001uh communications from citizens. We appreciate you being here this morning and we always welcome communications from citizens of our district. Individuals who wish to participate during the portion of the green meeting designated the public comment shall sign up with the presiding off officer or designate uh on the I think the day of the board meeting but this probably should have been the previous day and shall indicate the agenda item or topic on which they wish to address the board. Uh Miss Branch, do we have anyone who wishes to speak to the board today? >> No, we do not. >> Thank you. Now on to item five, discussion items. Uh 5A board policy update 125. >> Yes. Uh Mr. Board President, uh Wes Jackson, our director of school policy and student support will present uh board
002policy update 125. >> Mrs. Faulner, uh President Toiver, board members, thank you for being here this morning. Um update 125, um that is some stuff that rolled out before this legislative session. So, these aren't the things that are going to be the most recent updates. We're going to be looking at update 126 next time we come together, but I want to give you guys some information on 125 today so that we may vote on that in August and get that into policy. So, really some very minor changes here. Um, one, um, it's some clarification around when if the if the president were to step down that the vice president would step into that role and serve as president until the board reorganized. Also, there's some stuff about the board being able to um appoint administrative
003assistants from someone within the district. They changed that language to say that the superintendent would appoint that administrative assistant since their person would be employed by the superintendent, not by the board. Um, basically there's there's a couple of different types of committees that the board can um can form. There are board committees which are made up of board members and there are also advisory committees which may have students, parents, teachers, other types of stakeholders. So there's some language in this and the next policy that clarify those different types of committees and how those are formed and how those are dissolved and what those types of committees can do. That's the one I kind of covered. Angela skip that one. Um otherwise there is some changing in a grading policy. It changes the word combined to
004average. No actual change in the meaning. We now have to do some additional reporting on bullying and they've added some clarity in some of the stuff about attendance and credit. So, no no real changes in the laws or the rules there, just some clarifying language in those policies. >> So, for the addit bullying, what are you putting in there? What's the clarifying? Um, so it's they've added it to the list of things we have to report for unsafe schools. We already have to report bullying and PES. We have a separate code on it and everything. So, it's not really changing any um any anything that we're doing on our end. It's just now added to a state report on on safe school stuff. Yes, sir. So, uh, on the added bullying, how do they determine
005I mean >> what constitutes and doesn't constitute? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, we have several checklists that our administrative teams use to to look at the definition of bullying. We also have we call it the bullying packet, but it lists out all the steps that you need to do to complete a proper bullying investigation. So, at the end of those investigations, if if the administrators determine that it's bullying, a lot of times if it's kind of gray, they'll call me and we'll we'll kind of go through that and walk through that together. But we have those checklists and tools that the state's given us to determine whether something meets those legal definitions of bullying. And at that point, we would we would code it bullying. We actually have very few things that we end up
006coding by the time it's all said and done. Um, it may get reported as bullying initially, but we work through those processes and we work with our parents and teachers and students to make sure they they fully understand the definition and what does and doesn't meet those legal definitions. >> Thank you, sir. We don't go far. 5B 2025 2026 student code of conduct. >> Yes. Uh again, Wes Jackson, our director of school policy and student support, will provide an overview uh of the draft of the 2526 uh student uh code of conduct. Uh and there are many updates since this last legislative session. >> Yes, here we do have some updates. Um anything you see that's just in green was an update as a result of the legislative session that TASBY put into the code
007of conduct. Anything highlighted in yellow is something where based on feedback that we'd gotten throughout the school year, I may have added some clarifying language to the code of conduct. So here, um, campus behavior coordinator. There's some change in the law just specifying that there must be one campus behavior coordinator. On most of our campuses, that will be the one of the assistant principles. Before we can name all of the assistant principles as campus behavior coordinator, they're responsible for overseeing that chapter 37 of the education code, which is the law that governs discipline, is being followed and that the threat assessment team is being made aware of anything that that would cause a level of alarm that they should be aware of. Um, they just added some very specific language about anti anti-semitism here saying
008that that's a violation of the code of conduct. You'll see that just a little bit further down I added some clarity that any derogatory language or slurs of any type basically would not be tolerated. Um apparently it's legal now in Texas to have a short barreled firearm. So that had to be specifically added to the code of conduct. All right, here we're getting to the juicy part here. Here is all of the cell phone stuff that I have gone back and forth and gone back to the APs and the principles and and worked very hard to try to get the language um right here. But um you guys know that House Bill 1481 said that we have to tell kids they can't have their phones anymore. Um so in front of you, you have several
009things that Abby has put together. Um some of it is it's it's our parent facing side of this, right? It's how we're going to begin making aware of this once you guys approve policy and everything today that goes behind it. But it's got a lot of the more specific language. I'll just give you guys a second to look at that. But but basically we're saying that the phone has to be put away. It needs to be in your backpack. It needs to be in your laptop bag or it otherwise needs to be out of sight where we can't see it. If we don't see it, hear it, you're not caught using it, then then you're fine during the course of the school day. So, we outlined that before you come in the building needs to
010be turned off and stored in one of those approved locations. Um, I did put a caveat in there that principles could designate a storage location. So, I wanted to give us flexibility here because as we begin to navigate this, we we may need some room to pivot and grow and change. And if we've got it here in the code of conduct, it's going to require board action before we can we make a change. So, I did add some things throughout here to kind of give us a little bit of flexibility. And I'll out a little bit more how it compares to what some of the other local districts are doing with their policy. U and this is very much in line with what everybody else is doing. They're saying the state gave us two options.
011One, you can't bring it to school at all, or two, we understand you want your kids to have it, but based on the law, we have to tell them it's it's off and put away. Um, and so they basically put it away at the beginning of the school day and they they're not allowed to take it out until they walk out the doors at the end of instruction. Um, we will figure out what that looks like for ACE and what some appropriate boundaries are for kids needing to call their rides to come come get them. ACE I've talked to Claudine is not technically part of a school day. So, we do have room within the law to kind of navigate that. Obviously, we don't want to have them having their phones out and oh, it's
012cool to play games and No, but we know that this is the time of day when you're arranging your ride and those types of things. So, students will be allowed to have the phones on their person. They just need to be off and put away. >> And Wes, I think that uh also direct them. These are the posters that uh will be uh placed that Abby has created uh visuals that will you'll see in the schools. So, they'll be uh posted for students to see for our parents when they're coming in. So, we've already kind of created uh what uh we're going to be giving out to the campuses uh for them to place uh there for everyone to see. >> And so, basically, consequence-wise, the first time the kids seem with their phone out,
013they're going to get a warning, right? This is brand new. They're kids. We're going to need to give them a little bit of grace. Um second time their phone out, the phone will be taken up. Teachers aren't keeping phones in the classroom. We don't want that that layer. um that's going to go to the assistant principal's office. The student will be able to pick up their phone at the end of the day. They'll sign an agreement. The kid and the parent will get a warning that next time on the third offense, the parent is going to have to come up to the school to retrieve the pump. Um warning fourth offense. Now we're getting to where we're assigning consequence consequences. So, okay, you've had it out four times. Now, you're going to serve a day
014of ISS and your parents got to come get your phone. fifth time. This is where I've left us some room here because to me there's a lot of difference between I've had my phone out the fifth time in the first three days of school and it's December and I'm just now getting caught with my phone out for the fifth time. So that's where I've said the continuum of consequences can range from fifth fifth time and beyond from ISS to DAP. I also added a caveat that refusal to turn over your phone to an administrator when requested may immediate DAP replacement u because that's where we're going to have our our bigger issues. If if our kids are putting away their phones when we ask them to we're, you know, we're going to deal with that
015and that's that's going to happen along the way, but we can't have the kids having a big thing and getting disorderly conduct and and all that kind of stuff going on in our classroom. So, that's where we're going to kind of kind of lay down the law. Other districts, Mansfield, for instance, has said at the fifth offense, it's a mandatory 30-day placement if you're a grade five or above. >> Wow. >> I did we we did not want to pin ourselves, not I we I've had a lot of discussion around this uh did not want to pin ourselves into something like that. Um because we don't know how this is going to go exactly and how we're going to navigate it. And um for one, I feel like we're we're going to have to help
016these kids break, right? that's going to be difficult and challenging. Uh but but we don't want to we want to be strict because we need to uphold the law and we need to be serious about it, but we do also need to understand that they're kids and that this is going to be a process for us. Um we've got some things in here that specifically address AI. You know, we've kind of had some language in the last couple of years that address chat GPT and some of those things, but Catsby came out with some language that specifically says AI. Next one's um they changed the laws about ecigarettes at minimum. Now, if it's a nicotine bake, it's a minimum ISS of 10 days. What we were doing previously, we had done through DOI that we
017didn't have to send them because it was a mandatory DAP. if you'll remember the last time the legislature met, but through DOI, we were able to send them to ISS versus DA for the first. So, this will actually be a little bit harsher than what we've done with the last couple years. There's some some new language about parent involvement in the AP conference. We already have some really good systems in place where we offer the review dates and the parents are able to be involved. So, we didn't feel like we needed to add the formal language about about parents being able to request a parent involvement plan. So they've given teachers more rights as far as removal of students. So students now can be removed from the classroom after being disruptive just one time. And
018when we talk about teacher removal, we're talking about not, hey, I'm sending you to the office, Wes, because you're being disruptive today. it's Wes, I don't want you back in my classroom for the rest of the year because you've been such a disruption. So, that's always been a law. They've just added some clarity around um what teachers need to do and how we as administration need to respond to that and you know what are the circumstances for allowing those kids back into the classroom after the teacher has requested that removal. They've added some language about ISS. The law basically said that you have to add language about ISS in your in your code of conduct. We've always had language about ISS. One of the big changes here is that ISS now has no limit. A
019couple years ago, they said you can only put kids in ISS for three days, which which hurt us a little bit because we were using longerterm ISS placements to downplay the frequency of DAP placements. But now they've said you can do it up to 10 days and actually you can go beyond that as long as it's being reviewed by the principal every 10 days. So that does allow us some flexibility. That's something we have to be careful with as well, but it it does give us some flexibility to use ISS for some more serious offenses. Um, this is more about classroom disruption. You you can't disrupt the classroom. It gives us with our younger students, it gives us a little uh more ability to use OSS and things like that if they're completely disrupting a
020classroom. or out of school suspension. Uh this is just saying if we suspend a student, parents can request in writing that the kid be in school suspension instead of out of school if there's a hardship there. That's totally up to the principal's discretion whether to grant that or not. That's something we've always done. If a parent said, "Hey, I absolutely can't get off work for the next three days. Please don't suspend my seven-year-old." That's something we've always taken into account. Um here again, possession of the ecigarette. Now, if you sell an ecigarette or bring one for someone else, that's a mandatory DAP placement still. So, um if if I brought one to give to Claudine for five bucks, now I'm going Claudine's just in possession of it and smoking it, so she might just get
02110 days of ISS placing. um some things that the administration has asked me to clarify. So this section is discretionary DAP placement. So these are what are we sending kids to truce for that the state doesn't spell out. We have to send kids to truce for this fighting, right? We we've been committed to that for a long time. That's why we don't have very many fights. Um this is a verbal, physical, or sexual misconduct. So anything that kids are doing that's just crossing a major line. This is the kids that take pictures of each other over the bathroom stalls. This is kids that say something very inappropriate. That that's the one that the discipline code that we use to address this. Recording, posting the voice image of others. We have that addressed as well. Tampering
022with electronics and technology. It became a big trend on Tik Tok this past year to shove a paper clip in the USB port of your computer and see if you can make it spark. This is very dangerous. This can cause fires. I mean, there's some stuff with the batteries. Jacob was telling me it is extremely dangerous. So, we want to make sure that we have language in here to address that. And we've already told kids at the end of last year that that will not be tolerated. That will result in a DAP placement. And then just persistent or repeated violations of the student code of conduct. We're talking about that. We're talking about kids with 8 10 12 15 discipline referrals for the same thing that we're then looking at a placement for. That again
023is the ecigarettes. Some of the language is just repeated throughout. So here it is saying mandatory DAP placement is this section and it's talking about basically anytime a kid gets arrested for a firearms offense outside of school, it's going to be a mandatory DAP placement in school. Most of those kids wind up being placed, but this strengthens like our footing as far as being able to do that as a mandatory versus a discretionary. The the last stuff in here is really just talking about the option for a virtual expulsion. That's not something that that we're going to do. We have a JJ in Tarant County. Um so and it's not something that is financially feasible for us to do, but that is pretty much what the remainder of the green language that you're going to
024see in here is covering. >> That's it. >> Any questions? I'm curious on the ecigarettes vaping. >> Do you primarily just see that at the high school or also at the middle school? >> We see a fair amount at the middle school. It is less than the high school. One of the odd phenomenons at the middle school is if if someone brings a vape about three kids are going to use it that day and they're all going to get caught together. So, we probably have a higher number of placements than the actual number of vapes that show up on school. But but at middle school, they want to share it because it's about being cool, not about being addicted to the nicotine. And so we do get multiple kids caught up a lot of times
025with with just one vape. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. >> Move on to item 5C. Dr. Richland 2025 2026 grading guidelines. >> Good morning everyone. Thank you so much for the opportunity school board members, board president, and Miss Smith Faulner to talk to you today about the uh grading guidelines. At the last board meeting on July 14th, I shared a draft of the 2526 grading guidelines and indicated that I would propose any additional changes needed during this morning's uh meeting due to revisions that we were making to our standardsbased report cards. As you recall, we are revising the kindergarten through 2 grade standardsbased report cards to make them more user friendly for our parents and to align them with the new literacy resolution and our structured
026literacy block which was adopted during the May 5th board meeting. Using a mirror, student performance will be measured in the areas of decoding, funological awareness, highfrequency words, comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, and overall reading mastery. Not only will parents receive a revised standardsbased report card with these updated standards, they will receive a monthly parent-friendly report from Amira describing their child's performance on their monthly assessment and exactly what they can do to help their child. On page five of the grading guidelines which Miss Branch has pulled up there for you, you see we have added a description of the Amira reports the parents will receive. I have also provided you with a copy of an Amira parent report and a sample of a standardsbased report card. You should have it there to reference. When you look at the
027sample of the standardsbased report card, you will notice we have reduced the length, written the descriptors in parentfriendly language, and modified the language arts standards to include what the parents will see in the Amir reports that we send home each month after their child has completed an assessment. So, Miss Branch, if you uh if you don't mind, um if you will pull up the standardsbased report card for me. So, if you notice in the language arts section, if you'll just slide that over for me the other direction, Miss Branch, the language There you go. And then down a bit. See, you'll notice that we have updated uh you'll see decoding listed there, funological awareness. And so what's nice about that is that now uh is aligned nicely to what our parents are seeing on the
028Amira reports and now we've got added language and our grading guidelines. What you're approving this morning are the grading guidelines. Uh and so the additional language that has been added is that Amira description that tells the parents about the report that they should expect. So my goal this morning was to show you why we made that adjustment in the grading guidelines that it's going to be aligned to their standards. ation report card in the report. Do you have any questions for me? >> Also, I do want uh you to know that we did get uh some teacher uh feedback and we've gotten teacher feedback on several items. Uh they've been great to come in very quickly to give us uh this input and we're going to continue working with our teachers as we uh fine-tune
029this. Yes, we'll do quite a bit of work next week on um on the standardsbased report card. Again, you're approving the grading guidelines, but we will be doing additional work on the standards base report cards next week with our teachers. >> I do have one question. I don't remember if we uh covered this last time, but do we have neighboring districts that are using this program also? >> Yes. Yes. Amira is um one of the only programs that's approved by uh the state of Texas by TEA for uh usage for accelerated instruction which is required through HB1416. So yes, many many many school districts are using AMRA >> and in in addition uh the exciting thing is that I have been meeting with Charles but Foundation and TEA and Amamira uh to help align it
030with our TIA. And so I had uh two two meetings. I know that uh Mr. Bowser uh also has uh been involved in that and we're actually helping pilot uh how a could be uh utilized and how we can change the reporting so that uh by click of a couple of buttons we're able to not only get our uh student performance but also how can that feed into the teacher performance for TIA so they can be a designated teacher. And so we're on the forefront of helping AMRA and getting the approval through TEA of what that can look like. So we're excited about that, too. >> Yes, exactly. And you notice uh Angela, if you'll go back to the grading guidelines for a moment, I want you to notice that toward the bottom of this,
031scroll down just a bit. Do you see where I added additional information that Amamira may add? The reason Amamira may add those two additional components is because of the meeting that Miss Smith Faulner has had with TEA and Amamira explaining what we would like to see. And so I think that's exciting. It's exciting that they're willing to work with us and that we again are at kind of pioneering some new things. >> And you'll see the fluency um is something that we'll be working on uh next year. So that's going to be important for the words per minute that our uh students can uh accomplish. >> Absolutely. that any other question. >> K through >> kindergarten through second grade standard space report cards, but we use a mirror. Um, if you're asking about a mirror,
032we use a mirror all the way through our fifth grade. >> Thank you, ma'am. Now, we'll move on to item six, close session. 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 7:42 Yeah. We are out of close session at 7:54 a.m. We will move on now to the item seven, consent agenda. At this time, we will consider the consent agenda as presented. Is there a motion? >> Mr. President, I move the consent agenda be approved as presented. >> Second. >> Is there any further discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Item eight, action items. Item 8A, consider approval of the amended 2025 compensation plan. Is there a motion? Mr.
033President, I move to approve the amended 2025 2026 compensation plan as presented. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Is there any discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Item 8B, consider approval of the 2025 2026 grading guidelines. Is there a motion? >> Mr. President, I approve that I make a motion that we approve the grading guidelines for the 2526 school year. >> Is there a second? >> Is there any discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Item 8 C, consider approval of the 2025 2026 student code of conduct. Is there a motion? >> Mr. President, I move to approve the 2025 2026 student code of conduct as presented. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Is there any further discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Item 8 D.
034Consider approval of board local policy EFB FD FMCE. Board policy update. Is there a motion? Yeah, you're gonna >> Mr. President, I move to approve the board local policy. E FB local, FD local, FM local, FNE local as presented. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Which Who got that? Kathy got it. Okay. Is there any discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 40. Our next meeting will be Monday. This is item nine. Monday, August 19th, >> 18th, sorry. For a regular board meeting. Any other anything else we miss? Item 10. I move we adjourn. Hearing no objections, we stand adjourned at 7:58 a.m. >> Thank you.