001a teacher, staff member, and community member. All of these things we ask in your son Jesus name. Amen. See colors. Christian arms for the arms pledges. And now for the US pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Now for the Texas pledge. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge algiance to thee, Texas. One state, one indivisible. Thank you. Seated open the floor for um board remarks. Anybody has anything to share? Share. Um we hosted at Bear Station Community Center. We hosted a we we're piling piling team this but we hosted a um our very first prom send off and it was a huge success. Um a lot of the parents contacted
002us and asked could we use the facility for prom sendoff. So, we had around 15 uh to 20 of the Crosby ISD high school students come to the center. It was nicely decorated. They had food, had a DJ. Um they introduced each uh couple as they walked down the red carpet and they modeled. It was so nice. It was really nice. So, I think we've started something and it will probably be an annual event, but we really enjoyed I'll make a quick one. I know there's not a lot of people here tonight, but for those of you online, we just had the scholarship award. I just want to say thank you to everyone in the community who uh who steps up and financially supports these uh these students who are embarking on another journey in
003their life pursue higher education, some going into the military. And I I I really love the support um of community in any way that that school district can get it, but to financially stand up and support the kids. Thank y'all for doing that. Anybody else? Okay. Moving on. We will um move on to hearing hearing of the citizen of citizens. At this time in accordance with BE local, the board will provide an audience of individuals who have signed up to address the board. Tonight we have one request to comment in person. Audrey Anderson, the board clerk, will serve as our timekeeper. And for those requesting to speak, the timer will also be visible on the screen. Public comments is in person only. Anyone wishing to speak in person at the board meeting must register five
004minutes prior to the start of the board meeting with the board clerk and or signup sheet. Citizen participation is limited to the hearing of citizens portion of the agenda. The board is not allowed to respond to comments pertaining to items not included on the agenda unless the response is limited to specific factual information or reciting existing policy in response to the inquiry. Each citizen is li limited to three minutes to speak. And I will call up Mr. Alex Baldwin. Good evening, board of trustees. I first want to just say thank you for allowing me the opportunity to come before you tonight and speak. I just want to speak what's on my heart and what's on my mind. You know, we've seen a lot of good, exceptional educators leave and take their skills, their talents, their
005gifts, their abilities, their ideas to other districts. And now we have another one, my wife. As you all know, Miss Bowwin has put in her resignation. And it hurt her to do it. It hurt me that she had to do it. because I saw the time and the effort that she put in to make this district successful in the area that she was over and to make the kids successful that she was trying to steer in the right direction. So, it's not just going to hurt us, it's going to hurt the community, it's going to hurt the district. So, my my question and and I understand you can answer a question and I'm not asking you to. I just want you to ponder on the question. When are we going to say that enough is
006enough? And one too many will truly be one too many because we're losing too many good educators in this district in the district is hurting. So I really would hope that you would ponder that question. Thank you. Okay, moving on to reports. The TEA interior audit Mr. Mitchell. Good afternoon, Dr. Patterson and board of trustees. I'm here again this month to present on our TEA door audit. On last Wednesday, we had our final TA D audit and I am happy to report there were no findings in the district has now completed with 100% success rate. So, any questions? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next is our construction update Johnson. Good evening, board of trustees. Dr. Passion, thank you for having me. Well, before our question desk gets started, I want to acknowledge show appreciation
007to education foundation. They put an amazing event on for the uh our top graduates. I think two Friday two Friday nights ago. Uh it was a great event. Uh Crosby ISD and the community should be very proud of those young ladies and young men that are graduating with those top honors. It was it was a good event and to see some of the teachers how they affect the teachers affected these students. It was it was how Lisa affected the some of the uh one of the students. It it was it was it was a great experience. I would like to say something to the young men in Crosby ISD. There was only three of them there. Let's let's get back to back to those books. I think it's 23 and three men and all the
008rest are young females. So, you know, let's hope next year when I get invited again next year, might we might have four or five. So, I'll be looking forward to that next next year. All right. C construction update. Crosby High School edition. We're still on schedule substantial completion in November. So everything's moving along. Tonight we'll look at the building A, building B, and then the long large group construction. First up, we have the building A. This is the classroom additions, exterior of the classroom edition. Uh all the bricks up. They're starting to uh do some of the fine grading around the site. They've uh continued to put up the metal panels along the south side of the building. They've also poured the canopies for the entryways. And once school ends, they'll start installing the sidewalks
009and the canopies that go along that edge, along that walkway right there. We're going to add a whole new canopy for all the bus uh students that ride the bus right there. So, that'll be I I I feel that's going to be greatly appreciated by all teachers and students. Moving to the inside, you kind of see some of those finishes coming in. You see storefront on the right hand side. That's into the admin area. One of the one of the two admin areas on the left hand side. You can see the restroom tiles on the restroom fixtures are being installed. Well, currently we're at a not a standstill, but they're finishing up some of the final items above ceiling. Some of the mechanical, electrical, plumbing items. Uh once those items are complete, the contractor will
010come in and drop the ceiling grid and that will allow us to start moving on to put the flooring down and uh the final painting in the classroom wing classrooms and the corridors. Moving on to the building B, the CT edition. Kind of the same thing for the classroom. They're just finishing up a few of the final items to get completed above ceiling. Once those items are completed, they'll drop the ceiling in and then complete the floor and do the final painting in the classroom. On the left hand side, that's uh one of the labs they were doing. It's called it's like drop paint. So, you have to you paint in there, but it drops and when it after it gets sprayed, it comes into like a fine dust and so you can clean it
011up easy as they uh paint the ceiling. Another note for here is that we I believe on the board agenda tonight we have the CTE equipment and uh it's the majority of the major CTE equipment on the agenda tonight and just want to make sure you all know that there's no we don't foresee any issues with lead times or uh increase for impacts because of tariffs or anything like that. So we're we're we're good good as of today as of right now. And then we also have the Crosby High School edition, the LGI that that space has pretty much been in the same space spot for probably about two three weeks. They're waiting for the contractor that's going to do the flooring to uh mobilize. And when he mobilizes for the classroom addition, he'll come
012in here and do the flooring in the LGI. And if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer. Thank you. And then our budget workshop by M. [Music] All right. Good evening, board of trustees, Dr. Patterson, cabinet, and guest. Tonight will be our first look at the planning process for the 2025 2026 fiscal year. We will review the budget calendar, district trends, property values, budget development, and we'll wrap it up with compensation and staffing. Our first exit tonight is going to be budget calendar. The budget calendar lists target dates for various activities and steps in the process. And I've taken the liberty to add green check marks of where we are so far. So March 31st, we actually completed the budget training for campus and department staff. We opened up Skyward budget entry to
013campuses and departments. April 25th was the budget entry deadline. April 30th, we received the certified estimated property values from Harris Central Appraisal District. We're going to go into further detail in that in a moment. May 19th, here we are tonight. We'll touch on a couple other areas. Tomorrow night on May 20th and then June 16th will be the board meeting where we hold the public hearing and the budget adoption. Right now I do have to be decided for the board meeting for compensation schedules. We'll touch on that a little bit more tomorrow evening about the legislature and and um possible pending action that they will have that affects that. And then on August 30th, we'll receive the certified appraisal rule from Harris Central Appraisal District. And then September 15th, we are um tenatively planning to
014adopt an order approving the property tax rule for 2526. And it really just all depends upon what meeting that gets placed on as to when it's actually received. And so we just have to do it within um a certain amount of time. And then we'll also adopt the 2025 tax rate for fiscal year 2526. And that is all tenative at this point with the information that we know today. Our next exit is going to be district trends and these are being presented to review past and present data and to provide a look at possible future projections. This first district trend will be enrollment on snapshot day, which is the last Friday in October. And I do want to mention that this will probably be the last budget workshop where we actually go back and pick
015up 2017 2018. So I think I'm just going to go ahead and drop off about four or five years, but I did go ahead and include it this one last time because the charts are getting so wide that they're almost not meaningful at some point. And then as we work through these charts tonight, you'll see where some of them there's years that just stand out and they're really not comparable anymore. And so we have about four years now that they're it's more comparable. And so we just drop off those old years and focus in just on the most recent. But once again, this particular chart is enrollment as of snapshot date. And so that is snapshot day in the last Friday in October of every year. And so you'll see the history from 201718 all
016the way through to the far right green column which is the current year 2425. And so you'll see that we have increased from 6,154 students in 1718 up to 7,046 students in the current year 2425. I would like to point out that that is an increase of 892 students over that 8-year period. The last green bar again is the current fiscal year and so that was snapshot date last October. Enrollment was the 7,046 and the growth from the previous October to October of 2024 we grew by 178 students and that is a 2.9 2.59% increase. And then the yellow bar on the right um as usual I have colorcoded so green or actual meaning good and then yellow is where caution uh because it's just an estimate it's a projection and so the projection for
017next uh for October of 2025 enrollment will be um 7,315. Moving on to the next chart we're going to add on just an additional layer. So the green and the yellow columns are the same information. Nothing has changed. That's enrollment on snapshot. All I did was add in the layer. So it's the the white line that's going across the top. That is enrollment comparison as of the last day. And you'll see that there are two numbers that have a yellow box around them. And that is because we're still a couple of days away from the last day of school for the current fiscal year. So that's the reason why both of those are yellow. We know snapshot because that happened last October, but we just don't know where we're going to be next Thursday. And
018so I am projecting that we will be at 7,04. I had initially projected that we would be at 7,100, but um I'm not overly concerned that we didn't meet the 7100 because as you can see, if you look at each of the green columns and you look at where the dots fall within it. So for example, let's look at 2223. Enrollment was 6717 on snapshot date and then we ended at 6700. So we ended slightly less than. But if you look at each one of those columns, it's almost as if every other year has been we ended less than enrollment and then the next year we end in you know over uh snapshot date, right? The last day is higher than what it was on snapshot. And so it's just interesting that almost every other
019year there seems to be trends here. So I'm not overly concerned that we didn't meet the 7100 because the I think the kids are still coming. So um if you look again on the right hand side snapshot was 7315 and I am estimating that we'll end at 7350 and that would be uh May of 2026. This next chart is average daily attendance and so that is the average number of students who attend school during the year. The previous slide was enrollment. The major difference between enrollment and ADA is we must staff and provide educational space, furniture and devices for all students enrolled. But Crosby ISD is primarily paid based on ADA, which is the average number who attend. And so for 2425, the current current fiscal year, the projection for ADA is 6,353. So that's
020um the second one from the right that is has a yellow box around it because we haven't completed the year. And the projection for ADA in 2526 is going to be 6,479 students. The previous slide was average daily attendance in student count. And this slide is the percentage of the students who attend. So from 1718 to 2122, the district experience, as you can tell from this chart, it's all it's basically all over the place. So this is one of the examples why some of the older years maybe the 1718 through 2122 are no longer really useful information at this point because they don't compare to any of the other years. And so that might be one of the reasons why we just just limit to the last four years moving forward. But we've seen that
021there was a high of 96.52 in 2021 down to a low of nine 91.9 in 2122. But the most recent years have all hovered right there around the 93%. So the projection for 2526 will remain at the 93%. Next up on our review of district trends is a look at tax rates over the last few years. The green portion which is the bottom portion of each of the columns is maintenance and operation and that is what provides funding for the general fund. The blue portion of each column is the interest and syncing portion of the tax rate and that provides funding for our debt service fund and repayment of our bonded debt. We also have the yellow line that is that kind of skims across the top of each and that is just where it's
022the to basically the total tax rate um overall. And so between the years of 201718 to current the tax rate has decreased by 4348. And oftentimes we do hear and especially board you're probably hearing that outside of here is that the district didn't lower that rate. That's correct. It's tax compression. Tax compression is what lowered that rate. All but two cents worth. Two cents. You'll see in 1718 the INS rate was 50 cents and we've been at 48 um ever since. And so we did lower it two cents, but the rest of that has all been through tax compression. And so that is um a correct statement. TEA does provide districts with what is called a maximum compressed tax rate that a district can adopt based on the local and the statewide property value. This
023rate has not been released as of today. So no projection has been included for a tax rate for 2526. Now we're going to move over to fund balance. The final slide on the path to reviewing the district trends is fund balance. Unassigned fund balance is one of five components of fund balance. The district has recovered from a $2.5 million deficit to a positive of 28.9 million in 2324. So the unassigned fund balance at the end of last fiscal year June 30th provides for 163 days which is greater than 90 days recommended by TEA and 75 days the district is scored on via schools first which is the financial integrity rating system of Texas. I'm now going to move on to a review of property values. Harris Central Appraisal District appraises and values the property located
024within Crosby ISD. The property values for Crosby ISD have continued to increase over the years. So, as you can see, in 2021, we were at 2.3 billion. For 2122, it went up to almost 2.5 billion. 2223 was 2.8 billion. 2324 2.9. And then HCAD has provided the latest estimate that for 2425, which is our current fiscal year, that we will end with taxable values of of 3.27, so almost 3.3 billion. And so that is an increase of nearly $1 billion since June of 2021. HCAD has provided the certified taxable value estimate that came out in April. And then the percent basically over the last couple of years we have seen values increase anywhere from 4 to 12%. The current percentage increase is projected to be 8.16. But I do want to note that this is
025just their first certified estimates. So we get the first certified estimates in April. We're going to get another set of certified values in uh or certified estimates in July. And then our true certified values don't come in until August. And so I did a comparison of just all three of those values and they're, you know, there's some that are higher, some that are lower depending upon which version that we use. And so I just want to to state that this is as of today. This could definitely change when we get updated estimates in July. The percentage change by major property category are residential and rural improved. It's about 9.65%. 65% increase. Apartments are slightly down 1.44%. Commercial property is up 10.26%. Vacant land is down 6.79%. Industrial property is up 80.5%. That number stood out
026to me a little bit and I actually contacted our tax assessor who reached out to Harris County or Harris Central Appraisal District to find out what those are and it's actually two properties. So, it's two industrial properties and they are one of our top 10 taxpayers and basically they have been doing some improvements on the property and so this is a true increase but there could they could be protesting or there could be some some the values being researched so it may not come in at this 80% increase because that seems um quite substantial. So, I did want to at least do the due diligence to look into this Utility up 0.57% commercial personal 1.14% industrial personal property is down 9.2% and then all other property is 0.9. So overall the projected taxable value increase
027is 8.16%. The tax office has also provided us with the truth and taxation data that we have to have to be able to prepare our notice for the public meeting that we have in June. So I would like to go through this information as well. The column that's in the middle is the 24 2024 tax year and then the right is 2025 tax year. So our average market value of residents have gone up slightly. So it went from 2 a little over 253,000 to um almost 256,000. So that's an increase of 2,635. And then the average taxable value of residents went up from 162,000 to 171,000. So that value has gone up by $8,87. And then we have the total appraised value of all property went from 4 almost 5 million to 4.8 million. The
028total appraised value of new property that went from 186 million to million. And then the taxable value of all property went from 3.3 million to 3.5 million. And so that is an increase of $266.7 million with 75 million of that increase was associated with the two industrial properties that I mentioned on the previous slide. And then the total taxable value of new property 136 million has gone up to 187 million. And then you'll see at the bottom the total market value of all property was a little bit over 5 million and it's almost 5.5. And then just a quick reminder that although property values play a part in the tax revenue that Crosby ISD receives, the district does not have any involvement in the appraisal process or the appraised values that are given to the
029property within the district. We are moving on now to budget development and have included a summary of the assumptions used in drafting the budget. And some of these numbers, you'll remember seeing them on previous charts, but this is just in summary form. So the enrollment for snapshot in October of 2025 will be 7,315 students. Last day of school in May 2026, estimated 7,350 students. Average daily attendance will be 6,479. Attendance rate will be 93%. These are BA all of this information is based currently on a homestead exemption of $100,000, which you might have heard in the news that there is current legislation out there and bills filed to increase that. So, it may go to the voters in November of 2025 to increase that. But right now, all the information that we have and the
030numbers we've received from HCAD are at the 100,000 homestead exemption amount. We are planning for the balance budget for the general fund and debt service fund. You know, there is that third fund. So, there is the child nutrition fund, but um the focus not is not necessarily to balance their budget. It's to make sure that they they spend at the level that they keep their fund balance within um six months operating. and then to try to control payroll costs to target around 80%. We do have those three legally adopted budgets, general fund, child nutrition, and debt service. You will adopt the budget in June at a fund and function level. And then last but not least, we're going to touch on compensation and staffing. The legislature is currently still in session and hashing out how
031best to provide additional funding to school districts. Compensation and staffing includes not only the salaries that are paid to employees, but also stipens and benefits. Campus campus and department leaders were given an opportunity to request additional positions based on growth or to meet the needs of their respective campus or department. being proposed and included in the budget will be the addition of eight teachers, one campus administrator, and two custodians. And so you're able to see the list of which campuses that those will be assigned to, but basically there's three bees teachers, three NES teachers, the CMS assistant principal, CMS sped transition teacher, CHSCTE carpentry teacher, and that's for the new high school edition. and then also the addition of two high school custodians. And that is because of the increase in the square footage of
032the building and the need for new custodians to be able to maintain that um that facility. And for this evening, this concludes my presentation. If there's any questions that you have, I'm happy to answer. The tax rate, you said that's not released. Is it typically released? Not in legislative years. Yes. Question may not be. Okay. So, I feel that my question is disconnect. But if you look at the trends on your enrollment comparison to your average numbers, so you start with 22 and essentially it's plus orus 700 students every single year. Not show not showing up. Not showing up. Mhm. Yeah. And I think when we talk about, this is just my personal opinion, so I'm going out there on a limb. So, you know, I think that when we talk about ADA and we
033talk about that percentage of attendance, I think just as if if we've come from, you know, an A is a 90 and above, a B is 80 and above. And I think when we when we say the attendance percentage and we say it's 93, I think for most people they think that's great. 93 it's an A type of thing. And but if you consider how many students that equates to that that 7% equates to that didn't show up that if you saw the n that number the number of students that are lacking instruction the number of students that are lacking structure for the day you know the number of students who are missing potentially the most important meal that they may have the opportunity to have. So yes you are correct. So thank you. So
034100% agree with you 93% is a great number and we looked at it for a long time and taking that to be a great number until you start talking about trends and I started looking at numbers I see 700 and so that was my question is are these kids that are not showing up just randomly throughout the year or are these kids who are enrolled but essentially never even come to school yeah because average daily attendance is is on average. It's the instructional minutes and how many students were missed that number of instructional minutes. And so it's just kind of it's an average over the whole year. It's not that number missing, you know, every day because there's days where we're at 96% or or 90, you know, almost 97, you know, especially at the
035start of the school year. And so there's other days where more students are attending. Yeah. Thank you. Is it the case? I feel like I've heard this that postco like our trends are not what they used to be. Is that across the state? Yes. If you look at that chart 20 Well, we know 2021 is when you log on and you were counted as president. So that's inflated. That's not that's inflated. So precoid would have been 17 18 19 20, right? Um and so you know back in that day it was good 94 was kind of our average in the district postco we g percentage and yes everyone has experienced that I think that's because a lot of that's the world we're living in you see it on social media all the time where parents
036talk about versus when we were growing up you would have never heard heard a parent say, "If my kid wants to stay home, I just let him." Now, it's a kind of a common thing and almost celebrated as we get into this stuff. But yeah, I mean, I think you see people take their kids stuff during the week. That didn't happen 20 years ago. Like just take off school, go to the zoo. That didn't happen. So now it's happened in the last week. So you would expect a little less, but 93's 93. I think you probably take into consideration parents working days a lot more people remotely that's when I would that's when I would want my kid to go to school. Okay. Thank you, Michel. Okay. Next on uh the agenda for tonight's meeting
037is the consent agenda. From the items listed above, is there are there any items that requested to be pulled from the consent agenda discussed? Approve. Approve. I have a motion to approve the consent agenda from Trusty Humphre, a second by Trusty Police. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I opposed by nay. Abstensions. Motion carries. 57. Moving into regular business. Moving to regular business item eight, discuss and consider approval of the educational specifications for Crosby sixth grade campus twice in one night. Well, while Miss Johnson is passing out the educational specifications, I just want to give you a little background on what this specific document is. It's a TEA requirement that all any school district that's going to uh proceed with a capital pro uh capital improvement project must have educational specification approved
038by the board for that specific facility, grade, school, campus, whatever it is, whatever we want to call it. Um, so this is tonight we'll we'll review just what's in the actual uh EDS spec. I want to first off say I want to thank well they're not here but the middle school staff it was in collaboration with them uh that we've created this document also with uh CNI and some of the administrations administrative staff here at Crosby ISD they we came together and created this uh educational specification for the sixth grade center lucky for us I already had wrote the middle school one and so it was good to pivot so first off u what the educational specification is It's a it's what's included in it. It includes the mission, values, and goals of Crosby ISD.
039It also um directs any design professionals uh that they must comply with any any and all state security and safety standards. It includes the uh the spatial uh includes spatial relationships, minimum square footage requirements and infrastructure need infrastructure needs in that uh new space which is the Crosby sixth grade center. And then ultimately what happens is we after we've put all this together the board if you do approve it tonight we will hand this off to the architect and this will be the guidelines. We're not directing exactly what's in the school, but this is the guidelines. They must design the building off of the spatial relationships, the programs. Uh it has to include some of the mission values and the goals that the incorporated from the uh school district. So, it's really similar to the
040Crosby High School edition education specifications. So we'll So one of the pages has the district goals after you approve it tonight. We will replace it to replace those. Yes. Yes. So that's the old one. And I I will make that update for the template for the future any future. See if I got any questions. No, I'm just I'd like to make a comment just to reiterate on the committee just to ensure that the design concept with the understanding I guess attention to detail focus on the flow of traffic was a huge thing coming out of committee just to make sure that that's yes we started those discussions last week we had a kickoff meeting we started those discussions that will factor in when we think about where the front of the building is. So, we've
041already started those conversations. Okay. Move to approve the educational specifications for Charlie sixth grade campus as presented. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. Opposed by nay. Motion carries. 5 Z. Item B, consider the approval of the revised compensation schedules for fiscal year 2024 2025. No. No report on. So move. I have a motion to approve the revised compensation schedules for fiscal year 2024 2025 by Trusty Humphre, a second by Trusty Chapman. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries 5. Discuss and consider the purchase approval of CTE equipment and tools for the Crosby High School addition project from the Texas Pride Marketing via Board contract 715-23 for an estimated amount of $289,858.97. Second. I have a motion by trusty Chapman, second by trustee Thomas. Any discussion.
042All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposedions. Motion carries. 5 Z. Item D. Consider approval for the purchase of mathematics instructional materials for grades kindergarten through algebra 1 from Accelerate Learning Incorporated DBA STEM scopes in the amount of $324,147.75. I move to have a motion by Trusty Thomas, a second by Trusty Humphre. Any further discussion or any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I opposed by nay. Motion carries 5. Item E. Proceed, discuss, consider updates to policies AEA local, BQA local, BQB local, DIA local, FFH local, and BJA local as presented. So I have a motion to receive, discuss, and consider updates to policies AA local, BQA local, BQB local, DIA local, FH local, and BJH local as presented. Uh Aea local education Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor signify
043by saying I. I. Opposed by nay. Motion carries. 5-0. Discuss and consider approving the district goals. I'll make a motion we approve the district's goals as presented. Second have a motion by Trusty Lewis, second by Trusty Chapman. All those in discussion all those in favor signify by saying I. opposed by nayensions. Motion carries 5 to zero. Okay. Uh I and we're moving into open session. Item A, consider approval. Consider approval of professional contract recommendations as presented. Move to approve professional contract recommendations as presented. Have a motion by Trusty Humphre, a second by Trusty Kalis. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. Opposed by nay. Motion carries 5 Z. I make a motion we adjourn the meeting. Second. I'm going to take this. All those in favor? [Music] All those opposed turn 718.