great. So I really do appreciate that. Um there is one item I want to mention on here before I move on to some

016financial highlights. There is a new emphasis of matter as it pertains to a change in accounting principle that we had to report and disclose for the financial statements this year. Uh in June 2022, Gazsby, which is the governmental accounting standards board, issued a new principal change that basically says for all uh beginning effective December 15, 2023, we are required to disclose a liability that has been recognized in the statement of net position for any carry forward compensated absences that are to be paid or used in the future. This item is included in the long-term debt portion of the financials, but I bring it up because it did result in a restatement of the prior year net position of about 1.7 million. Again, this uh it didn't result in any significant impact to that net position,

017but it is a disclosure that we had to do a restatement um given that that principle was in effect for December 15, 2023 and going forward. So there's a lot more detail on that and we won't get into all of the details and you'll actually see that effect shown in the financial statements as well. With that said, I want to jump on over to page six and we're going to go over just a few of the financial highlights for this year. On page six, this is our management discussion and analysis. You'll see the beginning top portion there is our main financial highlights. That first bullet is noting that we're reporting this year total net position of 57.7 million. This is an increase of about 4.4 million from the prior year financial statements. The third bullet

018there, we're going to note that the total district's governmental fund balance is coming in at a total of about 97.2 million. This is an overall increase from prior year balance of about 88 million. This is primarily due to the new bond issuance that were issued in fiscal year 2025. Approximately uh 9point amount is your unassigned fund balance coming in at about 8.9. That last bullet point though is your overall general fund balance. Uh it's coming in at about 9.2 million. And this does this does represent about a $3 million positive increase from prior year as a result of an increase in revenues over the adopted budget and a decrease in expenses from the adopted budget uh from that prior year. So overall good news on that with an increase of overall net position as well

019as general fund balance and overall fund balance. Just to give you a financial snapshot on what that looks like, if you jump over to page 18 for me, this kind of lays out uh where those balances are coming from. We're going to start with the balance sheet of our fund balances. And specifically looking at that first column, which is the general fund. You'll see towards the bottom there, the total fund balance is coming in at about 9.2. This is in as opposed to the 6.1 million that came in in the prior year. On that next page, page 19, you'll see the total governmental fund column. Towards the bottom is that overall 97.2 million that we're reporting for the total fund balance of all governmental funds. Over on that, we're going to skip over to page

02022. And this is going to be your fund level income statement. In that first column is the general fund. Again, we're going to focus on. And at the top you'll see total revenues are coming in at about 47.4. This is an increase as I noted of about 2.8 million from the prior year. Towards the bottom there in the middle you'll see total expenditures are coming in at about 44.3. And again this is a decrease in spend of about 5 million from the prior year. So that results in that increase of 3.085 in the fund balance for the general fund. And uh overall this is approximately about a $7 million swing from the reported negative4.7 million that we reported last year. So the district did great in managing the revenues and expenses, spending a lot less,

021gaining a little bit more in revenues. With that said, we're just going to jump over to page 26. And this again just highlights what I've been saying. This is the this is actual comparison for the general fund. To give you a little more detail on the increase or the exceeding of budget for overall revenues at the top you'll see in the actual amounts column. That's the 47.4 revenue that I just reported in comparison to the final approved budgeted amount of revenues that was to be 45.9. So coming in a little over 1 million with the increase in revenues for that year. And then towards the bottom you'll see the total expenditures again in that actual amount column reporting at 44.3 and this is coming in about 1.6 million less than the final budgeted amount of

022expenditures that was to be 45.9. So again reporting that ending balance in the actual amount column of 9.2 million in general fund balance for the year. So, like I said, I don't want to hold you up too. I want to skip all the way back to page 85. And as I said, the first independent auditor auditor's report was one of three reports that we issue within this package here. This second one here is over internal controls uh over financial reporting and compliance and other matters. I won't take you through all of the wording here, but in a nutshell, it's another clean audit report that we're issuing unmodified with no findings. If you want to skip over to page 87, this would be our last actual audit report that we issue. And this is over the

023compliance for each major program and on internal controls over compliance required by the uniform guidance. In a nutshell, this represents our report over the single audit. Uh this is a governmental required audit that we do for any school districts that exceed 750,000 in federal expenditures. And again, this is going to be reporting another clean audit with no findings. Before I give you the last page, I wanted to stop when it comes to this single audit to make note of um an extension that the TEA currently has. Um, normally this report would be approved by you guys tonight and signed and then subsequently uploaded by us to the TEA. The TEA has issued an extension for all financial reports for the year ending 2025 due to two different things. One, they're having a upgrade in their

024audit application system to where we actually physically cannot upload the report until they're done with that upgrade, which they suspect in about January. Who knows if that can get delayed anymore or not. Uh the second thing which is more prevalent to you guys is that for any districts that do require a single audit. The OM or the offices of management and budget uh every year they release their compliance supplement. This has requirements in it for independent auditors to perform their single audit for school districts. The 2025 release has not been released yet and therefore TEA is not allowing for those school districts to upload and submit their single audit reports. The good thing about that is 99.7% sure that there's not going to be any major change in that new release that would require us

025to do anything to revamp the audit. Um it's more a technicality that it cannot be signed and uploaded to TEA before that release is out there. So, we we have that in our mind. We're monitoring it right now. They've extended the upload date to February 27th. So, we got plenty of time to get this uploaded, but as of now, it is complete as is. We don't foresee any changes to this at all. It's more a matter of you guys not being physically able to sign it at Mr. Wooten and Miss Faulner will discuss with you guys as far as the next action as far as physically signing it. but it can't be approved tonight um with the caveat that it'll just need to be physically signed later. Um what we will do is that we

026will monitor and keep Miss Faulner up to date on when that is released and if again low risk at all if it does require any changes and we do any significant change to the report we'll discuss coming back and doing another presentation for you guys. All right and uh that's going to do it for me. Um, I did want to note that district did very well this year with the audit. As you can see, a $7 million swing in that change of fund balance is a huge swing. Uh, we have a new bond issuance that added a lot of fund balance for the capital projects. Um, from an audit perspective, last year we were reporting about 38 audit adjustments that we needed to do versus just the five that we needed for this year. So,

027it was a much cleaner data that to work with. Uh we're reporting no issues. Uh page 90 is kind of our summary of all of the reports noting that they're unmodified, clean audits, no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies. So that's all I got. I'm open to answer any questions. Please let me know. So just to confirm. Sure. Okay. You said it was a $7 million swing. So two years ago we were in the hole for three what? 3.5. Okay. 4.7. Yes. Well, it was a decrease in the 2022 2023 fund balance of 4.7. Overall fund balance was still at 6 million positive. It was just a decrease in that from that prior year. This year the increase was three million to that six million. So overall, $7 million swing in the net change of fund

028balance. So $6 million in fund balance to a $9 million in fund balance is is a all very good. Very good. Absolutely. I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. Exactly. That's always a good thing. It's always a great thing. So, I look forward to uh another year next year and uh like I said, we'll keep you up to date on signing and approval and if any changes from there and I thank you guys again. Thank you, sir. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. Go right ahead. So, uh Mr. Board President, what I wanted to say is I know that we went through uh some attrition last year of 50 employees. We kept a high retention rate and most of all uh even making a $7 million swing we maintained an overall B- rating and

029I want to congratulate the people in the audience because many of them are wearing two hats now uh instead of one uh so that we are uh maintaining uh within our adopted budget. So thank you guys for your work in uh helping us to stay within our balanced budget and putting money back into fund balance. Thank you. Could I add something to that? I think that's a great example of keeping the control, local control. It's a good practice. Yes, it is. [clears throat] Item 5B, update on House Bill 3, third grade. Yes. Um, at this time, Mr. board president Kristen Smith will be uh coming forward with BNA and our uh will present an update on the House Bill 3 third grade early literacy program and uh some of our progress monitoring. Good evening, President

030Toiver, board members, Superintendent Smith Faulner. Thank you for the opportunity to share this update on the third grade reading and extended constructed responses. I'll be discussing these two key areas, extended constructed responses and third grade reading. Tonight, our work is guided by goal 2, performance objective one, which aims to increase the percentage of students meeting expectations on STAR reading from 36% to 40% by June 2026, combining Spanish and English together. When we look at this bar graph, we can make an applesto apples comparison. This year's benchmark to last year's benchmark. This year's benchmark was intentionally designed to mirror the star more closely by including enhanced item types such as part A, part B, and multi select questions. Those additions in place, benchmark one this year shows remarkable progress. We've seen an increase from 16% to

03146% of students meeting expectations. Now adding the endofear star performance helps us to know the starting point and where we set our target from last year. You can see that we've already exceeded our goal and we're continuing to build on the stained. In these uh first nine weeks, we've made significant instructional shifts in third grade reading. After a full year of training through our Texas Reads, Texas Leads grant, our team recognized the importance of extending structured literacy practices into third grade. This includes a complete redesign of instructional time shown here in blocks aligned with the redesign of our campus master schedules and guiding documents. This enhancement is essential because it ensures that students continue to receive explicit systematic instruction in foundational skills such as decoding and fluency. A strong bridge from learning to read to

032reading to learn. It is important to highlight that all the decisions made were made close uh collaboration with our elementary emerging bilingual coordinator to ensure that strategies and supports align with the needs of our bilingual learners. With this shift, we've already seen notable improvement in students reading accuracy, confidence, and overall comprehension, which directly supports their success on more complex reading and writing tasks. This is a visual overview of the redesign of those instructional blocks. I'll go into more detail about each block on the following slides, but here you can see the key changes. Block one now includes structured literacy on vocabulary, reading comprehension, grammar, and writing. And block three is dedicated to personalized practice. This is where students work towards skill mastery and teachers provide small groupoup instruction. Now we will dive into each block

033and provide clarity on the components and purpose. This is the structured literacy block. Block one, we use the foundational skill lesson slides, the purple set in the upper corner, provide explicit systematic instruction and essential literacy skills such as funological awareness, decoding, and high frequency words. Throughout the week, students engage in fluency p, which helps improve reading accuracy, reading rate, and expression, and intonation. There are examples of the fluency passages in the bottom corner. We also conduct fluency check-ins where students monitor their progress and reflect on their reading growth. And finally, students complete spelling pattern tests which allow us to assess and ensure mastery of the phonics and decoding skills that were introduced in those foundational slides, the purple slides, to create a cohesive structured approach that builds foundational skills and prepares students to confidently apply

034them in reading and writing tasks. Here is block two. Block two centers on vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing, and grammar. By grouping these components together, teachers can make stronger connections between reading and writing, and reinforce grammar and language skills within meaningful contexts. Here is a picture of some overview less qim hm. Block three is dedicated to personalized practice. One key component involves students working with weekly playlists. These are carefully curated with activities. These playlists target both word recognition and language comprehension and are built using our district approved high-quality instructional material resources. In the visual, you can see the word recognition activities are highlighted in yellow and the language comprehension activities are in blue. Additionally, the fluency practice included in these playlists bridges both the word recognition and the language comprehension that students move toward automaticity and

035greater reading independence. Another key component is a mirror. It is our adaptive online program where students can self- select texts tailored to their individual needs for ownership and engagement. Amir provides immediate realtime support for challenging words and comprehension question uh questions reinforcing learning as students read. Its interactive comprehension questions encourage deeper thinking and a stronger understanding of the text. So it helps students apply those critical reading strategies independently. This slide highlights some additional artifacts that iller instructional changes. On the left, you can see a snippet of the guiding document, which clearly organizes each instructional block in an easy to read format. All the guiding documents are now updated with this format. Right, the tall columns show excerpts from the master schedules of each elementary campus. Each principal and administrative team worked diligently to ensure that

036the instructional blocks were as uninterrupted as possible. Additionally, campuses prioritize block one by scheduling it at the start of the day when students are most focused and ready to learn that structured literacy instruction. Now, let's shift to writing. Goal one, performance objective 20 aims to decrease the number of zeros on the extended constructed responses by 10%. To decrease the number of zeros on cons extended constructed responses, we began with a focus of found uh strengthening the foundational writing through consistent work with the short constructed response. First, our first benchmark this year was designed to measure student progress on the short constructed response, which is the data you see. We'll begin by examining the English data. In the white rows, you can see last year's benchmark one results. At that time, 68% of English testers scored

037a zero, 15% scored a one, and 17% earned the full two points. In the blue row, you can see improvements in this year's benchmark one results highlighted with the green checks. The percentage of students earning the full two point and more students are scoring in the one range with 27%. The percentage of students scoring zero points has decreased from 68% to 48%. This decrease in students earning zeros along with more students earning one or two reflects that more students are successfully earning points in writing. Moving to the gray row now, you can see our performance from STAR 2025. 35% of students scored a zero, 46% scored a one, and 19% earned two points. While there is still work to do in reducing the number of zeros, this early progress that our intentional focus on building

038the writing skills with the short constructed response is already leading to stronger overall writing performance than where we started from last year. Good evening. back one more. Thank you. This is the same data but for our Spanish testers. In the white rows are last year's benchmark one results. At that time, 62% of Spanish testers scored a zero, 24% score a one, and 14% earned the full two points. The blue row shows this year's benchmark one results. The percentage of students earning the full two points has increased to 30% and more students are scoring in the one range with 33%. The percentage of students scoring zero points has decreased significantly from 62% to 37%. The green checks show that each area has improved from the previous year. While there was no STR on the Spanish start

039last year, we understand the components of the STR build a strong foundation towards the ECR. You can see them so far. As a reminder of what we are working toward, this is the STAR 2025 English and Spanish prompt. The English prompt was quite complex and require students to read a pair passage, one of which was a poem. To ensure our students are prepared to write at this level, we are making significant changes this year. As part of our efforts to strengthen writing instruction across the district, all writing teachers began the year with extensive professional development focused on building a clear understanding of expectations and effective instructional practices on the extended constructed response. A new set of explicit lessons has been developed for both short and each lesson includes oral rehearsal and instructure planning time to

040deepen students thinking and help them stay on topic while responding to star level prompts. Additionally, clear pacing for prompt analysis and planning ensures students fully understand what they are writing about before drafting, leading to more focused and effective responses. In addition to those lessons, daily editing and revising lessons are also included. Recognizing that these skills make up a significant portion of the assessment and are essential for students writing development. These next slides are artifacts from the updates. So on this slide at the top near the lion is a snip from the professional development on the ECR. In the chart below with the blue column you can see the first four modules of writing with snips of the purpose of that module. In the top and the red and blue is a snip to represent that

041everything is provided in both languages. In the bottom right corner is an example of some writing lessons that are provided. These are examples of cold reads which are passages students have not previously seen. These are completed and writable and administering these cold reads ensures that students are evaluated on their independent writing abilities. Using Writable also allows teachers to make meaningful connections between the platform's AI and the scoring engine used to score student writing on STAR, creating consistency in expectations and feedback. Here is a classroom example from the cold read. The students writing was submitted in writable where the teacher highlighted areas of focus. Editing is marked in pink and organizational revisions are in green. The teacher can also leave specific suggestions which are shown in the black box. This targeted feedback allows the student to

042reflect on the guidance and then submit a revised draft which is highlighted in light blue in that second. These are artifacts for grammar and were snipped from the daily grammar slides provided in the guiding documents. These images note the star alignment of passages and practice opportunities for students in both English and Spanish. For our dual language program, we have also intentionally crafted bridge opportunities for students to make cross-ling linguistic connections between the skills learned. Under Miss Smith Bachner's guidance, our bulletin boards have evolved into powerful tools for showcasing teaching and learning. These standardsbased bulletin boards now serve as a window into the classroom, offering a clear view of what students are learning, how they are assessed, and how their work is connected to the standards. Each display includes several key components. The learning standard, a

043QR code with materials related to the assignment, a scored rubric with criteria and performance levels, student exemplars, teacher feedback with glows and grows, and learning task descriptions. These bulletin boards not only celebrate student achievement, but they also make learning visible, connecting standards, instruction, and feedback in a clear and meaningful way. Um here you can see an example of the third grade teachers at Joy James Academy of Leadership. This board showcases student writing exemplars complete with rubrics, feedback, and QR codes linked to the lesson resources. The bilingual teachers display features both Spanish and English student writing. And this display offers a clear and authentic view of the learning that's happening in both classrooms. Here is a recap of the district level efforts aimed at increasing the percentage of students meeting star expectations from 36% to 40%

044and reducing the number of zeros on the ECR by 10%. We appreciate your time. Thank you. comments the detail that you provided in the presentation because it just we can bring so much more to the table with understanding and getting to listen um to you unpack it even further here. Um so just incredible to see all that work and thank you for all the work that you're doing. Uh yes this time uh Mr. board uh president as uh we know another one of our areas of uh priority is our English one and English two and so we have uh Jennifer Garcia and um yes Darla Barnes I was like Darla Barnes will be here to kind of give us an update on uh where we are spec in particular at CHS and then there was

045a question asked about um some uh data and I asked Scott if he could clarify uh the difference between district data, campus data, and snapshot data. Okay. Uh good evening, Superintendent Smith Faulner, President Toiver, and members of the board. Tonight, we will be updating you on the district improvement plan priority of English one and English two. So goal one of our district improvement plan focuses on transforming teaching and learning specifically student achievement, teacher growth, and instructional pedigogy. Within this goal, performance objective 2 establishes our target to increase the percentage of students achieving the meet standard on the STAR English one assessment from 33% to 40% by June of 2026. And so a question was called in um because you'll notice on that red bar graph that we have 34% when we established a baseline of

04633%. Um so to take a little step back um in light blue that is our benchmark one from last year. Um in dark blue is benchmark one from this year that is a tier one benchmark really focused on our first teach for our um students that is only occurring at Cabbury High School. And so therefore, when we wanted to try to present the data in the most clean and even way, we've pulled out only the star scores from the high school. And so that 34% meets represents only CHS scores where the DIP is actually reach and CHS combined. So while there is a slight discrepancy, that is only because the the benchmark data only represented CHS. And so we wanted to present STAR data to align and make sure we have that story completely. And

047so I'll turn it back over to Dr. Garcia to give a little bit more information of how they were. Well, thank you. As Scott mentioned, our data is up and we are pleased to report a 4% gain between last year and this year's benchmark one as seen in this graphic. We are also excited to be on track to meet this year's end ofear goal. It's important to note that we began this year with seven new eer teachers and support staff at the high school. Three of whom are either new to the grade level or brand new to the profession. This is a key consideration as we design curriculum and professional supports. As we continue to build teacher capacity and refine instructional pedigogy, we anticipate even more growth exceeding our student outcomes. To identify high priority

048areas for intervention and support, we analyze performance across four major domains. Our reading, revising, editing, and our extended constructed response or ECR. From this view, we can see encouraging gains in several areas. But we want to ensure that we sustain and even accelerate this momentum. Notably, reading remains an area of focus as growth here is essential to meeting our overall goal. To support this, our curriculum work will prioritize strategies that strengthen reading comprehension and textual analysis. Because the ECR is tied directly to reading performance, we anticipate that improvement in comprehension will also yield growth in this in writing. The next data set provides a closer look at the extended constructed response. Here we compare ECR results from the first benchmark of last year to this year. Teachers scored these responses on a zero to five

049scale aligned to the state rubric. Our first celebration is that we have met our DIP goal of reducing the number of zeros from by 10% as you can see here from 10 or 40 to 15%. Additionally, we see growth through the one through four score bands. We attribute this progress at least in part to the explicit modeling of prompt breakdowns and metacognitive writing strategies embedded in our curriculum documents. For English two, our performance objective seven sets our goal to increase the percentage of students that score meets on STAR English 2 test from 42% to 47% by June of 2026. Again, this graphic is how our students began last two years. And as you can see, benchmark one of the 2425 school year shows that 42% of our students were able to achieve meets. In comparison

050to this year, we noted 41% of our students were able to achieve meets on that same measurement. There was a slight dip in the performance last year to this year, but as previously noted, working with several early career teachers whose content and pedagogical expertise are being supported through strategic curriculum and campus supports. It's also important to note that our English 2 students cohorted in the freshman year actually scored at 36% there and then they now are at 41% to show growth. Again, we view this data in four major components. Reading, revising, editing, and the extended constructed response. This data shows us that our current English 2 students struggle most in reading and the extended constructed response areas of the assessment. Through the curriculum and guided documents, we plan to focus on strategies and support for

051teachers in growing students reading comprehension and analysis of text. And as mentioned previously, because the ECR is a response to reading, we anticipate growth in this area. As a campus, we have experienced high levels of apathy among our students, resulting in zeros and blank submissions from students, which is shown in the data. We believe that this data is not a true indication of what our students skills are. And as administrators, we've been going into classrooms and are having conversation with students about the importance of the extended constru. Here we can see the score breakdown for the extended constructor response for English 2. Zero score points remain the same. The score points for twos and threes did increase and our score points for one, four, and five decreased. From a curriculum perspective, there is a need

052to work more directly with this group of teachers to ensure that we have strong research-based instruction happening every day, including development of thesis statements and relevant text evidence and explanations that prepare them to meet the needs of the writing task. In response to this data, a code read ECR was conducted and teachers are in the process of an ECR reflection through a deep dive analysis to better understand student submissions and how to increase these scores by breaking down the prompt and selecting relevant text evidence. Our English one and two teachers participated in a full day professional development session focused on internalization and planning. During this time, we examined the structure of the state exam, reviewed new item types, analyzed student expectations and aligned these with our curriculum expectations. Teachers also engaged in a text study

053connected to each unit's essential lessons. Following the session, I refined our guiding documents to incorporate additional examples of the new star item types, included a more robust guiding question set to support comprehension and increase rigor and alignment to the grade level tees. Here is an artifact from both our curriculum and canvas standpoints. Uh you can see a snapshot from that full day session to ensure that teachers always have access to these materials. We've created a Canvas course that serves as a centralized repository. Within it, teachers can access curriculum documents, professional development materials, and the data dig resources all in one place. This image shows the Google folder linked within Canvas where teachers can explore all the star related documents reviewed during our professional learning day. As an example of the refinements made to the curriculum,

054this shot, this slide, sorry, uh, shows the guiding comprehension questions from a single day's lessons. These are designed for teachment checks for understanding during reading. Next is an example of a new star item type that teachers now have access to for classroom practice. These examples illustrate how we've embedded in context revising and editing supports. The highlighted text excerpts align directly to weekly grammar mini lessons, allowing students to see these skills both in and out of context. Research supports that students retain grammar skills more efficiently when they are taught in this dual format. By providing these examples directly within the guiding documents, we aim to save teachers planning time and ensure consistent highquality instruction across all classrooms. This is a quick view of that extended constructive response trends analysis from a recent cold read with our

055English one and two teams. We asked these teachers to capture the low, medium, and high trends across their most EC uh most recent ECR data. Teachers identified the most common trends from each of these three buckets and began designing action plans based on their student need. Finally, this artifact high this artifact highlights the learning experience that all secondary ELR teachers received on the explicit modeling um of a breakdown of the writing prompt to ensure that students understand the task. And that first image you'll see we discussed some of the common writing deficiencies, some of the areas that our kiddos are struggling with. The second one we talked about some of the common practices that we can enforce with all of our kids to help them overcome those. And then we practiced multiple ways of breaking

056down prompts with students so that they were very clear on how to do this before they ever got in front of students. At the campus level, CHS has implemented actions to support both English one and English 2 goals. This includes PLC's, studentled conferences, data walks, and intentional coaching. PLC's focus on lesson internalization and offer targeted professional development to support student growth in the classroom. Student led conferences empower our students to take ownership of their goals and for the steps needed to accomplish those goals. Data walks result in intentional observations and feedback that support teachers and a culture of build of coaching builds collaboration while also growing the capacity of our teachers. There are multiple actions in place at CHS. PLC's are differentiated and very intentional to meet the needs of our teachers and Miss Reynolds

057are working in small groups with English one and English two teams to use data to drive instruction and strategies to support our students. PLC's are also intentionally planned based on the data walks. Data walks are continuously conducted and monitored to see implementation of strategies and curriculum. As such, teachers are given feedback and supports based on those observation. Campus and district leadership analyze the trends observed and we provide targeted support in the CLA for the classrooms in those PLC's. In the first nine weeks, professional development to support both co-eing and collaborative strategies in PLC's was conducted based on those observations. The intentional monitoring and support will continue throughout the school year. The English one and two teachers are also in the coaching cycle to build their capacity. The instructional coach Haley Reynolds is working with English

058teachers to support them in areas such as lesson framework, developing exemplars and independent practices. This includes a continuous cycle of coaching. And here you can see some of the examples of a coaching plan and feedback that's given throughout the the year. Another impactful action at CHS is that of student led conferences. These were conducted to allow students the opportunity to present goals, progress, and discuss the important components a student needs to accomplish for graduation and their future goals. Teachers supported students in helping them develop goals, action steps, and reflecting on how to meet those future goals and assisted them with developing the steps they needed to work toward those goals. Within these conferences, the students got to review their star scores and discuss the importance of passing those for graduation with their parents discussing attendance

059and attending ACE tutorials to prepare them for these assessments. On October 27th, students met with their parents and led these conferences at CHS. We are glad to present that 23 students present to their parents on that day. Through adjustments at both the district and campus level, we are making progress by working together to improve teaching and learning in English one and English 2. Teachers are using focused planning, teamwork, and coaching to help students grow. Students are learning to take ownership of their work through feedback and conferences. These efforts show our one lesson at a time. At this time, we welcome any questions you have. Thank you. on the student le conferences. How was that received? So, I mean, I'm in the hallways the whole time and I was getting nothing but positive. We parents were

060like, they were like, "This is eye opening. I can't wait to hear more. Now, I know how to get to this because they really saw their student getting into Skyward, getting into their true like, what is my GPA? What are my courses? What am I going to do to get there? What are my star scores?" you know, so getting all that information. Very good. Thank you. Share the same thing about the conferences. Um, I'm sure it just is a great opportunity for the parents to hear from their students. Um, but I think of all of the skills and dispositions they take away from being able to have the opportunity to have conversations about their academics and their learning. Um, and I hope that that inspires them further to continue to do that. Um and I

061bet that's just incredible to get to walk through and see so many students and parents there and involved with it. Uh you mentioned a lot about um the intensive monitoring and support and the coaching that continuous cycle. Um and it's evident prior to that you said um there's a lot of pedagogical um learning and support needed. Um so all that to share it's this wraparound service and comprehensive support that obviously clearly goes a long way um in making such impact. And before we uh leave this uh item, I want to, you know, just commend you uh for the work that you've done even with our early literacy, our third grade literacy. This uh pro process started a year ago with our TXRL training and the work that has been put in is uh tremendous. You

062can see we're very focused. It's aligned. What you're hearing in third grade writing is aligned all the way up through our 10th grade star. And there's been a lot of time uh in commitment into this pro uh process. And I know that we are definitely in the right direction for uh improving our ELA scores uh so that we can reach our ultimate goal uh that we want. So, thank you uh to both of our pres presenters because it they get up here and make it look easy, but it's been a lot of work and thank you so much. Now, on to item 5D, new teacher incentive aotment. Yes. Uh at this time, Mr. board president. We have Katherine Walker, our director of talent acquisition and development, and she'll she's going to provide a recap of

063the teacher incentive aotment and some preliminary designations for the 2526 school year. Good evening, school board president, school board members, superintendent. Um just as um Miss Smith Bachner said, I'm going to provide a brief update on our teacher incentive aotment this evening. Now, just as a reminder, um the teacher incentive aotment or TIA provides additional funding to our school district based on teacher performance. Um teachers in selected assignments earn designations based on a local system that captures a year's worth of data to show teachers effectiveness and impact on student growth. Our local designation team submits recommendations based on eligibility requirements. Once it's approved by the state, the design generate funds for our school district. The district uses at least 90% of these generated funds to directly pay studentfacing faculty and staff at the campus of

064the designation. So, we're not actually keeping most of that. Most of that we're giving right back to our teachers. Now, last spring, oh, that's really tiny. Last spring, our first cohort of design was accepted and approved by the state, generating almost $350,000, $350,000 for Castleberry ISD with 90% of those funds being allocated directly back to our teachers. So, yay. That was awesome. Now, this first cohort that we had um consisted of math and reading teachers, including special education inclusion teachers, um in our star tested grades, third through 8th grade. For this year, we filed an expansion and so we are now including second grade teachers, fifth and eighth grade science teachers, English one and English 2, algebra 1 and algebra 2, geometry and biology teachers. So we had a lot bigger pool from which to

065um find uh design. Um, again, we're going to continue to expand. So, we're doing data collection this year so that next fall we can also include kindergarten and first grade teachers, eighth grade social studies, and US history teachers. Additionally, for this data collection year 2526, we have adjusted our tools that we're using to collect our student growth measurement to more clearly align with the tools that we're already using for our assessments uh within our different departments and content areas. So this year for this 2025 fall submission, we have submitted 30 teachers. 26 of those are new designations and four of those are redesignations. Redesations occur when we feel like somebody can move to a higher level and earn a higher percentage. So we have four of those. Um, and we've submitted those to uh to

066tea and they are under revision or under review right now. Um, and we're just basically waiting for their final acceptance. Um, part of uh once they've accepted that part of the process is to pay a $500 per teacher fee to TEA um and which will be reimbursed in September of the following school year. Uh we will continue the same way that we did this past school year that those designes once approved by TE Texas Tech and TEA, we'll know that in late February be able to honor those um teachers and give them their uh aotment before August 1st of 2026. Now, there was also a question that was called in about strategic compensation, which kind of is aligns a little bit with the TIA. Um, the next steps in strategic compensation are reviewing the principal

067scorecards with the principles. And that's kind of where we are on in that process. And that's pretty much all I have. I'm pretty short and sweet tonight. Thank you very much. Any questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Now on to item 5E, Cbury High School bond program construction update. Yes. At this time, Mr. Board President, we have Cameron Hollowman, our bond program manager. He will present a construction update on the 24 Cbury High School bond program. Thank you, Superintendent. Miss Smith Falner, board members, board president. uh gonna stay with the SE theme and keep it short and sweet, especially since you all have gotten to see a little bit of the action this last month. So, we're going to go through some of those and I'll get more detailed with some of the pictures on

068things that have taken place since then. So, again, strategic plan, we're staying on pace. We're definitely u within budget, which Mr. Rooten enjoys. Uh but we are also on schedule and to date we've uh stayed in compliance and no major safety uh concerns at this time. As far as an overall project uh infrastructure-wise, we're doing good. We finally got the um the uh storm water completely connected underground. Now, that is going to alleviate obviously some of the storm water, but in areas where we have flat work coming in, it's not going toate everything. And then around the building, we'll have sidewalks and flat work going in that will help uh further that cause later down the road. Renovation wise looking good. you got to see the band hall and for those uh personally that's what

069I do this for is to see the looks and appreciate the fact that those seniors got to lift the beam and then a week later got to go into that room and I watched them two by two come into that little gooseeneck from outside and you know to see that expression over and over again for about three minutes was amazing. So appreciate that part um of the job for sure. Uh, as far as new construction, we're completed with our pier and beam. So, for the most part, our underground is done. We're working on the uh the uh student parking lot. I'll talk a little bit more about that, but uh overall doing good as far as timeline. Some of the ones that we reached, you guys have been a part of some of these. Uh

070I'll show you a few photos of what's taken place since then. But our we are uh completely connected now. So, you don't have to go down or up the stairs. you can walk completely through the entire job site uh from one end of the building to the next. So, that's good. Um and then moving forward, I'll show you some of the milestones that we hope to hit over the holiday season in January. Uh again, for Mr. Wooten's sake, we're going to uh show how we're hitting our stride here financially. And this is probably the most important part of our task. And I know uh Superintendent Smith Faulner and uh William and I stay on this every week or two um making sure the flow. One thing I'll say is, you know, it's a two-eek process

071from the time we get invoiced to my review, sitting down with Miss Smith Faulner, she takes the time to make sure that we've got everything in place, and then sending it through to William to review. So, it is a two-eek process. Uh we do a great job of that and we are staying on pay. So just briefly, we're about 40% through the project. We've paid about 30% out. Now I'll say we had a $3 million bill come through 3 million plus this last week. So we've completely played paid all of our invoices and yet we're still a little ahead of schedule there. And then as far as soft cost, I commend Mr. Lasher for staying on top of that. We've still got quite a bit of that left to to um seek some opportunities moving

072forward. Um here are some photos. Uh this is area C. Uh so just since you guys have been there, we've completed the exterior windows. All of that um vapor barrier uh moisture proofing on the outside and then there you see the uh connector. Um that's from the inside looking out. Um, and then over to the next area B. This is just to illustrate that we're actually already completing roofing. So, here's some rough in and these are our curbs and we're ready to drop units on actually the new portions of the building, not just the area that we're renovating. So, these guys are doing a heck of a job. I took this picture earlier this morning just to showcase, you know, two weeks before you guys got to lift that beam. Well, the entire district, I

073should say, um that we didn't even have structural steel in that area. Uh so they did a good job of getting ready for that event that we had already scheduled, but this is just a showcase. So, if I can point right up into this area where the beam is, that is the only area left that we do not have decking over the project. So, by the end of this week from a drone, we will no longer get to see inside the buildings. It'll be completely covered. Um, so that's all good news and we're right on track. I took this photo also. This is uh right there at area B around the storm shelter. So this is what we've called the spine. Um, this is the last slab that we'll pour for all of the project

074on the new area. Now we'll have flat work around the buildings, but slab on grade and slab uh on second deck. This will complete that process and that's scheduled for this week. So more good news. This is just a a photo to show you uh just since you guys were there, we're already putting up sheetrock. Uh this is the window area where people will pass on that that second uh floor area and can see into the CTE area. So, uh pretty cool to see all that come together. And throughout these photos, uh you'll notice that we have uh a lot of the um the uh straps coming down for all of our uh piping, all of our ducting. I mean, they're really doing a good job. I also want to take a second to commend

075Mr. Bowser as well. He does so much behind the scenes that make us all, I'll speak for everybody, look really good. And u he's staying on pace with the renovation. And anybody that can stay up to speed with uh our BTC, specifically Israel, but uh he does a lot. And that's challenging because those subs are there to get in, get paid, and get out. That's the only way they make money. And so for Jacob to work the contracts, deal with me, and uh stay on pace and ahead of them, I commend him. But he's got a lot of that uh low voltage already in the renovation area. So just looking ahead, um we want to complete that parking lot. Why I posted this to you guys is because that will mean we're going to eventually

076get to relocate that job trailer. So all that uh mud and traffic on White Settlement Road will be alleviated to the back portion uh back there. So, and we own a portion of that street. So, that will help a lot with the construction traffic. Uh, we hope to be dried in by February 1st. So, and I said that a year ago. I couldn't believe I was saying it out loud when I said it a year ago, but we're on pace to do that. Um, and then we want to stay diligent with our budget. So, now's the time that we're above ground. We'll be dried in. Uh, Miss Smith Faulner has done a good job of staying on task with me to seek opportunities now. uh as if we see we have funds available and while

077we have subs on the project uh save a lot of money on um you know keeping them there to do a little bit of extra work. So uh everything good so far so good. So we got about a year left and uh I'm looking forward to a healthy project moving forward. Any questions? Okay. Wait, we have a big one. Yes. to add to that. You you uh forgot we recruited somebody. Uh I think Miss Tramler has Miss Tramler has a brand new PK student and we actually recruited our student from Israel. Uh he liked our school so much he's bringing her daughter from another school district uh to Castlebury. So um just enrolled dogs crying, right? Yes. Yes. [laughter] a lot of quality time, father and daughter. And he talked about how she couldn't talk

078enough about it on the way home that first day. So that was that was special. That's great. Great. Only a couple hundred more and we'll be moving forward. William will love the budget. [laughter] Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Yep. Item six. At this time, the board will retire to close session under Texas Government Code sections 551.071 through 551.076 and 551.08 through 551.083 to discuss the items listed on the agenda. The time is 7:12 p.m. Thank you very much. Now we'll move on to item [sighs] 7C, campus recognition of my Joy James Academy, where I went to school. All right. Well, Mr. Board President, at this time the Joy James Academy of Leadership students will recognize students and staff who are in route to destination success. [applause] Good evening, board presidents,

079superintendent, Miss Smith Faulner, and board members. Tonight, we would like to take this opportunity to share with you how Joy James Academy of Leadership is soaring to success. Now, sit back and relax and let us show you what some of our success at Joy James looks like this year. At JJA, we believe everybody can be a leader. This year, we have had a large group of students stand out as leaders who use their art to influence and inspire others. The Hang on. We have had students place and even win cash money for the Fort Worth Stock Show and rodeo art contest, the Trinity River Authority Art Contest, and the Red Ribbon Week poster contest. We're not done yet, but there are a lot of compet there are still more competitions on the horizon. This group

080along with every other student at JJ are blessed with an amazing art teacher, Miss Roachcha. Miss Roachcha, would you please join me at the podium? [applause] She has worked tireously to help students use their unique gifts and talents to show that everyone has genius. These students has have demonstrated genius throughout their amazing art this year. Let's give a round of applause to Miss Roachcha. [applause] While developing genius students demonstrated habit three put first thing first. This student spent time working hard in the art room finalizing their projects and meet and meeting their deadlines. That's commitment and focus on their goal helped them sort their toes. Throughout this hard work combined with their talents, passion and purpose, these students have success successfully accomplish the ultimate goal we have for students at JJA. Find your voice. While

081our students have found major success this year, there are two more adults that we would like to recognize for being a major part of JJ success. Miss Tavaria and Miss Guzman have both become a major part of our school. Will you both come up to the podium, please? [applause] They truly demonstrate how to synergize together is always better. Miss Chabaria helps us guide us helps guide us to to success by always being a team leader and stepping in into help wherever help is needed. Her positive attitude is greatly appreciated and her willingness is appreciated by JJ students and staff members. Miss Gooman helps us guide us to school sets by ensuring our second grade students gets lots of practice with their just right readers and a after school before. She also helped our second grade

082students on Hispanic heritage research projects during ACE. She arrives early to make sure all AC students have the materials they need to be successful in our after school program. Please join me in recognizing Miss Chavaria and Miss Guzman. [applause] [cheering] We would now like to recognize the students who have showed how JJ's destination is always success. This group of students have placed in forward stock show and and rodeo art competition and the Trinity River Authority Art contest. When I call your name, please stand and remain standing. Please hold your applause until all the students have been recognized. Michaela Barios, Gabriel Canales, Naomi Chaparo, Alina Chavez, Genesis Chavez, Favian Ferrera, Jacqueline Gonzalez, Katherine Ivara, Camila Huarez, Fernanda Luna, Annalia Mata, Araya Mata, Oscar Mauricio, Natalie Mahano, Elena Morin, Daniel Morio, Andres Nava, Isabella Nave, Katherine Rocha,

083Daniel Raldan, Floriana Salazar, Geraldine Sanchez, Mia Seondo, Jose Vasquez, and Isabella Ventura. Let's give all these students a round of applause. [applause and cheering] [applause] [cheering] [applause] Thank you again for allowing us to showcase how JJ is soaring to success to success this year [applause] and we could not do it without our parents of these children. So parents, would you please stand up to be recognized as well? [applause] [cheering] Thank you. So, Mr. President, I just have to say something. Someone told how uh good they thought some of our earlier presentations were, but I'm I don't know. I think the student presentations were probably the best tonight. Good job, guys. Give yourself applause. We're going to take a few minutes. We're going to take some pictures. Miss Branch will take our picture, but uh we

084want to Yeah, she'll direct our pictures. Thank you. So, we're going to move on now to item 7D. Uh, Kelly James. Yes, Mr. Board President. Um, our social studies coordinator, Miss Kelly James, will recognize the veterans present at the board meeting and share how veterans are being recognized at all the campuses. our veterans. Tomorrow at 11:11, our students will acknowledge our veterans with a moment of silence. This date and time signifies that at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, World War I ended. At AV KO, their kindergarteners are learning about veterans and how they are the fourth grade. They will interview Sergeant Haimey Uvareski, a veteran sibling of Avo's own teacher, Ruth Uber, and write about what they learned during the Zoom interview. In music at CE, students learn songs

085that are about pride in America. During social studies, our classes, their classes research the origin and importance of Veterans Day. Announcements will highlight heroic stories of veterans from World War I and World War II. CE will honor our community members by creating a board of honor so students can recognize all those in our community that have served. One of those being recognized will be the father of CE's own Mr. Gideon, who served as a paratrooper in the United States Army. Third and fourth graders at Joy James Academy of Leadership will perform a music program to celebrate Veterans Day on Tuesday evening. They have invited members of the community to be recognized during the program. During the school day, habit huddles in each home room will focus on honoring our veterans. All Arma Marsh students will

086view the ceremony of the tomb of the unknown soldier and discuss the service of veterans through their social studies classes. Irma Marsh created a wall of honor to acknowledge all those who served. Students will also read the names of the veterans who worked at Irma Marsh over the morning announcements and provide special treats for the veterans. Their CBI students are creating thank you cards. CHS student council are honoring our veterans with the catered lunch from our own Lion Dash. Students are also creating cards for those veterans who teach at CHS. And there will be morning announcements for Veterans Day. All students will discuss what it means to be a veteran during their social studies classes. All REACH students will listen to Sergeant Edgar Pina, a current CISD employee, speak about his service and experiences in

087the United States Marine Corps. Over 16 staff members served across the Air Force, Army, Marines, and Navy. You will see the names listed in a moment as we recognize each branch of the military. If you are a staff or community member in the audience who served, please stand when your branch is acknowledged. CISD employees and any others in the audience who served in the Air Force, please stand. CISD employees and any other in the audience who served in the Army, please stand. CISD employees and any other in the audience who served in the Marine Corps, please stand. [applause] CISD employees and any others in the Navy who served who audience who served in the Navy, please stand. [applause] If there are any members of the audience who served in the Coast Guard, please stand. Thank

088you for your service and your sacrifice. It has been our pleasure to honor you all tonight. After recognitions are complete, we will invite all veterans to the front of the boardroom for a photo. [applause] Thank you. We're going to take Yeah, we're going to take one last photo and then you guys can stay for the rest of the meeting or if we Y'all ready? Yes, sir. Going to move on to item 8A, the finance monthly update. Mr. All right. Good evening, Mr. President, board of education, and superintendent. Sorry about that. I actually thought everybody's going to stay. They didn't. Uh, thank you for allowing us to present um the budget as of October 20th uh of this previous month. today's discussion points. Uh here's a quick overview of what we'll cover. Uh first we'll begin

089with the budget snapshot to show where we stand as actual collections, actual expenses and net change in fund balance. And next we'll talk about the financial performance or we'll compare if collections or spending is on track. We collected more than what we spend and vice versa. And then finally we'll discuss the next step to keep the budget aligned with current year expect budget expectations. Uh next slide is the budget snapshot. This slide uh pretty much indicates that we adopted a $48.6 million budget. To date, we've actually collected about $3.6 million, which is 28% of our of our adopted budget. Uh we've spent 11.3 u million uh and a net change in fund balance is 2.3, which is a positive trend. So the fund balance is is trending in the positive directions. Uh next slide. So

090this this slide is very important. Uh, I hit it la I talked about it last month, but what I'm trying to just say here and keep keep focused that the district expects about $37.2 million in state funding. Uh, state funding is roughly about 77% of our budget. And how do we get the most u out of state funding? Uh, 88 average daily attendance. Uh, so far the district has collected about 13.4 million in in state funding. So basically more students coming to school uh equates to more funding. So, next slide. Here's a big picture of year-to-year comparison. What I want to focus on is total expenses. If we could compare actual spend as of October to previous year October, we spend about $95,000 less. As you see, instruction slightly and I I attribute that to

091House Bill 2. Um, and then instruction support and general administration and district operations. uh spending has been uh as you see so la last October to this October uh you'll start seeing the gap in spending less and less um it's because our plan is is uh superintendent plan has been working and we're going to continue to do that plan and make sure that we control spending and but not sacrifice uh student student academic performance. Right, next slide. to October. Uh we're going to do the same thing in November. Uh with and we're going to add on as tonight we present the 2425 audit. Uh as the auditor said, we have planned on submitting the the audit to TA this month because for all of the 1100 school districts that's out there, TA's delayed the submission

092of the audit and that's simply because of the I call it single audit template that they're working on. And so the deadline to get that done u TA should be done with their with their um uh single audit template uh by no uh January of of next year. So December is important because I'm going to be preparing the midyear budget uh update. We're going to do forecasting and see exactly this is where we stand as of December. I am going to project the best with the best information I have to see where we're going to land in next June. Now if something comes up AC breaks or something something that's out of our control, then that's a discussion that uh we'll we'll pretty much talk to superintendent about and make a recommendation uh through her.

093Um with that being said, pending any questions from this board, Mr. President, that's all we have for the month of October. Agenda At this time, we will consider the consent agenda as presented. Is there a motion? I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Is there a second? Is there any further discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Now on to item 10, the action items. 10A, consider approval of the 2024 2025 annual financial audit report. Is there a motion? I move to approve the 2024 2025 annual financial audit report. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Item 10B, consider approval of the HVAC portable units at Cabria High School not to exceed the amount of $60,000. Is there a motion? In the discussion,

094I move to approve the HVAC portable units at Cbury High School as presented. Second. Is there any discussion? I have a question. I was going back um and I see it says rentals. So, is this the first time we've done this? Uh no, ma'am. So in [clears throat] the process of the renovation at the high school, uh we and lost the chiller in the basement when we were going through the renovation. So with that being said is we had the option of uh renting a HVAC chiller system versus getting the individual units. So, we have eight classrooms in the basement and we knew um we wouldn't need it over the month of July or June. So, we actually are renting these portables uh from excuse me from August to March. So, we were so close

095to that $50,000 threshold that we wanted to bring it to you because there could be a chance in the spring that we would have to get it in different areas. So, no, this is not something new. We know we're going to turn that area over to BTC in May so they can start that project. So, we thought this was the best and most cost effective way to get throughout the year without having to rent a probably about a 3540 ton chiller to get through uh to peaceless through. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Item 10 C, consider approval of the Casper ISD library books to be purchased or donated. Is there a motion? Mr. President, I move to approve the list of library books to be purchased

096or donated as presented. [music] Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Item 10D, consider allocating votes for appointment on the Taran Appraisal District Board of Directors. We need to discuss do those votes go before. Okay, Mr. President, I'd like to suggest that we split the votes uh between Wendy and Eric. It's just a suggestion. Any other discussion? Any other votes? I'm just We have six. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm just curious of discussion if we wanted to know if we have any recommendations that came to us at all. There was some information in the presentation just background things like that more about them. Anything additional that's good for me. All right. Um, is there a motion? You need to separate that in the motion. I move to approve the

097resolution allocating votes for appointment on the Tarant appraisal district board of directors splitting the votes three and three for Eric and then Wendy. Is there a second? Second. Is there any further discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Sure. Yes. And uh I know that Miss Burgess is here uh stayed here uh for the vote and I would like to thank you for uh all the help that uh with the district with our struggle when we were worried about if we were going to fail our property value study test. Uh I know that you were there with us. So uh thank you. Now on to item 11, information items. re-election. There was a question called in about item 11H, the Casar Board of Education May election. Um, there's a question called in about can

098we switch election dates? There's an email that I'll ask Angela to forward if she hasn't forwarded on to everybody basically stating we can't. Is that separate from what was already on board? That looks the same. Is there something different? Okay. So, it's on board. Good. Good. 12 or 12. I didn't see anything we need to highlight. Uh discussion items 12A key dates got some stuff coming up including a a playoff game is probably the closest thing coming. Um football out at Birdville Stadium. Yes. And I'm thinking it it is Decar. Okay. Finalized. Make this bigger. Zoom that in. Got the Veterans Day programs going on tomorrow. Tomorrow's the musical, too. That's tomorrow night just theater. You're going to be there? Yeah, I want to go. Waiting to go see it. Well, there's a theater Adam

099also. It's also on Saturday. Saturday. Yeah. I want to try to go to Yeah. Baby Kos. That's next week. And are we doing our board Christmas dinner is on the 8th of December. That's before we meet, right? Yeah, that's before next board. So, just a reminder, we're having our Oh, there's a winter concert on that's not the board Christmas dinner December the 8th. Oh, was it Right. Anything else anybody wants to highlight? 12. I think family code not um we have put it out on parent pass okay and so we invite um our community and our students and also others in the community to come and so that is I know they're gearing up for a big event on that partnered with ACE and so that's always has a lot of students and parents that

100are engaged in that so I would encourage anyone to attend that for 12D since I wasn't here for the last meeting um due to continued work travel. Um I was curious if there was discussion that was had that um we just wanted to have continued discussion or not yet but we did talk about Christmas dinner. We talked about Christian. We were there. I was looking at key dates when I talked about Christian. It's fine. I There's only four longevity checks. Writing a letter. Yes. I need to know. Do you want us to share the same letter? Sure. It's the one that Mr. one that Mr. Holder wrote. Okay. I really don't recall there being discussion about 12D last time. It was just going to be on this agenda, right? Like there was there wasn't discussion.

101We just we just talked to I will say that some advice from our attorney on 12D is that um instead of board operating procedures that um this would probably need to be considered for a local policy versus just an operating procedures if you're if if the language is kept. So his suggestion was probably it's a better fit for local policy. Well, let's just table that until we have more people. Well, until we can do it right. Okay. What do you mean do it right? Just if we need to vote on changing something. Oh, no. Right now it's just discussion though. We're not voting. I mean, we'd have discussion. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was just curious what I guess opinions were about because it seemed that it's possible action. So, I don't know like what

102was the discussion? Possible removal, possible. It was just about um from what I recall, I just remember that someone said um I believe Tracy said, "Well, life happens and emergencies happen." And that was pretty much all the discussion. We didn't really discuss it. I think it was brought up because of the travel the travel Yeah. So, is this being brought up though for possible like reconsideration or we're editing the percentage or like what's happening with this? It if I remember correctly, um I think it was a reminder. we were getting ready to budget. Uh Angela needed to put in I think the latest travel and so it was just a reminder to be sure that uh we're that everyone was aware before she put in the the travel for the national convention. Yes. So I

103after that I'm not sure what happened. I'm hesitant to speak because Miss Gman wouldn't hear when that was brought up. Miss Gman asked for this to be here and unfortunately she can't be here tonight. So um She asked for something to be in there that maybe we could adjust it, change it, something like that. Okay. So, but she's not really not here. So, okay. Okay. Yeah, the context is helpful. Just Yeah, I will say because I know that likely is going to affect me. I wanted to know whether I should start seeking outside funding and support um or or if we're going to discuss if we're open to discussing it. Um yeah, I was Yeah, we're open to discussing it. There was two that are not%. Yeah, I've still got the numbers. Okay. So, it

104sounds like we're open to discussing to possibly either remove or update that. Okay. So, there's no green light on I need to start seeking funding. I will. Trust me, I will seek funding if I need to. Okay. Thank you. So, we'll discuss I guess do we need a note now tableabling that to move it over? We'll table it for the next meeting. Yeah. some discussion. Yeah, thank you. We had a discussion. So, perfect. Thank you. Again, there was uh item 12E a discussion about incorporating Latin curriculum. I'm going to table that also because the person who brought that up unfortunately couldn't be with us tonight. So, 12 F, right? 12F. Sorry. Yeah. 12 12D, 12 E, and the 12F were a discussion item that somebody unfortunately isn't here. So, see anything? Anything else on there

105anybody wants to touch on? Think over the assignments for um January. Yes. Does that work for everybody? Okay. Yes. All right. Any discussion or update on missing? Well, I'm going to move on to item 13A. But before I do, I want to I've been informed that there are some other school board members from another district here. I want to thank them for trudging through our meeting and thank you for your service. And at that note, uh, our I will establish our next meeting at Monday, December 15, 2025. And I move we adjourn. Hearing no objection, we stand adjourned at Oh, my glasses are messy. 8:15. 8:14. Yeah.