001Good evening. Good evening. I, Dr. Lasagna Flowers, president of the Duncanville ISD School Board of Trustees, call this meeting of the Duncanville Independent School District to order. Let the record show that a quorum of the board of trustees is present, that the meeting has been duly called, and that the notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551. Our mission at Duncanville ISD is to engage, equip, and empower all scholars to achieve their unique potential. We will now move to opening ceremonies. Will you please bow for prayer? God, we come this day just thanking you for the opportunity to gather. We thank you for the privilege that you've given us to serve children. Continue to be with us. Give us wisdom and guidance. Amen.
002Amen. Please stand for the pledge. I aliance 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. Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to the Texas one state and indivisible. You may seated. We will now move to the I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. We will now move to the budget workshop. I will turn the meeting over to Dr. Gorie. Thank you very much, Dr. flowers and good evening to all of our trustees. At this time, I'd like to invite Miss Brandy uh Mayo, that's your name. Yeah, Brandy Mayo, our CFO, to the podium who will make the presentation for our bud budget work session. Please know that the uh slides do have page numbers on
003them. So, if you want to note your questions uh for the end of the presentation, we would appreciate that. Thank you so much uh Dr. Flowers uh board of trustees and Dr. Gory, I'm here to present your May 12th budget workshop. Um, I do want to point out you have a slide, a separate slide. It is a replacement for slide 12 from the presentation you received last week. Um, as we get there, I'll explain the differences and and why we made the modification. Okay. So, thank you. We'll get started. Um we are still keeping focus in priority of our bis our budget priorities that we have kept throughout this uh fiscal year and we keep through the end of fiscal year. So our budget priorities are fiscal stewardship and operational excellence. Ensure budget alignment with
004the district strategic priorities and a focus on student achievement. Implement a competitive and market aligned salary structure and maintain a healthy fund balance. So today's topics are consistent with our last budget presentations. Uh we're going to have legislative updates, budget assumptions and unknowns, competitive compensation, and the proposed budgets for the 2526 school year. So the first thing I want to just draw your attention to is where we are. We are winding down the 89th Texas legislative session. So these are key dates that we can be uh seeing as we go through the last. So I wanted to point out how quickly this is coming to an end and that has significant relevance when we start to talk about some of the bills that we are waiting anxiously to hear about. Um, if you see May
00528, so today is May 12th, May 28 is the last day for the House of Representatives to vote on Senate bills and Senate joint resolutions and the last day for the Senate to consider all remaining bills and joint resolutions. So that is very near. So we have the Senate has a lot of work to do before they get to that date. And and then you can see on June 2nd that is snee die. That's the last day of the regular legislative session and no business is conducted after that point. And then June 22nd is the last day for the governor to sign or veto bills. Um that is also going to be very important when we talk about our budget implications and how if we do receive funding from House Bill 2, why those dates
006are important when we are a June 30th fiscal year in and the timing of that. Currently uh what we are looking at now is Senate Bill Two was signed by the governor on 53 and that is the education savings account or lovingly referred to as the voucher bill. So that was a top priority to in the last legislative session. It was a top priority in this legislative session. It has passed and it has been signed. House Bill Two, which was also uh the details of this bill were a priority in the last legislative session and again in this legislative session and it has not fully been passed. Uh when I created this presentation, we were hopeful that it was going to be heard on the 13th and based on information I received today, it is
007likely not going to be heard until the 15th. So, we did have the opportunity to um speak with Senator West's office and and we're so grateful for him and all the work that he does in our district and the information that was shared today. Um he had some district finance experts at the table to help explain to us what may or may not happen. Um, something that we did, um, learn is that there's likely going to be some focus on tenured teachers when they have the final language for the raises that will come out in House Bill 2 and what that'll look like. Later on in the presentation, we do have some slides that we can kind of talk about how that may affect Dunanville ISD in the future. Um it is likely well based
008on the information today by Mo Casey some of the experts um there is going to be a lot of discussion surrounding this bill as we go through and so we are going to be paying very close attention on how that may affect us and our planning going forward the future. So as of today it is uncertain and we will continue to follow and update the board as we know what's going on. We have maintained our budget assumptions. Um, as of to when I walked in here, I had not received the assessed values from DECAP, but I'm certain they'll be arriving today or first thing in the morning. Um, but we did meet with them last month and we feel like our taxable assessed value growth is a conservative 3% growth and we have built our
009budget on those figures. Uh we're maintaining our current tax rates um as our M tax rate is uh held to our property tax growth and we do believe our M tax rate will uh maintain based on the 3% growth for a total tax rate of 1.1027 if we maintain the same enrollment projections based on our demographer projections that we have used uh through the budgets that you'll see. So the budget you'll see today will be very consistent to the budgets we have been presenting. Um we have our budget unknown. So tax rates will be finalized in July. So with all of our projections and all of our very wonderful tools, we still will not know the actual final information until we receive certified values from DAT in July. Um any required teacher raises approved by
010the legislature or the board. We don't have all of the details on that and that's what we're hopeful to find out more as we learn about House Bill 2. Um along with that is any changes to the basic aotment um or any other budget impacts. And I just realized that I failed to mention something that when I got caught up in House Bill 2 is if you'll draw your attention to slide five again. Um, this was something that I learned about uh late last week is House Bill 500. Um, it's still in discussion, but uh, some of the experts are hopeful. It has a lot of appropriations in it and it very touches a lot of different things, but one of the things that might be most valuable for Texas ISDs and particularly Duncanville ISD
011is there's a supplemental budget there that addresses a reduction of federal money from SHR. So, as you know, in the past few years, we have been hit with reductions to our SHAR's Medicaid program. And so, this is um for lack of a better term or one that we're familiar with might be sort of a hold harmless to help us generate some of that revenue that we lost and get us back where we need to be. So, I did want to point that out and I failed to do that. So, thanks for going back with me. So, teacher pay comparison. So this represents a slide that we have seen before. This shows where Duncanville ISD is comparison to our neighboring districts uh with specific focus on the best southwest partnership. Um in our area those districts
012so it's expanded more to than just these districts as of today but in our immediate area we do uh look at Cedar Hill Doddto ourselves Duncanville and Lancaster. Those were the uh first four cities and districts that participated in the program. And so when we are looking at those districts compared to where we are, you can see that we are a little bit below a marketable or comparable rate to those districts. Um and discussion with the board as we've gone through this budget planning process, we began to consider raise considerations independent of House Bill Two. And so these would be raises that we would fund out of our current budget. The goal here would be a $2,500 raise. And if you'll see on the presentation you received Friday, I put the 7%. That's for future.
013That was a typo of mine. Um this is a $4.27% increase for $2500. It's a very significant increase um to the teacher pay scale per teacher. Uh that budget impact estimated with benefits is $2,189,688 which will bring the new teacher starting salary to 61,000. Um and then when we look at how oh I also want to add here we would like to bring if the board is favorable to this as we move forward tonight we will be bringing the teacher salary scale for approval on May 19th. And I'll talk a little bit more in detail on why that's important in the next slide. So with the increase you can see here for teacher pay comparisons for 2526 it brings Duncanville ISD up to $61,000 for starting teacher pay. Um, and now when you see this
014in comparison with our best southwest part partnership, when you take note of Cedar Hill, Duncanville, and Lancaster, we are now slightly above and in a more marketable and competitive rate of pay in our area. Um, this also has the starting pay for certified, bilingual, and sped, self-contained teachers for Duckanville ISD will be $65,000. Um, and then kind of circling back to bringing the teacher scale at the Monday night board meeting is, as you all know, we are in hiring season and being able to get this information out to our current staff and all of our potential staff is very valuable as we go through the hiring season. Um, especially with the commitment from Duncanville ISD to maintain a marketable and competitive rate. So, it's really exciting to be able to present this to you tonight.
015So, now on to the hot topic. So, House Bill Two, this is on everyone's, well, at least everyone in my world's mind right now. Um, House Bill Two is relating to public education and public school finance. Um, the House has amended and passed House Bill Two and it is currently awaiting a vote in the Senate. Um, we did receive information from Senator West's office today that once they receive the committee bill before it goes to the floor, we'll get it. So, they're going to share it with us. So, that's really great that we're going to maybe see see it before it goes. Um, it's right now has an increase to the basic aotment of $395, which makes that $6,550 $6,555. Um so in the current estimates for uh Duncanville ISD based on everything that's in
016the bill it has increase of basic aotment it has increased the special education it has some changes due to the golden pennies so there's a lot of small things um but the current estimate that I am seeing is $6.7 million increase in general revenue over this fiscal year to next. Now, please keep in mind I have received multiple runs of this bill and they are always a couple of hundred thousand up and down and so we will see um until it's done what's done is done. We won't know the true dollar fordoll, but um based on the tools that I've used in the past, um I believe this is going to be a very close number with all things remaining the same of right now 40% of the 6.7 would go to salaries for staff.
01760% can be used to cover either additional salaries or offset district operational expenses. So the 60% can be used how we need to best fiscally and responsibly manage our general fund budget. Any changes uh will require a budget amendment. And so I want to point that out back when we were talking about the schedule of the legislative session. um when it comes down to June 2nd for you know everything to be done and then June 22nd for the governor to sign the bills that means it is at the very end of June before we fully know the language of this bill and how it affects us. We are legally required to adopt a budget by June 30th because our fiscal year is July 1 through June 30th. So the recommendation is to adopt a budget
018based on current law, receive the new law, understand it to the full extent, and then come back into a July budget or July board meeting to amend the budget at that time. And as you know, we amend the budget almost most months. So that is certainly legal and certainly transparent to do. And so that's why we're proposing that. And then the timing of changes determined by the language of the final law. And so back in 2019 with I think it was House Bill 3 um I don't know how I can forget that it was the same experience but the language of the law the way it stated that when the raises were to go into effect had implications if you adopted a budget or you adopted a comp manual with raises prior to that day.
019So there were districts who were on the hook for the raise they gave and the raise that came out in the legislature and so we want to be very careful and we are being uh the experts are sharing with us that it is most certainly the best option to wait. Now, we do want to uh administration is recommending the increase to teacher pay so we can maintain our market or get to our marketable and competitive rate, but any additional changes would wait until after the bill is signed. And so, which brings us to what that could possibly look like if House Bill 2 is approved the way it stands today and we received an increase revenue of 6.7. So, if you look at that um chart at the very top, it starts with the projected
020increase to revenue for the general operating fund. Um, if we allocate the right now there's an amendment that states and it hasn't been adopted this way, but there is an amendment that designates how much goes to teachers, librarians, nurses, and counselors. I did run this with that amendment in account. Um, I I just needed some variables, you know, and so I ran it as it sits today. So 2.7 million would equate to about $2,100 to each of the members of that group. Uh the district administration is recommending a 3% increase to auxiliary staff, pair professionals, professional staff, and SLT staff. Uh 3% at midpoint. Uh the total raise using the estimated House Bill 2 would be just over $4 million with an estimated $2.6 6 million to offset our general fund deficit. And then as
021we have talked uh to great detail before, you can see the estimates that we have seen historically with vacancy saves, non-payroll saves, and we are doing an extensive federal uh evaluation and there will be hopefully a reclass that will further reduce that. um these are subject to change and are only based on historical averages in the current review of federal funding. So with that said, back to that mistake I made on the earlier slide with the 2500 increase to teachers and a possible potential 2,100 the total for teachers could hover somewhere around just over 7%. Now, we do have to keep in mind if they add the detailed language that supports the more tenure teachers, it could vary depending on where you are on the pay scale. So, I also wanted to kind of just
022remind us and this is the similar information that you've seen. You know, it's just I've every uh week or so I do a forecast. I review all the numbers and make sure everything is where I want to be and I'm just bringing our 24 25 year in projections to you just so that you know I do feel confident that is maintained a consistency with this net impact of fund balance that you see here. Right now the deficit as you would see on an amended budget monthly is 19 million. Uh but with our historical vacancy saves and the realized SR class non-payroll and other position reductions I expect us to be around negative9.4. Now it could be more favorable on that but that's an estimate that you'll see there. last uh presentation I did bring you
023a visual to show you items that were being proposed as investments and reductions to the budget. So as you know we are actively engaged in cost containment. We have been working through that all year and we are going to be continuing that work through the next fiscal year. But while we are actively engaged in cost containment, we also have a duty to make investments into our students because our priority is academic success. And so as we are combing through line by line of our budgets, you know, we do have some ads here that we um are considering. And these are all ads that you have they were either on that investment reductions report last time or they were specifically discussed. So I think with attention to uh Dr. Degree stipens and then the communications supervisor
024that that name changed there was discussion of a name change there. So please note that that will change for purposes in HR. Um but everything here so we still are showing a reduction of two almost $2.2 million. So when we look at the 2526 year in projections um you will see here in this proposed budget now I have added the proposed teacher increase based on current budget so that you can see the total expenditures based on the total revenue. It is still we we did uh we were able to decrease the budget but with the raises it brings it to 18 uh million and then if you see the 2526 expected saves like we have been talking about it's down to about a negative n. Now this does not include any estimates from house bill
0252. So, if we are to realize, you know, $3 million from House Bill 2, then that would bring us down further to get us closer to balance. And this is in line with uh there's not been any major changes to this budget. Um and then just to kind of reiterate where we are and you know definitely align with you know revisiting that forecast making sure everything is going you know as as we planned. Uh we do are still very confident that we are going to maintain about a five little over five months of fund balance when we finish this fiscal year. And so while adopting a deficit budget is maybe not our favorite thing to do, we the district um has made very valuable financial decisions that has gotten us into a place where we
026have time to make very thoughtful decisions and so um as we go into the next year that work can continue. Uh this is the 2526 budget by function. So per board policy and per education code, the board of trustees for the Duncanville ISD will adopt a budget based by function. So I wanted to give you the opportunity to see what you would see on June the 16th. Um you can see the uh fund balance, student nutrition and debt service have not changed since the presentation from last month. they are still uh holding strong there and the general operating fund is still consistent and in very consistent percentage-wise to what we've seen year-over-year. And as you would always expect, the vast majority of the budget is in function 11 with instruction with our focus on students.
027in our next steps as we approach the end of the 2425 fiscal year. You can see May 12th is where we are today. Um we will be uh discussing the changes in impact to local local and state federal funding as discussed in our budget presentation and as we have shown um when we were going year-over-year for our local state and federal revenue. Um we have discussed the changes in prior budget workshops and today of the impacts of SHARS to our federal revenue budget and we have discussed in prior budget workshops the impact um of when we're projecting our uh enrollment decline and decline of ADA. So those are the two major impacts to our state revenue and to our federal revenue. Um, other than that, local sources, uh, Duncanville ISD is collecting their taxes at
028a very high percentage rate. And so that's a great tribute to the community here in Duncanville. And so we don't expect to see any major changes to our local, state, and federal funding. Um, it is, uh, required to have a discussion as part of the first rating, and we have met that discussion in all of our budget workshops. Uh May 19th uh next Monday is our regular board meeting where we'll be hopefully bringing the teacher pay scale for review and adoption by the board. Um and May 28th is an internal um process that we do. Um we will be putting out our notice of public meeting to discuss the budget and proposed tax rate according to law in the Dallas Morning News. Um when we discuss that I do want to point out that because
029we don't know our taxable values and you probably have likely done this in the past we we will propose in that documentation the tax rate we are using for the 2425 year. Uh the reason for that is because if we publish a lower tax rate and then July 25th comes and it's higher, we have to republish and the timing is so tight at that time. So it is recommended in almost every district I know also. So we will post the tax rate that we have today. It's just a few pennies uh well less than a few pennies different. So we'll publish that and then on June 16th we'll come for the adoption of the 2526 budget and we will discuss the proposed tax rate at that time. So questions. Thank you so much uh for
030that and to be able to see the teacher increase um proposal or recommendation and numbers and percent that was very helpful. So thank you. Thank you trustee fee. Thank you Brandy. That was a wonderful presentation. You make it easy for us to understand. I hope I'm speaking for everyone. Thank you. with the teacher pay comparison. Do you know how many of the school districts have um voted on their budget? I mean, because I mean, we're if if we put ourselves in with the new salary, I hope we're not going to have to do the play catchup thing. Do you know any of these who have already publicized or talked about or I mean I I guess I could watch all the videos from all the board. I don't recommend that. Do you know? Um I
031I I know what they share with me. Um this is you know it's a tight game these days. Um so I do have because I'm familiar with the financials of some of these districts. I know that they um don't have the capacity to offer a a raise out of their current budget such as we are considering today. Um many many districts um and and I'm actually close with a lot of the CFOs that run these districts, they're waiting until House Bill 2. Um I think one of the reasons after discussion with uh SLT and Dr. gory is when we were looking at where we fell, we were below. If we didn't become competitive and marketable and waited till House Bill two, then we would be giving the same raise as everyone and we would just
032continue to be in the same place. So, I think the advantage of this is gets us to where we need to be. Then as the House Bill 2 raises and they begin to give their raises, we'll be able to maintain our competitive and marketable rates. Thank you. Yes. Any additional questions? Well, I've got one more. Trusty Fehey, if if House Bill Two is still in a muddle puddle, can we actually call an election, I mean, a a vote for June the 29th or I mean, do you think any of that will be happening? I mean, it depends on the legislature and all, but do you think we could do that? You certainly as long as you adopt a budget before the end of June 30th. Okay. So we I think the only concern there would
033be even though the bill has gone to just like with the the education savings plan um even though the bill is now signed by the governor we have we are not privy to all the language of the bill. It has not been dissected so to speak by the experts by tea. So there's even though the governor signs it or it hits his bill, there's still some work to be done. Um the other thing is depending on the language of the bill, it may not be prudent to adopt before June 30th, even if we know it all if it says it has to be applied at a certain time. Um I I this has been years ago and we had a pandemic so I don't remember exactly but I think in the last bill that we
034had to it was raises that had to be done in September. So we adopted the budget then adopted the comp manual accorded to law and then we had to retro back the people who started getting paid on July 1st so that we can make sure we were in compliance with the letter of the law. So it really goes down to what those details are and and I've read the law. I I'm not a lawyer, so I I would be hesitant to give advice on the language that's used there. Yeah, Trusty Coloulton, thank you very much uh for your presentation. I just have a couple of questions on uh slide 12 on the uh proposed increases. If um do you know the number of employees in each category and the average increase that they would receive.
035So I know you probably don't have that information. I do not. Yeah, I know the teachers. I do not know yet the other but we I could put that together for you. Yes, ma'am. And then so the estimated balance to use for deficit is 2.763. Yes. Okay. So, and where does that number come from? So, the very top, well, at first these are all estimates. So, uh I they're forecast based on the experts information. So, the very top line that says estimated House Bill 2-lated use of increased revenue, there's a 6.781 figure there. If you take that number and subtract the figure, it is my sincere hope that that equals 2.763. Okay. Yes. Yes. All right. Brandon, is that the 40 and 60%? That is. Yes. Right. So the the the 2.7 million represents the
03660%. the two well it's not exactly split between 40 and 60 because uh there is a small bleed over for the 3% that goes so it's the 40 um so it's I I think it's like 300,000 that was more than the 40 into the 60 so I'd have to do the math but the 2.7 is the majority of the 60% that's left over to reduce operational expenses yes Okay. Um, so can you explain the 40 and 60% then? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Of course. Um, if you look at where did I I did that somewhere. Okay. If you look at slide 11, it the current estimate is 6.781948. If you take 40% of that figure, the law as it states now is directing us to use that money towards rate uh salary increases. Okay. So that
037means that the 2.7 is the 40% and the difference of the 4 million um includes the auxiliary staff per professional, right? Yes. Okay. So all right and so that 2.7 can be used for anything else of Yes. Yes. So you know essentially I guess if you could just think about it as that number increasing the state revenue line on revenue thus making the variance less. Okay. And so um thank you all you know for for providing additional information related to uh funding for literacy and um uh prioritization of academics um in the budget. Thank you. Um, and I guess is there anything you might want to highlight for the record in those items? Um, I did not produce all of those items, so I have to lean on the team. Okay. We're glad you arrived.
038But we're we're going to stay with your presentation before we and then we'll go to whatever other questions anybody may have. Perfect. Thank you. Okay, Trusty Vera Cruz, thank you so much for your presentation. I really do appreciate the breakdown. On page 12, um staff other than teachers and so there is a a number of 1 million there. And so those is that with the increase that page on on page I see page. Oh, I think Oh, I have failed to share with you, Miss Verar Cruz, that there was a supplemental page that replaced 12. My apologies. I should have said that when you arrived. Yes. Thank you. I got it. Yes. Any additional questions for this particular presentation? Yeah, I have another question. Trusty Coloulton. So, what is the publication for the budget? Is
039it 72 hours? Oh, to post in the newspaper. Um, the newspaper posting has to be done within 10 either 10 days before the adoption and no more than 30 days. So, there is a window there. I usually just try to count back 10 days and give a couple of conservative days because so many things change this time of year. And so I was planning to do it u it I was saying that June 3rd day would be the date it would actually appear in the newspaper but I do try to give some flexibility there. So it's probably not exactly 10 days. Okay. Is it a particular does it have to be a particular date or can it be a I mean well it would have to be because as long as it falls within that
040date range it's okay but it is a very specific document with a very specific font and there are many rules in tax code around that document. Okay. Thank you. Any additional questions? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. This time, Dr. Nicks, I'd like to ask you to come and highlight uh some of the academic focus. And again, I do thank the trustees for your attention to the budget. We're super excited about having the opportunity to jump out in front of the other districts in our immediate competing area with pay. We do believe that will help us to attract the absolute best talent to our schools. Dr. Nicks. Thank you, President Flowers, members of the board. Dr. agree. It's my absolute pleasure um to share with the board based on uh the
041board's request of how we're prioritizing academics in our budget. And that really gave us a wonderful opportunity to provide the board with feedback on all of the things that we're doing or we've done to prioritize our academics. Really highlighting um as Trusty Coloulson asked, you know, Dr. always talks about no matter what we do, nothing improves student education like quality tier one instruction. So our focus on ensuring quality tier one support, programming, implementation of curriculum is paramount and we look at that when we're budgeting. Is there anything that's going to impede on quality teaching and instruction? And those are the things that we put parameters around to make sure that we don't mess with too much, whether it be literature and things of that nature, things that support teachers and student learning. So, that is
042a a huge piece of just really taking a look at the budget, what's our priority, and as we're pulling things back and as we're making budgeting decisions, what's going to impact quality tier one instruction or not? And then making sure we're prioritizing those things. That's a highlight of something that we wanted to add. Also just wanted to highlight um as a board in our district improvement plan. You know, we list priority one, priority three, priority 4 in um in our strategic plan. Those are things that we prioritize when we budget. For example, priority one, raising academic performance and early literacy, numeracy, and post-secondary readiness. We are currently working on an early literacy plan. It's not just a document that we're working on. Board, as you guys know, we've got some work to do in early
043literacy. It's not just a statement. It's real work that we've been working on for months to develop a plan. When we're talking about budgeting and how that has an impact on budget, we're making sure that we are fiscally responsible with what that's going to look like, that we're rolling that out responsibly, that we're getting all stakeholder input, and that we're funding it appropriately because at the end of the day, if we're not if we're failing our students when it comes to early literacy, we can budget for wherever we want, uh, we're going to be behind the eightball. So, prioritizing that is key. Priority three, improving teacher quality through effective developing and coaching. I highlight this because it's no secret our teachers are coming into the profession year after year after year needing more support. And
044so if we don't plan for that, we don't plan in our budget for that. That's key. One of the things that Dr. degree came up with in my opinion was brilliant this year was really supporting the teachers at the campus level with those ISS teachers putting them in the classroom ensuring that our teachers have access I mean students have access to those individuals that are super qualified and are able to support their colleagues in the classroom that's an example of how we've prioritized academics in the budget how we've done our PLC model I mean I could go on and on but you just asked me to kind of highlight and so I'll I'll stop with the priority four and that is uh practicing fiscal stewardship by reducing costs tied to inefficiencies. Boy, is as as
045difficult as it is, we've really had to look at at our programs that are offering duplicatable services, right? So, so there are so many things that we are doing and we've had to scale back. And so I'll give you some examples. we scaled back on some programs that just weren't giving us the return on investment as we were looking at student achievement. So whether that be I station that is not a knock on I stationation it's just that we weren't seeing what we needed to see there or things like using both map and using I ready well we're paying a lot of money for that but are we utilizing that data and is it helping students to be successful so as we're going through the budget process really looking at those programs looking at that
046data and making decisions based on student data not on what's comfortable for adults, not on what we're used to, not on what we like. So, those are just some examples of how we're prioritizing academics in this budget process. It would be easy to just say, "Yeah, cut everything." Um, but we're prioritizing what is having the biggest impact on students. What does that take to be successful? How are we budgeting? How are we prioritizing? and then really putting a bubble around that as we're going through the the budget process. I hope that that that answered the question. Trusty Coulter, thank you very much. I really appreciate that and I appreciate you know all that you all are doing you know to help uh you know academically and putting more people or uh more um maybe highly
047qualified or seasoned people in in the classroom where they're needed and um the focus on literacy and eliminating um you know programs that are um duplicate uh each other so you know thank you Dr. for that and and team. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Trusty Bear Cruz. Thank you. Um I do I wanted to ask um you mentioned about the prioritization of what is could be used and what is not helping. Right. So are the educators able to be pulled to a uh to discuss any of this? are they having uh table talks with you about what is working for them versus you know thank you so much for asking yes ma'am um part of what has slowed the process down and that's not a negative thing is getting everybody's input right so let me give
048you a couple of examples of that I mentioned I ready and NWA map well we've used both of these for quite a while putting out a survey I've got um survey feedback from teachers at every campus in this district from middle school down had the opportunity to provide feedback. Assistant principles, principles, CNI staff, school leadership staff, what are we seeing? Why are we seeing it? Does this help? How are you using it? So, we're talking I'm spending literally and this is not kudos to just the team, right? literally months getting feedback and talking to teachers and and seeing what's happening and getting parent feedback and that's just with I ready and MAP to make a decision as to when we pull this trigger. What's the impact going to be? And what's the impact going to
049be on teachers? What's the impact going to be on students? What's the impact going to be at the district level with what we track and our metrics and how we determine whether or not schools are successful? It's including school leadership and how they the metrics they have. That's just one example. So, yes, ma'am, we're not making decisions in isolation. Um, now there are some decisions that we include more than others, for an example. Um, but we we have to get that feedback because when we're looking at making these shifts and these changes and these programs, the people that use it are the people that are benefiting from it or not. And we need to know. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Madam President. Thank you, Dr. Nicks. Thank you, Dr. Nicks. Do we have any other
050questions about uh on the other packets that were provided to us in the voters that are responses to our request? Madam President, Trusty Barric, I would like to hear from uh Mr. Graham regarding the counseling and social workers regarding uh that branch of workers and leadership and can you come and share a little bit about what um what we can trust that they are doing? Um is that that's kind of broad. Can you can you I would just like for him to just uh share a little bit about what his pres this report here. I would like to hear about everything that he has to share about what they do and what they are expanding to do on a continual basis. Thank you um to President Flowers, to all trustees and to Dr. Gory. Um,
051as we started the conversation last week, we know that we do have those three levels of counselors in our district. We currently have our comprehensive counselors and we do have 35 of them total in the district. Um, we have currently have 17 counselors at our high school. Um, and with that we do have our support counselors which we have four of them in the district and those what we consider our social emotional learning counselors. Then we have our restorative um practice counselors and we have four of them in the district as well. And then we have our social work position. Um currently we have one social worker in the district. And the first thing that I would like to go into is what are the differences or the the question was um can comprehensive counselors
052do the job of the social workers? And to that, yes, our comprehensive counselors could do the job of the social workers, yet it is the time available for them and the training that they would need in order for that to happen. Um, we can see that some of the things that our social workers do take them away from the campus. um they spend a lot most of course they spend all of their time away from the campus which in turn if our campus counselors were to take on those particular items they would be doing that same thing. We can see that some of the jobs of the social workers are to connect with families and shelters and assist with housing and stability, make home visits and assess the needs and follow up, conduct um with
053community partners and secure food, clothing, supplies and household items. Um stock, organize and manage the pantry, arrange for donation pickups and drop offs for families without transportation. Um advocate for pregnant and parenting students. help families navigate complex systems like applying for assistance um throughout the the community and of course build relationships with agencies and provide long-term support for those particular families. So they do spend a lot of time working with our families with our community and of course with our students. Um some of the services that our comprehensive counselors would have to take on and provide assistance for right now case management for home visitation. Again, we know that our c campus counselors are capable of doing that, but again, our goal is for them to help um with the students on the campus and
054provide that academic support and behavior support on the campus. Of course, we do trauma informed family support work um community resource navigation and housing and and homelessness in intervention, coordination of materials and resource and donations. our our um social workers do a great job of finding and and and getting support for donations throughout um our district and of course working with working with certain agencies to collaborate on resource resources and grant development. Um we try to look at the differences between those particular jobs as our social workers do more of the family and and system specialists. Of course, they are licensed professionals um in social work. We look at our restorative practices um specialists and most of them work at training teachers on how to work on um climate and culture in their classroom. So,
055they train certified educators on CHAMPS. They train them on and CHAMPS is is is one of our behavior um intervention models where um it's called conversation help activity and movement is that's what we use for our tier one behavior plan for our teachers. They do PD for that throughout the year for our teachers. I'm sorry, Mr. Graham. I'm sorry. We're not expecting you to reread the packet that you gave us. Thank you so much um for listing them and we have them. I think that is there a particular question? No, I just wanted to hear the I just wanted him to be able to to express that to the audience and just uh share and I do appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Graham. I have a you have a question, Trusty Coloulton. Trusty Coloulton. Thank
056you, Mr. Graham. So, um the social we have one social worker. And is that the only one that does the home visit? Well, we we we had two in the district. We we currently have one, but both of them were doing the home visits. Oh, okay. All right. And so in in our Did we cut one or Yes. Okay. That that just happened um a few Yeah. a few weeks ago. Yes. Yes, sir. So I guess will this one staff member be able to perform you know? Yeah. One thing I'll tell you and uh certainly I you know appreciate uh the questions because it did give us an opportunity to provide some in-depth thought around how we're utilizing people and that's something we've done all year. Uh the sad part is even though a like
057more social workers would bring more value, we're still in many situations going to have to look deeper and cut even more as we go into the next few years. So we will this next year and this is why I think this this board and past administrations for the healthy fund balance because it does give us time to be more methodical about what are those roles that we need in the district. You know Mr. Graham has said several times that you know our campus counselors can do this but time those are the type things that we have to study as we're going through this next year to see how can we ensure that we are as fiscally efficient as we can be with our positions. And this is all noilizing. We have a very unique population
058of kids that have some unique social needs. Thank you. Yeah, I was going to say that's true. And we know that they can't learn when certain things going on and um you know to have someone who is available you know to kind of bridge that gap. So right and this board did a wonderful job even postco of expanding in our responsive services and uh but again those are those things that many were funded and made possible through ESSER dollars and now we're having to look at bringing those back to our general fund budget. Now, what I what I appreciate about the board is that we're not just saying cut everything that was associated with ESSER, but let's look at some of the other things like the MAP and the uh you know the and the
059I Ready and let's look at removing one of those and that frees up space for us to keep some of those things like some of our restorative practices that were working well. And then I have another question. So, could a volunteer manage the uh Panther Pantry? Absolutely. Okay. So, is that something that we need to be looking for? We are looking at different options for that to provide extra help in this in this plan for next year. Um that is changing some of the expectations for some of the other um counselors and restorative practice counselors. looking at some of the secretaries and what they're doing and their jobs to ensure that we get people over there to ensure that that that pan panther pantry can be open enough and serve our community. Thank you for
060that. That was on my list too because as I went through the duties and responsibilities of the social worker, many of those any adult could do that that did not require a social worker expertise. So if we reassign or create a different position for someone that's doing those or like you said spread them out. I'm not here about the how but I am talking about the what I list I saw many of those that didn't it doesn't have to be a social worker to do those things. And my question is the home visits are those specifically for the McKenna Vento students or home visits whenever anything comes up. Home visits are for whatever situation is needed for that particular time. It could be because this student is not coming to school as far as um
061attendance issues. It could be related to McKenna Bento. It could be related to some academic issues that is on that particular social worker's case load. And as they speak with the parents, they're doing all of those providing all of those services to ensure that we're getting connected to what can help that particular child. So, can we take a look at additional um resources that we can use for home visits instead of that just being on one person? Dr. Curry, absolutely. In fact, we're you think about what we're doing with uh CASA, we're doing that very thing now. We'll provide the board with more information. We're looking at different ways that we can do this more efficiency efficiently. Uh one thing I'll say about home visits that I'll just brag a little bit on uh our
062team is that recently we went out and did home visits on all of the high school students. uh that have not been in had missed a specific number of days. And we actually did this where staff uh we had people from communications from all departments that volunteered and actually made little teams and actually went out and went out to home. So we are looking at different ways that we can be more efficient with the people that we have. Thank you. Thank you so much. We do not have any communications from citizens regarding append a pending agenda item. Just I was going to make an announcement if I could. Absolutely. Just one announcement to just to remind the trustee and anyone that's out there listening that tomorrow at 9:00 we will have the the groundbreaking I
063should say for our new CTE building at the high school. So if your schedule permits we'd love uh for you to come be a part of that part of that historic event. Thank you. Will it be on that um west side? Trusty Fehey. I'm sorry. Where do we meet Miss Wallace? That's correct. Right. that it will be on the west side. Yes. Thank you again on behalf of the board uh team for all of the responses. They were clear and concise. Being that there is no further items to discuss, do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Second. It's been moved and second. The meeting is adjourned.