001We would like to welcome everyone to this April 14th meeting of the course ISD board of trustees. This is a regularly scheduled workshop and all items that will be discussed have been duly posted. While this is a meeting in public, it is not a meeting of the public. If you wish to speak, please register in the lobby for audience for guest and follow the instructions on the speaker form. The board's role is to set goals, approve personnel and budget, make policy, and provide oversight. We are not here to manage or solve individual problems. Management is the responsibility of the superintendent. As a board, we believe we must educate every child, give every child the greatest opportunity to learn, and to provide a safe and secure environment mentally, physically, emotionally, and academically. And these are our
002core values. We appreciate your interest in the students of CISD. The first item on our agenda is the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge algiance to the Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. Next, we'll have our invocation led by Mr. Kamari Chambers. Let us pray. Dear heavenly father, we first and foremost say thank you, God. God, we got we thank you for life, health, and strength. We thank you for protecting us and keeping us covered as we've traveled up and down these roads, God. God, we thank you for just continue to watch over our children. We ask that you would
003continue to protect us um and protect them as they move about their daily lives, Father. Father, we ask that you would just continue to give us the guidance um and the knowledge to make the right decisions that cons that concerns this district. Father God, we love you right now, God. Thank you for this fellowship in this gathering. We ask all these things your son Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Next is audience for guest. Do we have any audience for guests? Okay, now we are going to move into close session. Uh we'll adjourn into close session as permitted by Texas Governance Code section 551.01. Section 551.074 is personnel matters. The board will discuss the appointment, employment, evaluation, uh reassignment, duties, discipline, and dismissal of public employment or officials. We will be discussing the coach and
004the athletic director position. So we will be back momentarily. Do we have any action that we're going to take from close session? Uh yes, Madam President. I would like to make a motion to name Eugene Rogers as the Corsa County's athletic director. Second. We have a motion and a second to name Eugene Rogers as the course can athletic director. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. Congratulations, Coach Rogers. We're very excited to have you leading our athletic department. Um, do we have any other action from close session? Madame President, I would like to nominate Terrence Lewis as the assistant athletic director. Second. We have a motion in a second to name Terrence Lewis as the assistant athletic director for boys athletics. Assistant. Oh, assistant athletic director. Okay. All right. So, a motion second. All in
005favor? Any opposed? All right. Congratulations, Coach Lewis. Do we have any other action that we need to take? Yes. One more. I would like to make a motion to name Courtney Anderson, girls athletic coordinator. So, a motion. Second to name Courtney Anderson as the girls athletic coordinator. All in favor? No. Any opposed? No. All right. Courtney Anderson will be our new girls athletic coordinator. All right. Could we have coach Rogers and Coach Lewis? I don't She's here. Oh, Co. Coach Anderson, could y'all come up so we could get a picture? Congratulations. Congratul Congratulations. Yes, sir. If you don't need to I can get on. This podium is going to be in the way, but okay. All right. Anybody see me? One, two, [Applause] three. Congratulations. Congratulations. We're very excited about the future of CHS athletics.
006So, thank y'all for your uh willingness to lead um our athletic department. All right. Next item on our agenda is um discussion action items. Uh first will be board training credit announcement. Under state board of education rule, completing required continuing education each year of service is a basic obligation and expectation of any sitting board member. As board president, I am required to announce the name of each member who as of that member's anniversary of election or appointment to the board, has completed the required continue education, has exceeded the required continue education, and is deficient in meeting the required continuing education. The requirements for training are measured as of the first anniversary of the date of the trustes elect election or appointment or 2-year anniversary of his or her previous training as applicable. There are seven
007training areas for board members continuing education. One, local district orientation. Two, orientation to the Texas education code. Three, team building. Four, additional continuing education. Five, evaluating student academic performance and setting goals. Six, identifying and reporting abuse, trafficking, and other maltreatment of children. To the extent applicable to each board member, I will announce the completion or deficiency as to required training. For members who still have time remaining to complete required training, I will announce those board members who have scheduled timely training and those who have not yet scheduled training. At the conclusion of this announcement, I will announce any board members training in excess of continuing education requirements. Local district orientation. Melissa Castillo and Christopher Minkkins have completed local district orientation. Introduction to the Texas Education Code. Melissa Castillo and Christopher Minkkins have completed the introduction
008to the Texas Education Code. Post legislative update. No board members were required to complete post- legislative update to the Texas Education Code training for the time period covered by this announcement. Team building. All board members are deficient in board team building training. This training will be conducted in June of 2025. Evaluating student academic performance and setting goals. Note, this training must be completed every two years. The following board members have completed the evaluating and improvement student outcome training. Jamie Roman, Kathy Branch, Brad Farmer, Kamar Chambers, Melissa Castillo, Christopher Minkens, and Dr. Seth Brown. Identifying and reporting abuse, trafficking, and other maltreatment of children. Note, this training must be completed every two years. The following board members have completed the bianual training on identifying and reporting abuse and trafficking and other maltreatment of children. Kathy Branch,
009Kamar Chambers, Christopher Minkkins, Jamie Roman, Brad Farmer, Dr. Seth Brown, and Melissa Castillo. School safety. The following board members have completed the bienial training on school safety. Jamie Roman, Kathy Branch, Brad Farmer, Kamar Chambers, Dr. Seth Brown, Melissa Castillo, and Christopher Minkens. Exceeding required continuing education. Board member Jamie Roman exceeded the required amount of continuing education training by 20 additional hours. Board member Kathy Branch exceeded the required amount of continuing education training by six additional hours. Board member Brad Farmer exceeded the required amount of continuing education training by 29.25 hours. Board member Dr. Seth Brown exceeded the required amount of continued education training by 8.5 hours. Board M member Christopher Minkens exceeded the required amount of continue education training by 10.75 hours. Board member Melissa Castillo exceeded the required amount of continued education training by
01015.75 hours. Board member Kamari Chambers exceeded the required amount of continuing education training by 15.25 hours. All right, good job everybody. Gifted and talented is our next um update. Good evening, Miss How, Miss Roman, distinguished members of the board. I wanted to go ahead and give you guys some updates, but I also want to let you guys know that the show is going to be right here. Um, they're going to come up here in a minute and be able to showcase exactly what they're doing, which is some great things. Um, we are up currently GT students within the district from 12.1% to 12.7%. This year we are uh using a universal screener to administer to all first grade students and our number of GT students enrolled in AP and dual credit classes. We have 87
011of our students at the high school that are GT also enrolled in AP and dual credit. Um our first and fourth grade students they have go uh once a week to half day at Fannon. Our fifth and sixth grade, they spend one hour a day. And our seventh and eighth grade, they have a STEM class uh through PLTW. And basically, um it's learning about programming, but ultimate goal at the end of it is they're developing microcontrollers to be able to do programming with. So, it's pretty cool to get to watch them and they're really excited about it. uh 9th and 12th grade students, they are working um on GT level course credit through preAP, AP, CTE electives and then also dual credit. And our fall showcase, we want to uh we had over 350 people
012who attended and we want to make sure too to invite you to the spring showcase and those dates are May 5th, May 6th, 7th, 8th and then also for fifth and sixth grade, May 16th. And that is it for me. Um, Miss Simington and Miss Wear are GT teachers and they do an amazing job with our kids and they're gonna come up here right now and show you some cool things that they're working on. wasn't able to be here tonight, but we do have a couple of third graders here. Let them show you what they've been working on. Hi, my name is I'm third grade student and I'm going to show you the things that we created are what they were. This is our satellite. So it goes around tornado willing like with our elected.
013And our star explain So, we have two straw right here. You will blow up his balloon. So, you're going to hold it and the string through the straw. You will let it go and it will like blow across on that string all the way. They had some part of it. It has to go through. As you make it through all the way through. Close door. out. [Applause] Hi. This is actually stage. And this isology. It is not really [Applause] Good job, guys. Third and I think she Very good. Good job. All right. Next, we're going to have a technology department update. All right. Okay. Uh, Madame President, distinguished members of the board, thank you for allowing me to present the technology update to you all tonight. I do have a lot of information to share,
014so I thought it would be helpful just to break it up into different sections. Uh and so we'll start with network infrastructure and we'll do a quick overview of the -ate program um which is a lot of the the funding vessel of how we get a lot of those uh programs or um projects done and then we'll move into cyber security and student data privacy and then we'll touch on classroom technology and I do have an information item and an action item for the board in that section and then we will wrap up uh with summer plan. So I'll pause for questions at the end of each section but of course just stop me at any point and I'll be happy to answer anything you might have. Okay. So, you know, a lot of the
015projects that we do um when it comes to upgrading our network infrastructure, we're only really able to do them because we utilize the -ray program uh that that really funds most of those things. And so, I thought it would be ideal before we talk about the upgrades that we've done just to give the board a quick overview of that uh of that program. And so, it was established in 1996 by the telecommunication uh act. Um the goal of this program is to help school districts and libraries just gain access to um gain access to uh sorry guys gain access to enterprise network equipment um because that stuff's really really very expensive. So whenever we run a networks at this size um you know they can be upwards of $120 $150,000 for a router or something
016like that and so super super expensive and so um it's administered by USAC which stands uh for the universal service administrator company which has FCC oversight. Um so the way the program works is it provides discounts ranging from 20 all the way up to 90%. Um it is based off your free and reduced lunch numbers along with your enrollment numbers. And so um right now um what I have um come up with so this this this program works in a 5-year funding cycle. The first funding cycle started in 2020. Um it is ending this year and uh the next funding cycle starts this next fiscal year. And so with our with where we are with free and reduced lunch numbers and our enrollment, uh the discount that we would receive on all the equipment that
017we purchased is 85%. Which is tremendous. And so, um, you know, that leaves, uh, if we're buying $100,000 router or something along our firewall or something very expensive like that, uh, that leaves the district responsible for only 15% of that total cost. So, uh, the program works in 5-year funding cycles. Uh, next one starts in 2627. For every student that is enrolled, we have $167 that is awarded to the district. And so the the budget the the the math that I have it looks like that we will land for uh with right at a million dollars over the next five years to take care of this. And so um last update is something that they've started is a cyber security pilot program. And so um we plan to file an application in this coming fall
018so we can gain access to the resources as well. Can I answer any questions for about that? Okay. All right. So, um you know, this past year we were we only had around 86 or thousand or so. And so, these were the things that we were able to accomplish. And so, we installed a secondary firewall. Uh the purpose for this is just redundancy. And so, if our fire our primary firewall where our main internet connection uh were to fail, uh that is the connection for everybody in our district. And so, everybody would be down at that point. And so, this firewall is uh is redundant. If that were to happen, it fails over. when we tested it, it was less than 5 seconds. Uh, nobody would even know the difference. And we actually had a
019couple situations this year where that happened and and nobody even knew and we were able to operational continue to work and um, you know, learning in the classroom was not disrupted. The same thing with the one under that. Um, we installed a secondary wireless controller. Um, the wireless controller is what controls um, these white things hanging from the ceiling. Sorry, excuse me. Those are access points and that's what's emitting the Wi-Fi throughout all of our campuses and our buildings. And so if our wireless controller goes down, Wi-Fi goes down, students lose connection and disruption to the day. And so this is just redundant to that. Everything fell over, Wi-Fi stays up. Uh last thing we did is we upgraded our wide area network. And so um we took the fiber that is connected all of
020our campuses and is coming back here to our minute to our admin building. Uh we took that from a 10 gig, uh pipe to a 20 gig pipe. And so we just took uh size like this and just made it bigger. And so we can just put more data through that pipe and we can get um you know just information from point A to point B a lot more quicker. And so uh we what was the motivation to do this is because uh we are entering this new 5-year funding cycle. And so we know that we're going to have a lot of robust network projects in place. And so putting this backbone uh in our network now is um you know is would be a requirement for that. And so I also included a map.
021I thought it'd be interesting for the board to see how our fiber is physically laid throughout the town of course. So all of those green um routes is where the pipe is laid and all of that is running back here to the administration building. May I answer any questions about any of that? Good. All right. Well, moving into cyber security. So I uh I sound like a broken record with this, at least when it comes to when I talk to my team about it. Um, but it's the reality of the situation, especially with AI hitting the scene, uh, this the cyber threat against school districts has never been more um, it's never been bigger. It's always been uh, it's always been big, but especially the last couple years, it's it's been tough. So, because when
022these attack groups and hacker groups have now teamed up with an artificial intelligence, it makes them that much more efficient, that much more successful at actually gaining that unlawful access or executing that ransomware in that environment. And so, um, at on the flip side of that, you know, school districts do not still do not have the funding and the resources in place to have the adequate defenses to be able to make sure that we can secure our environment. And so, TEA has recognized that uh as an issue and has created the Texas K12 cyber security initiative. And so, of course, Kenna joined this initiative uh back in September of 24. And when we did that, we gained access to something called Crowd Strike EDR. And so all of this is is just a very advanced
023anti virus and we have this installed in our servers and we have it installed in all of our student I'm sorry all of our staff machines. Um the best part about this um anti virus is it's probably considered the number one in the world at stopping ransomware. Um but also all of the data that is pulling from our ver from our servers and our staff machines is being sent back to something called a uh security operation center. And um in that security operation center is a team of cyber security experts and analysts and they are watching CST data 24/7 365 looking for those abnormalities looking for those threats and they have the ability to take action on those threats. So you know if it's Saturday at 2 a.m. and there's something propagating in our network
024uh that team has the ability to stop it right in there versus us finding it, you know, at the end of the day or something like that. And um it's been great. Um it's actually already found a couple threats in our environment. so far this year and it stopped it. So, it's worked really well. Um cherry on top of that is because we've enjoyed this initiative, we did not have to renew our current anti virus and so uh that's going to save us 124,000 annually moving forward. Um this is a two-year initiative and all indicators are pointing positive uh that this will continue for another two years. And so as long as TEA is offering the support, of course, Cancer wants to be um a partner with them and we'll continue to do this. All
025right, moving into student data privacy agreements. So, uh of course, Kenna ISD, we also joined um a consortium called the student data privacy consortium or the SDPC for short. And so, uh, this is an organization that's geared towards just, um, strengthening the overall practices of securing student data privacy or just student data and staff data within K12 environments. And so, um, when we when we joined this, uh, this consortium, we gained access to something called the Texas National Data Privacy Agreement or the TXNDPA for short. And so this is a 23-page legal document that just uh that safeguards and puts protections around the sharing of our student and our staff data. And so to give you guys an example, um ultimately this document it mitigates the financial risk uh that comes with us sharing our
026student data with these third party vendors. So to give you guys an example, anytime that we um if we partner with a third party app, if it's a new CNI application, if it's something with special education, or even if it's a new software for uh you know, child nutrition, the way we check our students out at lunchtime, when we on board with those programs, we have to share all of our student data with them. And a lot of times that information includes what is considered PII or personally identifiable information. And so that's first names, last names, street addresses, social security numbers, um just very very sensitive info. And so without this document in place and if that third party were to have a data breach, we would be financially responsible for paying for credit monitoring
027by law uh for those students. So you know, that could be um that could be financially really hard on a district. The I did rough math on my side. if all 6,000 just under 6,000 of our students socials got exposed um you know that could cost whoever is responsible close to 2.1 million a year to to pay for that and I think that monitoring I believe has to continue for three years at that point and so uh this document is great and it it just removes that financial risk from CISD and puts that on the vendor completely and so the goal moving forward is to just share this agreement with all parties before we share our data with them. Um on top of that uh of the data breach cost reimbursement it gives us data
028control and ownership and so whenever we share data they cannot sell our data to anybody else and we also have control on how they delete it and get rid of it. Um it stops targeted advertising for students and so when a student's signed into their platform and using they cannot serve ads to those students as they're using their platform. And then of course just staying uh staying ahead of the curve. Right now this is not a requirement in Texas for eleas or Texas or school districts uh to have agreements like this in place. Um but we want to be a leader in the space and an example in the space and so we want to start doing this now. May I answer any questions around any of that? Any questions? No. Okay. Yep. All right.
029So this is so this is an information item for the board. So um you know over the last 5 years thinking back there has just been a tremendous amount of change in in school districts specifically in classrooms and the technology tools that are being used in those classrooms. Um, and so, um, you know, I did some digging when I started looking into this and I was trying to determine when was the last time that we had a discussion, um, you know, in a in a schoolboard meeting or as a even as a cabinet team where we were trying to define what are those minimum technology devices that we'll find in a CIT classroom. And so what I did find is it looks like this was the last talked about or established in 2013. And, you
030know, some time has passed and some things have changed since then. And so I thought it would be ideal to let's rightsize this for the future and something that we can reference as a district and as departments moving forward. And so on the left side what was established was one teacher desktop workstation uh a projector in every room, two student desktop workstations and a document camera in all the elementary campuses. And so moving forward on the right side is um the new classroom technology standard. So it'll be one teacher laptop workstation. And so when the teacher walks into the room at the teacher desk, they will have a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. But instead of a desktop set that's on the ground, they will have a uh a device on their desk called
031a docking station, and they can plug their laptop into it. And the only difference is they have the luxury of taking their laptop with them at the end of the day if they need to continue to work or something like that. Um instead of projector installs, we are installing um interactive flat panels, 65 and 75 inch panels. You guys have probably seen these in our classrooms. They connect back to our teacher workstation and the teacher can uh project to them. And then for grade levels prek and kinder, we're going to reduce the 1:1 framework in those classrooms down to a class set of five iPads each. Um and then oh same thing for first grade. We're going to reduce the 1:1 framework in those classrooms and reduce it down to a class set of 10
032iPads. And so, uh, this decision, uh, was a lot of collaboration with our department and CNI, um, us as a cabinet team, uh, bringing it to our principles, talking to them, getting their feedback, and the ultimate, um, goal here is just we want these students focused back with hands-on learning first before they get into those upper grade levels where a lot of their curriculum is driven through uh, technology. And so, we're really excited about that. We think it's going to be really impactful. May I answer any questions around any of that? I'm sorry. Lastly, uh for uh grades second through 12th, we'll have a full onetoone framework with dedicated to uh devices for those students in those classes. I'm happy to answer any questions you guys might have. All right. Okay. So, moving into I
033believe the action item on the agenda. So, this is an action item for the board. So, uh, Madame President, Mrs. House, distinguish me of the board, thank you for allowing me to present present this action item to you tonight. Uh, this action item is to establish a student device replacement cycle, uh, Chromebook 4-year lease. And so, you know, back in March of 2020, uh, CO started, you know, everybody knows this, and businesses, schools started shutting down very quickly. And I will never forget that weekend when we were up here as an administrative team. Um and you know the the talk it sounded like that we were we needed to gear up to get ready to support kids at home and teachers. And so I remember uh running that inventory report and at that time we
034only had 3,000 devices as a district uh with 6,000 kids and you know the 400 teachers that we also needed to provide a device to as well. And so fast forward some months, ESR 1, SR 2, uh the emergency connectivity fund became available. And the idea behind those funds was to help catapult the school districts into those 1:1 frameworks to support um to support all of the the remote learning that was happening for a couple years. And it was an interesting two years. Absolutely. For sure. So, uh now in 2025, these devices are five and 6 years old. Uh the internal components are failing rapidly. um battery life on these things are are not uh ideal for classroom situations and you know it's just the name of the game when it comes to computers and
035PCs. There's moving parts inside and they fell and uh and of course we fix them as quick as we can. Um but ultimately uh it's become just an investment that's going to we'll have to continue to invest in. And so um all of our current student laptop fleet are Dell modeled computers and across all the different models in that laptop fleet, they are considered end of life and end of support from Dell. So that means Dell will no longer send us hardware updates or software updates for these machines. And on the flip side, that means cyber security risk goes up because we cannot mitigate the risk around uh the vulnerabilities that would be associated with both of those things. Um, so in order uh in order for our students to at to stay at the
036forefront of technology and to ensure that we always have up-to-date inworking condition devices, I propose I propose that the district establish a student device replacement cycle that effectively replaces all student devices from 2 to 12th grade every four years by the process of lease. This project would be executed with district long-term partner insight financial investment. I've highlighted some uh some some just key areas on the right of the slide here. So, by us entering this lease, we'll be able to establish probably most importantly, you know, we'll have a game plan to refresh these devices just moving forward and ensuring we've always got uh new technology for our students and up-to-date technology for our students. Uh the annual lease payment for this uh for this lease is budgeted every year. um you know devices current devices
037are in dire shape. Refresh is grades second through 12th. Um you know star testing is all online and is is mandatory. So having devices to support that and then of course just avoiding the significant upfront cost of purchasing this equipment outright which was uh right at $2.2 million. And so and then ultimately you know we have a game plan. It creates a path for sustainable device refreshes. Plus, uh, you know, the best part is we can we have a predictable budget here, especially in the, uh, the hardships that we're facing, all school districts we're facing in Texas. Um, you know, that's a big piece in what we do here. And, um, so it's nice to have that budgeted and just getting planned. Um, so I am happy to answer any questions. This is an action
038item for you guys and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Oh, sorry. Can you tell them um what you're going to do with the our old devices? Yes. So, um, we sent all with our current laptops, we sent the cereals to a bunch of buyback recycling companies, and they came back with prices of 5,10 and $15 each, which is wild. That's crazy. So, I we feel better as a district if we were to just wipe them clean, take them back to factory, and maybe we just sell them back to our seniors for, you know, 30 bucks, something like that. And at least they have some sort of device that can get them through whatever endeavor they're going into at that point. And so, um, and maybe we even offer like a year
039free of tech support or something like that for them. And so, um, yeah, you know, we would just get more benefit like that. And of course, we'll probably recycle some of them, but if we can sell them back to our students, that would be our main goal. How many devices um are we looking at in in when we do, you know, get new devices? How many? Yes, ma'am. So, it's going to be 6,143 Dell Chromebooks. Okay. model number uh 3110. And what's the advantage of a Chromebook over a Windows machine? Yes, sir. So, a Windows machine when we what we have now when we purchase those, those are around $800 a piece. And from a Chromebook perspective, those are around $329. So, so just overall uh cost is going to be, you know, we we
040we save a lot of money there. Um, even when it comes to replacement parts, a Chromebook screens around $25 versus we've been paying close to 60 for Windows machines. Um, and then you know a lot of the resources that we require for our students to connect to, they are online resources. And so a Windows machine is made to run applications that's on board to the computer and a Chromebook's meant to connect to the internet and connect to that online resource. So it's it's it's cheap, it's lightweight, it's easily fixable and u and it connects them directly what we need them what we need them to do. Any other questions? All right. This is an action item. Madam President, I move that we approve the lease renewal of the student device replacement cycle as presented. Second.
041We have a motion and a second to approve the lease renewal of student device replacement cycle as presented. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Thanks so much. And I have one more slide for you guys. I'm going to wrap this thing up unless someone else stock up. Okay. So, uh just our 25 plan our summer 25 26 summer plans just to wrap everything up. So, uh big project Chromebook implementation. We'll our team will go to each campus, take out the old equipment, install the new Chromebooks. Um, we'll do campus inventory audit reports. So, we'll show up with an inventory report of what's supposed to be on that campus and then we will go and check and make sure it is in fact on that campus and then we'll make the adjustments to
042the report as needed. Um, we'll prepare the older laptops to sell back to our students. Uh, we'll stand up some sort of online form and a process for them to do that. Um, and this part I'm excited to tell you guys about. And so, all of our team is going to become Dell Tech Direct certified. And so these new machines will have a warranty associated with them. Um, and because our team will now be Dell certified technicians, anytime we have to replace a screen or a keyboard, Dell will actually pay us for doing that work. And so if we if we swap a screen or a keyboard, that's $10. Um, and for anything that is more uh difficult to replace, like a motherboard, something internal, they will pay us $50. So I'm very excited about
043that because we're swapping parts all day. And so uh we order the part directly from Dell. They overnight it to us. will have it that next day and back in the classroom, back in the students hands. So, all right. Thank you guys. That's all I have. I appreciate Thank you. I I was going to ask why we're we weren't going one to one on the iPads, but I love our reasoning behind it because I think our little ones are on a phone or device way too much. Yes, ma'am. And we're starting to see the impact of that and our prek and kinder kids and and their ability to socialize and talk and communicate. So, I love that. Yes, ma'am. That's uh that's definitely our perspective and we're hoping we're excited to see the results of
044that in a couple years. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh next is the alongside update. Follow that. That was informative. My slides aren't nearly as cool. Okay. Okay. All right. So I will tell you that as a C oh well madame president miss how distinguished board members uh thank you for letting for letting um special programs come and and present this. I will say that as a cabinet and talking with our superintendent things like that. We love to tell y'all the really awesome things, the things that are really cool and great and innovative because we do have really cool and great and innovative things that our students do every single day. But we also believe that we have to know where we are to know where we're going, right? So, if
045we're going to dare to be different, then we've got to know where we're at so that we can make change. Um so what we're going to kind of talk about a little bit is some data points from our older kiddos and then some things that we considered with our younger kiddos um based on need that we're seeing in our district. Okay. Okay. So um if you remember um in this during the fall we presented about Alongside um that was that innovative um it's that IT bot that works with our kiddos. They can chat but they also have character lessons. It's an app that they have on their phones. We did it from Collins to the high school. It's 24/7. If we're on Christmas break, it doesn't matter. Kiddos have access to it. Our teachers also
046have access to it. And they actually just created a an educator account that is specific to teacher burnout, teacher struggle, mental health of teachers. So, it's really cool. But what another thing that was really neat about our partnership with them was that because they are gathering data right now, we got to be a research partner for them. Um so we had at the beginning we had our students take a survey. That survey was based on norm referenced um assessment tools. So they were you know nationwise nationwide reference um assessments um so we could get some really good data points back so that in a couple months we'll test again to see if it was an effective product essentially. Right? But what it also gives us is a really good picture of where our kids are
047at right now. Okay. So again, I'm going to say that some of the data is not rainbows and sunshine and awesome, but it does let us know where we can go. And because we are pretty solution oriented, right? We already have one. We're going to tell you about it. So, okay. So, we had um 870 English surveys, 14 Spanish surveys, okay? Because it does match your your home language um across our three campuses. So, Collins, the high school, and the middle school. Okay? So when looking at emotional concerns, okay, those emotional challenges, this these referenced questions, typical typical norm, okay, what you want to see is about 80% in the normal range. You want to see about 10% borderline and 10% abnormal. That means that we would be matching kind of the national average. Okay.
048an emotional challenge. That's that's kiddos answering questions like um I'm scared to come I'm scared to come to school somewhat not at all and then answering those questions. Okay. Um but it's testing emotional well-being like anxiety, sadness, fear, those responses like I get a stomach ache every time I come to school or I'm telling my mom I don't want to be here. Those type of responses. So what you will see is our kiddos we have 67% in that normal range. We have 12% in our borderline and 21% in our abnormal. So our abnormal is higher than we would want it to be. Okay. So, so right then we go, okay, so our kids are a little bit nervous. We got to figure out what's going on. Now, simple reality is is safety and security is
049number one on everybody's mind right now. um student services and chief work every single day, always on campuses, always being present every single day to make sure that our kiddos are are safe. But now we've got to create that feeling of being safe. Uh peer relationships. So that is, hey, I can make friends, I can sustain relationships, I can handle kind of those normal things happening. Again, we would want to see 80 10. So we have 63, 26 in borderline, and 11 in abnormal. So while we don't have that extreme in the abnormal, our borderline kiddos. So what it tells us is, hey, I'm kind of on a tight rope. Like I can handle it, but I'm really not quite sure. But I can make friends, but I don't know about dealing with hard stuff
050with friends. So it lets us again know, okay, so I've got this feeling, but now this is how I'm connecting to others. Conduct concerns. Okay, this is kind of where on the education side that discipline comes in, discipline referrals. Um, so this is how do I feel about following rules at school? How do I feel about being maybe obedient or disobedient? Um, maybe it's that I can't really regulate when I'm mad and so when my teacher says something and I have something to say right back. Okay. Um, so again, we're looking for that 801010, but we have 68 1319. Okay. So again, we're kind of ticking up into those areas of okay, so if I'm looking at I don't really feel real real safe all the time and then my peer relationships are affected and
051now my conduct is is a concern which again makes sense, right? Like if we're looking at those hierarchy of needs and what I need to feel safe and good, but I don't here I am. Okay, so our pro-social behaviors um again you're looking that eight 80 1010. This one is by far uh we're very normed there. Okay. So, that's awesome. And that's in that we believe in those positive good positive social behaviors like kindness and empathy, working as a team, cooperating, which lets us know our kids know they're good kids and they are and they want to be a part and they want to do, but they've got some things going right now that's that are making them kind of feel a certain way. Okay. So, but that's great. That's that's our first one to
052go. Okay, what do we work with? There it is. We want to treat each other well. We know each other has value. We have worth. We're connecting with each other. So that's awesome. Okay. So this is academic. So this is when I feel like I have the ability to understand tasks. I can get my work done. I can do all the things that this that a teacher or an educator is asking of me. What we would want to see is not a bell curve. What we would want to see is the sl I'm going to try to backwards. So would be your slope starting low, ticking up a little bit, and then ending really high. Okay, that's that's perfect world. Okay, that that does not mean that's reality. It means perfect world. That's what you
053would want to see. But you can see that our kiddos are kind of hanging in the middle, which means a good amount of our kiddos have a good feeling within within that scope or I feel like I can manage it. I don't feel like I'm good at it, but I I can manage it. I'm okay, but I'm not like knocking this out, right? When we know that our kids have the potential to knock it out, right? So, and then emotional regulation, which I will tell you that this is what we are seeing the most. Um, Miss Roman just mentioned about the screen time and that we're seeing it in our little bitties, our prek and kinder. U, this is where we struggle, okay, regulating emotion. But again, this is our bigs. This is this is
054our secondary kiddos answering these questions. So on this one, irregulating emotions like I am frustrated, I am mad, I'm angry, um I have anxiety or I'm anxious towards task um or maybe even just relationships and friendships. So again, you can kind of see we would want it to go up really high on that high and we're kind of hanging in the middle like I can hang but I don't know how long I'm going to hang is kind of how our students are are thinking how they feel about themselves right now. Okay. Now, I'm going to tell you, again, these are not my favorite questions. Um, they kind of broke my heart a little bit, but again, it that's not relevant, right? We have to know where we are so we can know where to go,
055where we need to focus our energy to make sure our kiddos feel connected, feel safe. So, they had two answer choices on this question, yes and no. The rest of the questions were very much kind of a scale. They could say absolutely, of course, all the way to no way. Right? they could pick and they could pick in between. This was just yes or no. So they had to make a choice. So the first one was do you have a teacher or other adult from school where you can be completely or who you can be completely yourself around? And 31% of our kids said no. So that's concern. Okay. And then the second was well do you have a friend at school who you can completely be yourself around? 13% said no. There's there's good
056in that. Like I mean 87% saying I've got a bud is a great thing, but we have to we have to reach that 13%. Okay. And then the next one was, "Do you have a teacher or other adult from school you can count on to help you no matter what?" And 24% of our kids, so a quarter of our kids said no. The reality is is that our kiddos live in poverty every single day. A large number of them. They don't have these connections. That's a typical characteristic of of poverty because parents are working or they're out of the home. Um, and our kids are living that reality every day. So, if I then come to school and I don't have that connection of who I can count on because I already probably am a
057little bit guarded, we've got to make a change. We have to fix it, right? So, for a quarter of our kids, that's a big that's a big number. Um, and then or do you have a friend that you can count on? So that one stayed about the same as that relationship. So about 13% said no. So again, we look to okay, we've got this piece of data that says our kids are struggling a little bit, which we knew, right? We've talked about the mental health of our students in depth this year. Um we've had significant overhauls in a lot of programs. We're a big ship. We turned slow, right? But we're but we're turning. And so now we're looking at this data point and we go, okay, well then what do we do? And then
058we have, you know, chief and student services working on committees because of our things that are happening within our community. Okay, we've got to get together. Let's figure this out. So, Miss How uh cabinet members were able to come together and say, "Okay, what do we do, guys? What do we bring in?" We looked at all different all kinds of different things. Our students attendance, which we knew we started attend this year. um student achievement, so CNI, looking at how they're achieving in the classroom because we know if a kiddo doesn't feel safe and comfortable and all those things, then I'm not going to learn, right? So, uh special education referrals, that's a big deal, right? Because when I start to maybe have behaviors or I do feel this way, then gaps start happening in
059my achievement and then all of a sudden I have gaps and now I'm being referred potentially for special education when in reality I just had a gap that wasn't addressed. So now we're evaluating and we have more special ed staff and all of these things, right? Safety and security coming in. What what did our comm what does our community look like? Um we have a large number of our kids right now that are getting in trouble with gun violence outside of school. Okay, let's bring that. So what's that data point? There's that one. Student behavior and discipline. What are while we have a significant reduction in discipline referral specifically at the middle school this year uh in the year past still it's high. What do we do? What do we do? So our answer to
060that and this is kind of what we really want to let you know so that this is the hey we know where we're at. So where are we going is capturing kids hearts. If you're familiar with the program then you know it kind of it sells itself but if you're not we want to talk about it just really quickly. Um and like I said I know it's a lot of information but I but this is the good part right like this is the solution. So this is what we need to focus on. So it is training, coaching, but it is for the adults. So a lot of times when there's a problem, it's really easy to go, "Oh, that kid needs to do this or this kid needs to do that." When in reality, we
061are the adults in the room and we are fostering that culture and we are the ones creating those things. So capturing kids hearts comes in, trains all of our teachers. The goal eventually will be that literally everyone in our district is trained from bus drivers to custodians to board members come on board, you know, but it's that we're all speaking the same language. And so when they go from one elementary, let's say my family's kind of naturally transient, right? Like so I I went to Buoie but then we moved and now I'm at Navaro and then we moved again and so now I'm at Carol and then I actually left the district for a year and then when I came back I was in the middle school you know which happens our that happens with
062our kids. So but if we're all speaking the same language and the classrooms are operating within these connections then I already have that connection. I already feel like I belong. I know expectations, right? And so much of it is creating the relationship with kiddos and that's the key to all of it. And so this whole program is built around a relation driven a relationship driven culture that if I connect with you on a base level like we know where we're at. So when there is a moment where we disagree or maybe you are having a bad day when I ask you to do something, we already have that relationship. So, I'm gonna say, "Kathy, hey, you know, I don't talk to you like that. Why are you talking to me like that? Oh, you you're
063right, miss. You know, okay. Okay, I'll talk to you later." Okay, good deal. And we're back teaching instead of going to the office and then I'm at the office over and over and then I have persistent misbehavior and then I'm at DAP. We're not doing that because we've got a relationship. Is it perfect world all the time? No. But it's a system in place for when it's not perfect world, right? because it's built into the system all the way into discipline too. If I get a referral, well then I'm going and answering some questions. Hey, what were you doing? What were you supposed to be doing? Were you doing it? You weren't doing it. You're going to we're going to fix it. Yes, sir. All right, let's get back to class because it's about them
064being there and learning and not just saying that I'm in trouble all the time. Right. So, this this very much facilitates it. is incredibly transformative and we will we are rolling it out to every single campus which I will tell you that not every district is able to do that because it is an investment. Um but Miss How cabinet members feel like we've got to address those data points. We've got to make sure our kids feel like they are loved and that they belong because they are loved and they do belong. And so we've got to facilitate that that feeling and that connection and across the board. So So prek all the way to our seniors. I'm going to tell you, out of secondary, it's going to take a minute, okay? High school is a
065different ball game, but it will be there and we will keep working it. So, um you can see just in that shared language, a shared vision that says daring to be different, but the different looks like you got cut off. So, outside of the just our kids need this, they need to know they are worth it. They need to know that we care about them, that we love them. um and creating that that culture. What we also know is that Capturing Kids Hearts is incredibly researchbased. It has been around for years. Um I think they're on their 30thish 32 year. With that becomes comes a lot of data points which is awesome. I like I like the data points in my analytical brain. Right. And so what we know is we we will see decrease
066in discipline referrals. We will see increase in student attendance which both of those equal increase in academic which means our graduation rates increase which all of that together means that we're addressing teacher satisfaction as well because when I'm walking into my classroom and we're going and we've got good systems and I get to see light bulbs and kids are testing well, hey, I want to be there. That's that's where I want to stay. So even though we are addressing a huge need in our district with that student relationship piece, we are also addressing a lot of other pieces. So any questions about the the program? My my thing I I love it. I think it's um amazing. Um, are you able, you might have already said this, to identify those students that was in the
067So, so it's a great question. Um, so a lot of the student data because it was a it's a research a true research project, they're essent essentially like redacted. Um, so we can't identify the specific student that said that. Um, one thing they are getting us is by campus so that we can focus some good social emotional strategies there. Um, but obviously our our students use alongside often, specifically Collins. We have really high numbers there, how many lessons they're doing, how often they're on it, how often they're chatting. Um, so resources are kind of focused there, but kind of what we've seen from those, like I said, those data points that we just grabbed that were in those circle bubbles and then that information from our secondary, really what we saw was systemically this is
068a struggle for our kids. So from our preK kiddos that are really struggling with emotional regulation right now. Um, so and it's like it used to be defiance looked like right well now it looks like I'm gonna bite you. I'm gonna grab something. It's just has changed. The world has changed. Um, and so we've got to be proactive in that tier one everybody intervention um all the way up to our secondary. So, while I wish we could have specific students, um, what I will say another another point to the program that we're doing is called traction vis visits. Um, and so that's we we will have strategists for each campus through through capturing kids hearts. And so they will be able to identify like, hey, this campus is rocking and rolling. This campus needs a
069little bit more help. We're going to focus some efforts here so that we can find kind of like that those those hot points that we're able to address them. And and one of the reasons why I was saying it because later on you were saying how the um that the later part of the program was for the adults as well, the teachers, this and that. Is there a way that you can uh because you you know we recognize that yes, they they're coming from a poverty state and all that, but that's back at home. Sure. Is there a way to integrate the parents to even at least get them involved to see that look, we really care for your children, but we also care for you? Yeah. To see if you care enough for your,
070you know, you get what I'm saying? And so, is there a way that that we're integrating them or that they can be brought in to to make the connection from the district and the community? Yes. So, I will say that really that's kind of twofold. One is that they they offer some parent training style stuff, some parent night style things. Um, which are which is great, but if we can't get parents to come, then that that's tough. Um, the second thing is the biggest piece is probably in that shared language. Um, so all of our events, all all everything we're doing as far as parent engagement, that's the language that we're we're using and talking with. And so you can kind of make those those connections. So like for example, I think it in like
071when we have family matters events which is where we have it kind of covers a lot of different things. Um family collaboration and connection was I think the last one. Well, we're able to kind of talk about those things like those strategies of what that relationship looks like, how it looks in the classroom. So part of it is without just getting kind of into the weeds, part of it is is a social contract which essentially is like we're talking about at the very beginning, first week of school, first week before the first week and a half of school, we're talking about how do you want to be treated by me as a teacher. How do how do you think I would want to be treated by you? What are some shared norms in our classroom?
072Typically, you're going to get, well, I mean, I want you to treat me with respect, you know, I want you to yell at me, you know, stuff like that. So you're having those conversations. If we're doing the same things in our family matters meeting, right, we have, hey, these are our norms. This is how we connect. Then they're automatically going to start bridging that together. Um, some of it is just integrating those things in everything that we do on all of our campuses. So, it is just who we are and and amping up parent engagement stuff. And you know, I mean, that's just reality of it, too. You know, we need more things with our parents. When uh when was the original survey sent out to the students? So they did that this fall. This
073fall and they're going to be receive another survey before the end of the school year so we can so May see they will we're trying to get past STAR and all the good testing stuff. Um and then and basically they did it as a like hey we want to see if our program works. We did it as hey we need to see progress in our kids you know. But yes so in May they will the same individuals will test again. Their system will automate that. So, one day they'll log on, but they'll see a survey before they can get in again and it will create the data points. Okay, awesome. Any questions? Any other questions, Mr. Minkens? No, it's good stuff. It is. It is. It is. It is. All right. Great job. Thank you.
074Thank you. All right. Next item is the 2025 2026 TI certification. Okay. Uh good evening Miss How, President Roman, members of the board. I have the certification of provisional of provision of instructional materials for the 2526 school year for ratification and signature. So in accordance with Texas Education Code 31.1011, 10-11 eleas must annually certify that all students have access to instructional materials that cover 100% of the TEICSS and that we protect against obscene or harmful content in compliance with the Children's Internet Protection Act. Um so within this document all of the instruction materials except for one area are the same as they were this year. So the only change that we're making that will obviously need the approval on is what we talked about in a previous board uh meeting back in February. Um, for
075K5, we are using the Texas Blue Bonnet Learning as our full subject material for phonics and ELA. And then also, um, in order to maintain coherent coherence between our English language arts and our Spanish language arts, we are also requesting to use the Spanish Blue Bonnet pilot for this coming school year. So, those are two separate curriculums. One is fully ready to go and one of them is in the pilot stage. Um, but we feel like that would be best for our Spanish classrooms to be getting the same curriculum that the English classrooms are getting. Um, that decision was basically made by a committee that met in the fall. They were all trained on researchbased instructional strategies. And then from that training, we made a framework for RLA curricula instruction in the district. And then
076we chose the Blue Bonnet curriculum because it aligned with our beliefs and values of what we believe is high quality reading instruction. Does anybody have any questions about that? So the curriculum, any curriculum we use is approved by the Texas Education Agency. Correct. Um not always. No. So the blue bonnet is So they have a new um rubric that they're using. So it used to be SBOE, state board of education approval. Okay. Okay. Now, it's EMRA, instructional materials review and assessment, I think is what that stands for. And so, the new rubric this year only has a small handful of um approved materials on it. Now, you can still use things that are not on there, but all of those companies are now starting to create new packages of products. So, they can present so
077they can be on that EMRA that IMRA list. Okay. They are CPAP. Yes. Sorry, that's I misread the question. Yeah. Yeah. No, I just uh that's a you know a big concern um for people across the state is you know the curriculum and for sure um I don't think they all realize that TEA regulates the curriculum and you know what we can and cannot teach. So, right. Okay. This is an action item. I'll move that we approve the 202526 certification as presented. I have a motion and a second to approve the 2025 2026 TI certification as presented. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. Thank you. All right. Um, next is the consent agenda. Make a motion to be approved the consent agenda. All right, I have a motion. We have a motion, a second
078to accept the consent agenda as presented. All in favor? Any opposed? All right, consent agenda is approved. Now, we are going to move into close session as permitted by Texas Governance Code section 551.01. 01. Thank you.