001foreign what I call this meeting the Granbury Independent School District to order let the records show that a core board members is present but the meeting has been newly called and that notice of the meeting has been provided in accordance with the Texas open meetings act Texas government code 551 foreign to Executive session to the following SEC sections 551.071 consultation with the board attorney 551.072 discussion of purchase exchange lease of value of real property and 551.074 discussion of officers employees and Personnel matters the time is now 501 and we will adjourn to a closed session foreign [Music] we are now reconvened and uh Open Session if I could have your attention please we are now reconvene an open session the time is six oh three um Mrs Townsend will you please a witness with the
002invocation please bow your head with me Heavenly Father we thank you for the day you've given us we thank you for the children that you have in our district we thank you for the adults that care for these children Lord I ask you to be with us today to give us wisdom to preach decision we make and may those decisions be made not only in human wisdom but in your wisdom and I pray all these things in Jesus name amen amen thank you Mrs Johnson at this time we have a youngsters from Broner here for the pledges so and I'm Sandy Ruiz I'm the assistant principal at Bronner uh we have brought our student council officers with us and these four kiddos are fifth graders we have about 100 kids involved in student council at
003Bronner and they are student ambassadors for new students that enroll at our school they are about to begin their candy gram cell very soon and that provides a gift for our campus this year's funds will go to exercise equipment that will be placed on the track and just all around the track for our students to enjoy we like for our students to tell you a little bit about themselves and what they enjoy about our school before they will lead you in the pledges and this also helps them practice their public speaking skills so um now we'll welcome our four student council officers good evening I'm lady Hernandez my favorite thing about Broner and Mike about Broner is my friends and my teachers because they are always so nice my parents are harminda and Roberto Hernandez
004hello my name is jet Hollowell one of my favorite things about Broner is all of the fun activities like football Friday my parents are John Hollowell and Ashley Pearson hello I'm Jaden Hemphill my favorite thing about Broner is how every day is different we celebrate national days for instance today is National pie day my favorite type of pie is pumpkin my mom is Jennifer Hemphill is that I can socialize and communicate with other people get to know them better my parents are Lucina and Nicolas we will now lead you into the pledge of to the American flag attention salute pledge allegiance to the flag of America imagine under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and now for the Texas pledge honor the Texas flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one State under
005God one indivisible we have a kindness pledge we say each morning at our morning meeting at for Honor we are kind to ourselves kind to each other and kind to this space we also say our motto in Spanish Brian would like to thank our GISD school board members for everything you do for all the schools in Granbury we appreciate you at Bronner we show our best by being respectful engaged safe and trustworthy and repeat this statement every morning our motto at Bronner is learning for all whatever it takes we know that you also do whatever it takes to help our school and our community thank you again for inviting partner to Anita soldiers this evening thank you [Music] all right [Music] yeah I'm thinking about the heat yeah you can bring it up there you
006go thank you foreign with the parents of these kids please stand and let us recognize you and thank you Father good job you've done with your children foreign at this time we will move into the achievement Spotlight Dr Glenn thank you madam president at this time we'll ask Mario Morales director of bands to come and present [Music] test there we go good evening board good evening Dr Glenn an Administration uh today we have a wonderful uh representation that will be done at tmea this year so I'm just going to read a little brief statement here Layla scatel is a member of the Granbury High School band and she will be performing with the Texas All State band in San Antonio on February 11th just to tell you a little bit about the process uh that
007she's gone through laila's catel was chosen for this prestigious honor through a competitive process held this year across the state at at District region and area levels high school students selected to perform the All-State concert has competed through auditions to qualify at the state level all students all state is the highest honor a Texas Music student can receive 1875 students are selected through the process that began with over 70 000 students from around the state vying for this honor to perform in one of the 18 ensembles the tmea which is to Texas music educator Association sponsors the Texas Allstate competition this competitive process began throughout the state in the audition hosted by region 33 music individual musicians performed selected music from a panel of Judges who rank each instrument from this ranking a selected group
008of musicians Advanced from their region to compete against musicians from other areas in the Atma area competitions so with that being said the highest ranking musician judged at the tmea area competition qualifies to perform in a tmea all-state music group only 2.6 percent of musicians who initially auditioned become an All-State musician so we're very proud of Layla that she will be representing Granbury ISD in February at tmea so we're here to give her that thank you [Applause] [Music] actually [Music] all right thank you Mr Morales uh it's apparent of this young lady here I thank you so much again for the time and effort I have our ghs cheer coaches Miss McLaurin and Mrs Lane thank you board and Dr Glenn for inviting us here to be recognized uh the Granbury High School cheerleaders competed
009last on January 13th and 14th at UIL Spirit State we competed against 73 5A D1 schools and we were ninth in the state so and number one in the district very great very proud of this talented group of young athletes they're a great group this is only our second year to make finals last year we made 11th place and that was our first year to make finals in this year uh the top 10 teams get their names called and um so placing ninth was an honor and next year you'll see Champions yes yes thank you very much questions anything else hey Google foreign s please stand if you're here parents please stay and let us acknowledge you I don't see anything no yeah I think you're right [Music] good morning [Music] again parents if you're
010here will you wave at us or stand well done well done congratulations cheer at this time I'll call up uh Mrs Hunsinger to talk about our robotics teams [Music] in the front good evening I have two of our nine robotics teams here um both of these teams have qualified for UIL state which we will be going to Houston in two weeks for and then also the recf Vex States tournament so we're super excited about that these kids have put in hundreds of hours above and beyond their normal practice time they start at the end of last year worked all through the summer and just to give you an idea each of these teams put in 85 Plus hours over Christmas break alone so we literally live up at that school they get there at 6
01130 in the morning and we don't leave sometimes until 7 7 30 at night so these kiddos put in the time they deserve going to State and we are seriously hoping for a World's invitation that they can earn from the state tournaments so Miss Smith and I are so proud of you guys and honored to work with you all and um just see y'all do amazing things so thank you all so much and let's go to Worlds yeah thank you very much um [Music] Matthew [Music] okay thanks there you go thank you [Music] are their parents or family are here if you'll give us a wave if your parents are family thank you all right congratulations lots of our recognitions tonight at this time I'm going to call our Child Nutrition department uh planner and
012trainer Shawna Hibbett up to the podium okay good evening um I um in this in the month of October Child Nutrition decided to get into the Texas department of agriculture's Farm Fresh initiative they put it out every year in the month of October and all that they ask is that you highlight menu items that are locally grown and so we chose this year that we were going to we they have two different categories they have Prime participant which was something that we thought okay we're going to dip our toe in we're just going to start a little easy now next year we're going for best of the bunch because that's putting something on arming you every single week in the month of October so this year we chose to do three items one was our
013milk which is done by oat Farms all of our milk from Oak Farms is locally harvested here in Texas there are two actual Farmers that they use and it's really cool if you ever go to Oak farms.com you can actually look book and meet the farmers one of the farmers is in Stephenville and the other one's in Dublin so very close to home and that is on our menu every single day of the week breakfast lunch any child that comes in can get chocolate or white milk their choice and then the second thing we chose to highlight was our apples which come from top of the text top of Texas apples they're actually out in the pan in the handle and they're gala apples delicious crispy awesome and the last thing that we chose to
014highlight on our menu this year was We Bought lettuce it was Ramen lettuce from a hydroponic grown Farm in Belton Texas and it's called true harvest the thing that we got back our biggest feedback we put that in our high school because we weren't real sure what the little kids would think of romaine lettuce it's all leafy and fluffy and green so we put it at the high school and the biggest feedback we got back was how crisp and crunchy it was and if you don't know anything about hydroponic growing I totally say go out learn it because it's amazing it's very little soil lots of water and so it just makes that produce so much crisper so much better and we are going to be putting that back on our menu in April and
015May so going into next year we are so proud of our workers and the work that they put into preparing this food for our students and we're so excited and so happy to just keep growing our menu and making it better and better every year so we are definitely going bigger next year we're going for that best of the bunch and we were so excited to receive our certificate of recognition from TDA which is just a huge honor so thank you guys foreign [Music] foreign [Music] all right and one more achievement Spotlight tonight I will call up the president of the Granbury Education Foundation Stacy Mitchell good evening uh first of all this is my yearly report that I come as the president of the Education Foundation to present to the board and I would
016like before I begin to thank the board so much for their time and energy they put in to the students and teachers of Granbury ISD we appreciate you our board supports and appreciates you so much so thank you and I was just going to let you be aware this year you may have seen some of our records we've been hitting our 50 fellas for this year brought in 000 which is the most we ever have and we have decided um our next with our next one that uh we actually gave away about um 88 000 in Grants a little over 88 000 and we decided as a board that we wanted to aim a little higher and after our 10th 50 fellows reached the giving amount of a million dollars so we set a pretty
017high goal there so our last meeting we went ahead and we're doing a few more Awards and so we are hoping after our 50 fellas next year we will reach that a million that million dollar goal and I feel very sure we will we're very excited and we're just very thankful for everything we get to do for our students and teachers here in Granbury so thank you thank you Stacey we'll move now to the superintendent's report thank you madam president uh first and foremost I'd like to acknowledge is for those of you who don't know January across the state of Texas is uh board appreciation and recognition month and uh so before we begin on behalf of the students and staff and community of Granbury ISD would like to say uh thank you to all
018of our trustees Public Service certainly can be a thankless position but you guys show up each and every day you're dedicated to this community you're dedicated to our taxpayers and most importantly you're dedicated to our students and staff and and for that we thank you we also want to thank all of our campus principals thank you notes from the kids were provided for the trustees prior to this meeting and also a big shout out to Mrs Langdon and her kids in The Culinary department at ghs right before the meeting we had a uh some light hors d'oeuvres and it was it was absolutely amazing what those kids put together and so the fellowship and the friendship and certainly the service is appreciated so on of our entire Community we thank each of you for your
019service as far as the superintendent report for this month uh proud to say that attendance continues to climb steadily I appreciate the principals and the teachers placing such emphasis on that we sit just under 95 percent so right at about 94 percent as a district as you know districts across the state continue to recover post-covered with attendance issues but we're steadily making those gains as a district we set 95 percent as a goal and we continue to work toward attainment of that from an academic standpoint this block of instruction this eight week period from when we return from Christmas break until we leave out on spring break as our largest instructional block of the spring semester and I can tell you I've met with the campus principals our administrators not only at the district level
020but even at the campus level and they understand the the sense of urgency is the passing standard increases for for the star test but but also the the testing format knowing that the test will be all online for our kids this year we'll which will present some unique challenges but I really feel like our staff is up to the challenge they understand that this is an opportunity for growth during this instructional block and many of our campuses have already put tutoring in place for kids to make sure those that are behind are on grade level by the time we test also safety audits we talked a lot about safety audits coming down from tea in the fall semester make no mistake this is something that's going to continue it's an initiative from from the top
021down at the highest levels of the state and certainly as a district I speak for not only our Administration but our school board when I say we want to make sure that that our campuses are safe and when those Auditors step onto our campuses they see that we are in total compliance with the initiative set forth by the governor uh finally I let everyone know we do uh not uh not only have this meeting this week but we are going to look toward a workshop on the 26th with uh Templeton demographics to just discuss growth and uh begin uh the uh the planning strategic planning process as we move Beyond uh this year and look at what the district growth will do to our district over the next decade and then finally toward the end
022of next week we'll be hearing from representative Shelby Slawson who will be coming to the district to meet with school districts from around the area to talk not only about school Finance but also safety and a big issue that really affects Granbury ISD and that's recapture about seven million dollars of local taxpayer money will be recaptured by the state meaning it does not get to stay here for our kids and certainly as we get into this legislative session that's something that we are concerned about how can we keep more of our taxpayer money here in Granbury for our kids and is a final reminder we will be at broader great job with the pledges and we will be there with you Wednesday morning at 6 50 a.m for breakfast with the board so Madam president
023that's what we have this month thank you Dr Glenn at this time uh we will call on Tammy Clark who will do our public hearing for our annual tapr report good evening thanks for having me I always enjoy coming to do the taper report Texas Academic performance report because it gives me an opportunity to brag on all of our kids hard work and our teachers hard work um everything that we're doing at the campus level to push kids forward so let me see there we go so taper comes out in December we got it right before the holiday and then we are required to do a board presentation within 90 days after that so that's one of the reasons why we're here this is what we're going to go through we're going to go pretty
024fast if you have any questions we'll have time at the end and if you have questions further than that then just ask me to have some time and we can sit down and we can go through it some more but we'll go over the campus actually the campus performance objectives I'm not going to go over each one I put that in your board book the long version if you have questions about a specific campus you can talk to me about that at a different time and all of these will be posted online for anyone else to see after this meeting we will go over the accreditation status the special education compliance status our safe schools status and then tracking of previous years graduates those are all requirements t-h-e-cb is the tech Higher Education Coordinating Board
025so I know there's a lot of acronyms so I'm going to try to catch them all and say what they are oh so there we go there we go okay this link is uh to the GISD taper report and in your packet you have each campus taper report but I pulled out some of the things that I wanted to really highlight and you'll see when we go through the elementary middle school and high school graphs and GISD outperforms the state and district and average average passing percentages on approaches meets and Masters so when these kids take this test there's different cut points approaches is passing meets and then Masters is you know exceeds all expectations and doing really well so um we outperform State and District to average passing for most of our academic areas
026in all three of those areas it's also important to note that in most of these areas our performance this year is even better than last year so we continue to make growth as we're getting better every day so our emerging bilingual population is starting to grow um but our campuses are making sure that we're meeting those needs and that population just their numbers alone outperform State and Regional passing percentages for the tested areas as well and most of them as well made improvements over last year's taper reports our graduation rate is higher than State and region 11 averages one of our Focus points is ccmr it's important to note that all of the ccmr data for our high school is two years behind where everything else is last year's data ccmr data is is two
027years prior so sometimes it takes us a little bit of time to catch up there we have a focus on on-ramps courses and having more AP and dual credit opportunities for our students we are also working very hard Todd Gibson is actually working very hard at getting ibc's the certification areas for our students and those those efforts are going to realize themselves in a couple of years with this area really growing most areas have improved over our 2019-23 20 data which was what we reported on last year and this year specifically our high school his admin team has put together a group that focuses on tracking those numbers and making sure that we're knowing exactly what our students need in order to be um career in college ready all right so simple I took the
028passing rates for the state in all of the tested areas for elementary and that's in red and then region 11 that's our North Texas region um and that's in blue and then you can see the purple Which is higher in every single one of those tested areas in elementary um our students outperformed uh both the state and the region [Music] okay for Middle School trend one of the areas is eighth grade math where we're it looks like we're lagging a little bit I will note that we have close to 20 percent of our students that accelerate in grade 8 and take the algebra end of course exam instead of grade 8 math so that's 20 of those students in our grade 8 group and then our EOC results again outperforming the state and Regional areas
029in our eocs so some of our district performance notes that are there as well AP and dual credit course completion and graduation rate we outpaced the state you can see those numbers and as we continue to grow our dual credit to dual enrollment and AP courses and we'll we'll continue to push that number higher College ready grads in ela and math is a little bit lower than the state percentage we talked about the industry-based certification and that's a two-year lag and Todd Gibson is going to get us there on that I and that's higher than it was last year as well we don't have as many students taking the act and sat especially posting their scores at the Granbury High School but our average SAT and ACT score is higher than the state's percentage and
030higher than last year all right so campus performance objectives there's a couple of high notes um and I really just want to talk a little bit about the instructional piece obviously our kids are performing well but that's because our teachers are digging in and really trying to individualize instruction and make sure that they're hitting um every single student where they're at and growing them so we're improving tier one instruction and interventions our campus Administration is really good at leading that charge with our t-test and t-pest to align with the state we've reintegrated that and then observation feedback coaching to help every teacher get better for their students um reading academies continues in the early literacy age groups we purchased a attendance program called raw we and we're tracking attendance very closely and um and we're
031communicating well with parents um of students that are having some attendance issues and trying to see if we can help bridge that Gap if we need to so that everybody knows that for us to continue to improve their kids have to be in school and so our semester one increase is 1.55 over last year's semester one and then the Safety and Security protocols we also have expanded Raptor for that um Miss Townsend was here already when there were some drills going on um it's an online app on our phone we can that increases our ability to know what's going on exactly when it's going on where it's happening and if everybody's okay and they're able to communicate through that app and it's amazing so that's been a very good push and we're doing a lot
032of drills that way so that everybody is very practiced for as something happens on campus um we've also increased our partnership with community and schools we've added a social worker this year and a professional counselor that works with the LPC that we have on staff so meeting mental health needs as well and then our Intruder audits from first semester we passed the the Intruder audits first semester we're ready for the Intruder audits from DEA for second semester and just rolling right along with all of our new safety protocols to make sure that staff and and kids are safe on campus so in your packets there's lots of things for each one of the campuses there is one that is kind of printed weird that says demographics and highlights and it talks about the students and
033the staff it's not printed well but it'll be online and you'll be able to see it where it'll make a little bit more sense but one of the notes that I had to say about that is that our average class size is 20.5 and for every single grade if you look at the GISD taper we have a higher class student to teacher ratio at every single grade except for first and so we do have a lot of intervention pullouts that are Esther funded but um we do have bigger class sizes all right um so District accreditation oh I didn't there we go every our district is a b and we do not have any schools in Granbury that are rated or D or an f and so um Bacchus is still on targeted support but
034that's because in 2019 um they were comprehensive which is a two-year Target and in 2020 we didn't test so they couldn't have an opportunity to get out of it then and in 2021 they didn't rate schools and so they didn't have an opportunity to get out of it then but we did have an opportunity to take our year one so that was year one of implementation of our targeted plan and then we got our results back and they did so fantastic but they still have a Year too and so we're still um doing that that targeted plan for Bacchus but I have no doubt that at the end of this year they'll be out of that so special education the same thing in um we were last year under a needs assistance determination status but
035Miss Shelley kurtzinger and her staff had worked very well with all of the campus admin and put a support plan in place and we met the needed targets we still have areas to improve in but we met the needed targets so that now we meet the requirements and sped and then for safe schools there were six incidents and you have more information about that in your packets distinctions is something that we have to um report about but I'm super happy to report about them because to get a distinction you have to be in the top quarter of your like um group and so each campus is in a different group of 40 schools and to get a distinction you have to you have to perform well your students have to perform well so ghs and
036GMS each had one distinction AMS earned five distinctions and you can see aes5 Backus 3 oakwoods with all six member I know with three and Broner with four stars is an accelerated campus and they're not eligible for distinctions but they did get an A so I want to say that again [Music] another manual mandatory reporting deal that's kind of hard to understand that's that Texas Higher Education coordinary Coordinating Board we have to track no we have to report their tracking of our 2020 graduates after their first year of college because it's just Texas schools that are tracking and it's not all of the private schools and it's not even all of the technical schools so the ones that report to them they put on their website so that's where some of those not trackable not
037found are from the other ones are out of state are tons of students that go to military academies and go into enlisted military service they're not counted in that either so that's why that not trackable not found number is high because they don't get included there so the three areas of focus that Dr grin gave us academics attendance and Safety and Security we absolutely have a lot of growth in those areas that we have shown already and we're putting processes and procedures in place to continue to grow there and then some other areas of focus Bridging the Gap for our students and some of those sub-populations that historically struggle our economically disadvantaged students our Hispanic students are sped in our bilingual population they're consistently lower they have a harder time finding that success and so
038we are we are making improvements there and we are targeting to make sure that they find the same academic success as everyone else supporting and connecting families campuses our community our students our parents we have a goal of everybody being able to support and connect and grow together in Partnership so that's a goal and then providing opportunities for our students we're continuing to expand in CTE certifications our partnership with Tarleton improving our ccmr targets all of those things dual credit dual enrollment and and making our high school so that they can get their Texas credits for higher ed as well all of those things are to provide opportunity for our kids and so that's another Target area area of focus so the glossary has to be linked it didn't necessarily have to be printed but
039but if you have any questions I can stay here or you can contact me later no questions but I will say Tammy thank you very much for the report appreciate the thoroughness of the report um also I want to mention Stacy Brown and her team in the curriculum Department I know they put a lot of work in to help you prepare and also to prepare for testing and I think if I were to call Stacy up she would Point her fingers back to the campuses and all of our campus principals are here tonight and they really do a yeoman's job making sure that that our kids are prepared and if I were to call them up they would uh they would point the fingers at their staff and say we have great great teachers in
040Granbury ISD and and we also have great students in Granbury ISD we partner with our parents and in that partnership is what has allowed our district to thrive academically over the last couple of years during covid where other schools maybe saw a slight decline so well done to you and to the administrators in the audience and certainly all of our teachers working online we appreciate that hard work yeah I'll Echo that about the campus principals and admin and the teachers just so very intentional in working with our kids and their parents to make sure that they continue to grow so they definitely deserve at least this much bragging and uh and a pat on the back for sure I think we ought to get to get in and our staff a big hand because folks
041those purple lines look great to me so thank you so much public comments we only have eight people who have requested to address the board and so you will you time them someone will tell them will you time them over there okay so we'll give them each five minutes and we'll let everybody speak early in the meeting tonight since there are only eight total uh the first one is uh Minetta how ell foreign wasn't that great it's Marietta Harold I apologize that's okay all right I wanted to talk about um the airplane itself because I have a question that I think the board I know you can't address me and I'm not asking you to but you need to ask and answer it amongst yourselves and maybe even involve your legal department um and I
042want to acknowledge that there I understand that there are two airplanes there is an experiment or I guess a kit airplane that's built and sold and then there is the Cessna am I correct in that understanding I believe the two airplanes and one program the Eagles Nest program has been in place since 2016. and um it's a phenomenal program I think you've done a great job with that the one I want to address though is the purchase of the Cessna done in April of 2021. my understanding is the first pilot student pilot was became a pilot around February of 2022 last year so almost a year into it we had produced as a School District One Pilot again I don't have any problem with your program your CTE program I think that most people in
043this community are happy that we have those types of programs offered at our school they're very important to produce students who go on in life and become very productive what I want to talk to you about is the lack of policies surrounding the aircraft itself your attorney last meeting pointed out that there was a lack of policies and therefore there could be no accountability for what took place with the airplane it's very clear very understandable how he came to that conclusion in and of itself but my question is without clear policies where is the legal responsibility for the pilot should he have an incident in that plane that injures I'm either a student or a member of the public no one sets out in the morning saying I'm going to have an accident today accidents
044happen no one intends to miss a stop sign or a stoplight at least no sane person but it happens and so what I want to ask the school district this board in particular is that what happens if there's an incident and the scenario I'm going to give you is based on my background for over eight years I investigated railroad related accidents involving the public for an internet for a Interstate Railroad I also spent four years investigating large exposure Trucking accidents I was called to the scenes of those accidents both in the trucking industry and in the railroad industry at the moment they happened many times arriving before emergency personnel my background there was a hindsight risk management I could see the problem after the incident happened which got me to a point of being able
045to foretell incidents that's how we ended up with OSHA regulations and things like that which I also wrote for some of the Holy oh subsidiary trucking companies that um my employer worked with when someone's a member of the public is in an accident or a student his parents would sue the school district and possibly if the parliament error there's pilot error could name the pilot as a defendant in a lawsuit so my first question is does the state tort law which limits recovery according to your attorney last week of a hundred thousand dollars per person three hundred thousand dollars per incident what happens if the Judgment assessed against a pilot is greater than that is he responsible or his assets responsible or does state law indemnify him completely as an employee in light of the
046fact that you have no clear-cut policies would he have been performing in accordance with his with the policies which we don't have and his and his job description those are questions you need to I am not an attorney you need to ask your legal counsel the second one is if you were to get a judgment against him for an incident where they find pilot error so a case that goes to attorney to law the end of a lawsuit with a judgment would he then um his personal assets be at risk if the Judgment was against him individually these are questions if I were the pilot that I would want the answer to and I wanted I would want to know before I took that plane up again [Music] and I think that you as a
047board would want to know the answers in order to talk to in order to better I guess my time is up and thank you for for letting me speak I hope that this gives you an idea of some questions you should ask thank you so much for our coming Marietta um Jerry Daughtry on the airplane I have not taken the opportunity to talk to this board since October there have been some changes in faces on the board since then but one of the things that brings me back tonight is that I have not seen a change in the culture of the board majority that I had hoped would take place by now and last month's meeting is one that gives me evidence in my mind to support the notion that the culture of elitism among
048the board majority is is a continuing problem I noticed last month that we had a seating arrangement where seats were assigned to certain board members now it makes sense to me for the board chairman to be in this Center but we have a group of elected adults and I do not understand where the authority comes from or even the wisdom comes from to assign seats to adults who have been elected by the public I thought it was very interesting coincidence that uh that Ms Graf and Ms Lowry were seated at the opposite ends of this Podium so that they're about as far apart from each other as they could possibly get the I guess that was just by happenstance now another issue that came up in the board meeting last month was the chain a
049vote to change the standard operating procedures back to what they had been prior to to last year's change the vote was five to two to keep them as they were even though the clear purpose of that change last year had outlived its purpose it was uh was decided that we would just continue on with the practice created last year over the practice that had been followed for years before my view of that is is that that really was a a slap in the face of the so-called group of the eight and gives me indication that the board is still uh of a mind to rule by absolute tyranny over any dissenting voices the cover-up investigation that was conducted by the attorney firm that was hired to look into the plane circumstance and my mind was
050a clear effort on the part of of the school board to provide cover for themselves so that they would not have to hold anybody publicly accountable for what went on with the misuse of school property so I think what we have is a culture of elitism that says that we're going to rule by a five to two majority on these things that is a mystery to me as to how this board can continue to take that kind of attitude in view of the election results over the past couple of years you have lost two incumbents and one each in the last two Board elections and now you are faced with a five-member majority that is in control of things and that interests me because one of those members of that five has clearly turned her
051back on what her uh campaign positions were when she was elected to this board and is now part of that five vote majority one of the members that was elected in this past election was was elected by plurality so that he actually had more people vote against him than he had people vote for him but he's part of that five vote majority there are two of you sitting at the diocese at this particular point that are up for election in November and if the present Trend continues where we lose an incumbent every year at least one of you is in lame duck as you sit here tonight so how you can continue to uh to have this kind of attitude about how you're going to rule things is a mystery to me now as it
052relates to the airplane I don't have any quarrel with the aviation program as the lady previously stated but I do think that the owning of that airplane is a bridge too far we should recognize that there's a limit as to just how far and how and what kind of liability we will assume because even though we've talked about the the financial liability involved there is a liability here that cannot be measured in money and as tonight you consider continued ownership of that plane you need to take into consideration just how much emotional liability you want to invite to bring upon yourself on book Banning hi everyone I am Sheri Johnson I've been here before and uh I am the president of Texas democratic women of Hood County also I we as a group we support
053Granbury ISD wholeheartedly I I do enjoy coming here and hearing about all the great educational things that are going on in this District I'm a former teacher I retired from teaching 25 years in Waco ISD and I do like to hear all these good things that are going on we do still have one issue that's that bothers me and my group and that is the book Banning issue because it's still going on here um unfortunately we continue to make national news in a negative way because of this issue and the the biggest issue I have is the book Banning that has to do with Banning books that have LBGTQ characters what we need I think we all need to understand what sexual orientation means because it's not completely known why someone might be lesbian gay
054straight or bisexual but research shows that sexual orientation is likely caused partly by biological factors that start before birth it's not a choice and reading books about gay characters is not going to turn your kid gay it's just not going to happen that being said most LBGTQ students say that they continually face hostility at school in a survey of twenty thousand sixth through 12th graders they shared their experiences during the 2021 school year 83 percent of those students experienced harassment or assault 82 percent felt unsafe at school that's a huge percentage 58 percent heard homophobic remarks by the staff of the school such intolerance is sadly common in school while some have faced bullying from students many experience intimidation and even straight up bullying from the adults in their school schools can establish these are
055some things that can be done to help that schools can establish LBGTQ clubs enforce anti-bullying policies that explicitly protect LBGTQ students provide staff training on EX on inclusive practices which I actually have had a former teacher from here ask me what I don't know what to do to help these students feel safer and give transgender students access to facilities that match their gender gender identity something about creating an inclusive school and removing anti-lbgtq toxicity makes the school better for everyone removing books is a negative impact because it's censorship and it makes those students feel like they are less than valuable so you know uh Granbury ISD has been sued for violating Title IX which basically says that school districts cannot deny students the right to be themselves in school be it through book bands discriminary
056discriminatory comments or other harmful policies since there is a federal investigation of sex discrimination I wonder what measures are being taken to ensure the civil rights of lgbtq students here in Granbury ISD thank you thank you Miss Johnson [Applause] in a bang or bone thank you hello board thank you so much for being here and for donating your time volunteering in these positions um I am up here to talk to you guys about the books as well um according to a public records request over 700 titles that totals more than 1 000 copies of books have been removed from the school since July um they were weeded from The Collection I worked at a library as well so I'm familiar with weeding and it's said that it was done with the procedures according to the
057I forget the exact name but there's a procedure that you all are following um the problem that I noticed with this was that there was not a reason noted for the books being removed and I think that the Librarians put a lot of work and time into it and it seems unusual to me that there wouldn't be a note as to why any specific book is removed so these books it's about a thousand books I would estimate if they're about ten dollars each when their purchases comes to about ten thousand dollars worth of books they were removed of course they're older so it might not be worth that anymore um in light of the federal investigation from the Department of education's office of civil rights they are looking into the Discrimination based on sexual orientation
058and gender and I believe that these books should be returned and given a reason for why they were removed I also believe that content relating to lgbtq community must be included in the library's collection so that all students feel welcomed and included at our schools regarding you guys's criteria about adding books um I saw that there's criteria about um having an official age or grade range for each school um I'm afraid that this might be construed and interpreted strictly and I'm a little bit afraid that this would be a disservice to Advanced readers that might not have access to books at their reading level if it's beyond their grade level um definitely taking into account of content of course of course I just want to say thank you so much for your time and I
059hope to hear some issues addressed at the next meeting thank you Miss Fung [Applause] Monica Brown tisd policy and thank you the policy I want to point out is e h a a local and legal in my experience this past year about the books I have spoken to some of the highest level staff who are not familiar with it and I would encourage every one of you to read it because of what it is it's required General instruction for K through 12th grade talks about financial literacy English History all those stuff all character qualities talks about teaching the Old Testament in the New Testament kindergarten through 12th grade so that is there it's from tasby it is Statewide it's not just granberry but it's something that I think if we look close we'll see there's
060some key areas that are being ignored and of course there are great areas that we are working on and I see that uh tonight I just want to ask the teachers to look it up because many of them have told me they had never heard of it they were too busy focusing on takes to know what the actual policy says ehaa local very simple anybody can understand it it's on your board online board policy all right there's a common opinion among the trustees and the majority of this audience or at least in this community that the books that have been in question over this past year need to be seriously considered many of them are immoral no matter what gender or what what it is if you take a look at it and you give
061an honest assessment you'll see there's sexually explicit books with little to no educational value that can be proven the simple test is would you read them to your children or your grandchildren on purpose most of us never would because there is no redeeming value and it wouldn't lead the listener to a higher place in their thinking of their beliefs any follow-up family discussions would not be about love or selflessness in relationships but baser self-centered thinking would not be pointing them to good character and every one of us here have you especially as a board have discussed character and your Christian values in your campaigns definition of character one it was a person with good character acts thinks and feels in a way that matches commonly accepted good traits like being honest respectful responsible caring and
062fair good traits may also be called good values or good morals character is based on common good traits and beliefs and all of you trustees every one of you have boldly and proudly stated during your campaigns and other public appearances that you are Christians and we take that at face value and if character is seen through your actions based on beliefs and this board is not projecting their beliefs in their decision making you are allowing others whoever they are ACLU or whoever to distract you and keep you from demonstrating good character to the children in this situation this situation is a teaching moment for our community our children and our Citizens need to see an active character courage even in the face of severe repercussions you let an effort to spend half a billion dollars
063on still bricks mortar are you not willing to let your beliefs inform your actions and risk a few million dollars should we be sued wouldn't it be better to assemble our high school students and explain to them that these materials do not promote good relationships between men and women that we're acting as adults out of our beliefs and the beliefs of this community for their good that we don't bend our beliefs to the pressure we feel from a few citizens and from the ACLU [Music] okay our nation our state and our community are under this kind of thinking encroachment to undermine our young people to teach Extreme selfishness to promote General moral decay whether you like it or not you are a line of defense the right thing would be to draw our community together
064because you're acting at a defensible beliefs that move us toward good you had this opportunity to be leaders to send a strong message to our children that we love them and their development their number one goal and our community lives its values like this out daily this Friday and Saturday night there's a Biblical citizenship class at Brazos Covenant Ministries it's totally free it's led by Patriot Academy I think you can get it online if you don't even attend the meeting but it's a great place to get started for citizens in general prageru also has a parent action guide to guide parents and how to promote change uh wall Builders is in Alito they're offering teacher training in Irving two of them this summer for government teachers history teachers administrators in general to inform and to
065make sure you are very strong in understanding the original intent in our country and successful practices from the past so I just wanted to announce that because I'm attending these things and I'm inviting everybody I can to get involved and to understand we the people and what our rights are and to stand up for our students thank you Mr Brown Mr Greg Hill on various things that's right well I've already thank you members of the board superintendent Glenn thank you for the opportunity for me to address you tonight once again I get the opportunity to talk to you I want to start off by saying that just literally a few hours ago our community said goodbye to what I consider what she was a fearless and tireless Warrior in regards to the defense of our
066children a lady named Donna Cole who passed away on January 16th you might recall Donna because she was the little red-haired lady that came up and many times spoke to each and every one of you about the book issue in particular at least lately she had talked a lot about the book issue and she brought with her as she always did and I thought this was so interesting she brought with her facts and figures that underscored what she was presenting to each and every one of you in regards to the impact of pornography on young people and she would talk about her experience in the prison system and and how as she would talk to those people that were inmates in the prison system most every one of those inmates would talk to would tell
067her that they started with pornography so she was Fearless in regards to addressing you and asking you to make a move to get any pornography out of the school system altogether out of the Independent School District altogether so I just wanted to acknowledge her as I stood before you we will definitely miss her as part of our community and I will certainly miss her inside because I thought and her leadership um having said that it's unfortunate that she passed away without really feeling like there was a final resolution to the issue that she was so passionate about and I think that as I consider the fact that she's gone now I'm concerned because not only are are we still dealing with the issue of books I'd like to get that behind us but in so
068many cases as we the community stand before you the trustees and you recall that I've talked to you about passing our trust to you um there are so many things that I feel like we have tried to communicate to you the board and which has either not been acted on or in some ways has just been kicked down the road the can has been kicked down the road certainly the book issue might be one of those I felt like and I've addressed this before but I felt like the issue of homeschoolers participating in UIL activities I thought that that was a decision that was failed by this board and needs to be reconsidered I was concerned as one of the other speakers talked about by the change in the standard operating procedures here on this
069board because I did feel like it was a a move to silence some voices having said that I don't want to be up here and really come to you and and and and appear like we are always in conflict with each other please don't receive it that way I want to come up here and address you in a way that just says look you guys are the trustees you have decisions to make we understand that we as the community simply stand here before you so that we can be heard and thus far I don't think that we've been heard in a lot of issues I'm sorry but that's the way I feel so therefore I'm going to change my direction a little bit I want to just Proclaim something over you it's from Philippians 4.
070as you guys take up these issues and as you consider every issue I want you to consider them in terms of whatever is true whatever is just whatever is Noble whatever is pure whatever is virtuous if there's anything that's praiseworthy I would like you to base your decisions on those things thank you for your time Dave Eagle on a Texas open meetings Act howdy board good to see you been a while uh when y'all were bumping bumping it to the end I I had to leave every time the last two or three meetings but I want to start the new year right I made a run at the School Board before on the open meetings Act and I just want to point this out and call it to your attention and give you some food
071for thought um you have a standing closed session at 5 pm to 6. and that is really Contra it contravenes the open meetings act and here's here's why um and I'm not going to be asking you to answer this because you can't but you show that you went in there to talk about staff recommendations and consider appointments maybe you did uh the catastrophically yeah I'm sure you did that one deliberations regarding security you got that every time I'm doubtful you talk about it every time purchasing lease of real estate you got it on there every time I doubt if you talk about it every time in private consult with your attorney you got it on there every time and I doubt if you do it every time and the reason I'm bringing this out is
072because in the Commissioner's Court as you know I'm a Precinct 4 just got reelected and the open meetings Act is very important to me as part of being transparent and if you go look at Commissioner's Court agendas for the last two years you're going to see that we go into very very very few executive sessions and it's not about what you do back there every time in a standing meeting but it's about what it looks like it doesn't look good and they told me in law school even if it's legal if you do something that doesn't look good maybe you ought not do it and so I want to point that out not not not in anger or not getting on to you or anything else but I you know because y'all have been the
073the school board has been doing this for a long time so that's your practice but I'd like for you to think about it uh because do you need to go into an executive session every time um I'm glad to see you put the speakers back in the order I appreciate that thank you very much [Applause] um but I want to I want to go off of something that Mr Doherty said about uh elections on January the first the Commissioner's Court flipped and what once was myself and another commissioner were the minority too it's flipped now we've got three on our side of the docket and we are coming I'm a member of the Republican Party have been for many years and we take elections seriously and so I would like to at least place on
074the table the idea that when people come to this podium whether they're you have the Democrat chair here or you've got a republican like me here that you listen to us number one but you think about what we're asking you because we're the ones we're the taxpayers and I would put forth to you the consider what we ask for I know this book deal is a is a big deal and it's been going on now for some time and I don't know what the answers are to it I know you're put into a very precarious place uh but the taxpayers are the ones that are paying for the school and uh I don't think it's about lgbtq by the way that's a smoke screen in my opinion and just like the Democrat chair has an
075opinion about what she thought I've got an opinion about what I think and so um so I will say this in closing that the Commissioner's Court just recently have gone to where I know y'all only meet once a month but we now have open mic twice a month and we have a new commissioner on there that's very engaged and very much wants transparency and we have the first female commissioner elected in Hood County ever Miss Nanette Samuelson so I appreciate what y'all are doing we got an election coming up to two you guys are going to be running again and uh think about it thank you [Applause] thank you Mr Ozone now we have uh is it Cadbury Burke to talk about the High School dress code hi my name is cabrie and I have
076been a Granbury IC student for seven years now and I have run into some issues with our dress code living in Texas with extreme weather conditions such as 105 degree weather and not being able to wear regular link shorts is unreasonable shorts should not have to be three inches above the knee but rather mid thigh or covered in all private areas leggings should not have to be accompanied by a top that reaches three inches above the knee as well what we decide to wear should be up to the student and their parents if you are adequately covered in all private areas then it should not matter what we choose to wear shorts and leggings are not a distraction as well as what steps as the school taking to ensure that males are taught how to
077properly interact and view a female because that has seemed to be a problem with the dress code and the reason for it our School prioritizes dress code over our own education a student at Granbury High School had a severe allergic reaction and instead of addressing her health she was dress coded and told to change that shows where our school's priorities are really at it was not only shameful to the student but neglectful to her own health issue as well as sending students to ISS and making students change into different clothes not only creates a bigger distraction than the clothing itself but it's also extremely downgrading and shaming to the students I understand you want a professional environment but this is too drastic many other schools have more laid-back dress codes such as Alito and Toller
078and many more tights athletic pants yoga pants jeggings must be accompanied by a shirt or dress that adequately covers the entire bottom quoted from Tolar High School's dress code all schools listed are very good academically and have proven that dress code does not affect students academics more so schools have shown that there's no issue with students wearing more lenient type clothing with examples of other schools and many student opinions there is no reason that the dress code should not be be modified to be more reasonable this school is or the school is causing more harm than good with its dress code it is shameful to students to be dress coded and especially girls being over sexualized and completely appropriate clothing it is harmful to body image and emotionally abusive to be criticized and shame for
079how they express themselves Granbury High School Prides itself on being the best so it's time the administration starts treating students appropriately I would also like to point out that Granbury High School frequently conveys the idea that they want to be a safe space and a home for students which I completely agree with however they are eliminating that idea by shaming and sexualizing students and restricting their right to express themselves um I'm not asking for the stress code to be wear whatever you want I'm just asking that it is more reasonable given weather conditions and the overall change in the economy and just the world itself I think that it's time that we update this dress code to be or conform to what today's world is thank you for your time and thank you for listening
080thank you while we do not respond to our folks who come before us um Miss Brown I've read all 57 Iberian meals we I would like to verify some statements that perhaps would like to go on record is stating our Librarians did use the Texas State library and archives commission guidelines to do their their reading this summer back criteria sets up the copyright date if it's out of date they are waited for that if they have not been checked out in a number of years our seldom have checked out they're waiting for that if they're falling apart and Beyond repair they are waited for that if they are moldy as the book on Martin Luther King Jr was they're waited for that uh if they um and some of the reading that happened this summer
081some of the middle school books were moved to the high school where there were more age-appropriate we do not have a system in this school that that they can identify the reasons because we do it we do have a technology that and that it doesn't show why they were readed foreign does not but we are listening to you uh just for your information I'm going to my first job was a as a an aide in the library in 1968 I think this is the first time I've had both sides angry over the same issue but until the OCR investigation is complete our board pretty well will sit where we are we will listen to you but you will not see any um board policies changed until we are through with that investigation and I thank
082you all tonight for coming and expressing your your concerns when we will go now to the consent agenda uh which includes approved Middle School course catalog bar 23-24 approved the board minutes with corrections that have been submitted by Mr Wimberley to Category 2 e-writing funding bar network works switches and our technology department first review of Tasman localized policy update 120 budget amendments that will be presented by Mr that have been presented by Mr Whitefield and approval to purchase large equipment for the kitchen do I have anyone that wants to pull any of the items Madam president if I may I would like to uh talk a little bit about the donations that we received this month it was um quite amazing our our community has really stepped up to help Granbury ISD this month from
083the Granbury Optimist Club we received 720 dollars to purchase food for the athletic freezers this is above and beyond what they would get for their lunches in that there was an anonymous donation easy for me to say to njrotc Student Activity accounts for General operations of two thousand five hundred there was a donation from the lady pirate basketball booster club to the lady pirate basketball campus activity fund for their travel to Fredericksburg for a tournament of three thousand two hundred dollars pirate Youth Cheer Association to AMS cheer students for their Cheer Camp of 250. the Thomas V Givens Foundation donated to the njrotc campus activity fund for the sole use of the mcjrotc program forty thousand dollars ooh Valencia ditto donated to the AMS Avid campus fund two thousand dollars for travel and lastly JD
084cashion agency gave 250 dollars to the Stars campus activity account for travel as well that gave a grand total of forty eight thousand nine hundred and twenty dollars just this month that was given from our community to help our students and I just think that they deserve a round of applause foreign agenda items as listed do I have a second I'll second we have a motion and a second to accept the uh approve the agenda items as presented all in favor show up hands opposed same sign let the records show that on about 7-0 that that is approved report from the aviation subcommittee and possible action related to the sale of the district airplane in accordance with Texas Education Code and board policies Mr Dr Brian thank you madam president uh you charged uh three
085trustees with uh coming together and visiting with our Career and Technical technical education director Todd Gibson that was Mrs graft Mr Wimberley and Mrs Townsend I know they had an opportunity to meet and review data with Mr Gibson I'll ask him to the podium at this time to give a brief summary and then we'll turn it over to Mr Wimberley well he stole my first line I was going to tell you he was part of that subcommittee but uh I'll uh just go on to say that all of those folks that were on the uh on the subcommittee have some knowledge to some extent of the the field of Aviation which was uh a good thing uh we met and we reviewed financial statements we looked at flight data we looked at the individual classes
086and the vision of the program the flight program uh specifically getting students flight hours and that initial Vision was to get students a private pilot's license at a reduced cost uh one of the goals for our meeting was to review that data to make a recommendation tonight to the board for the potential sale of the GISD airplane and after a lot of review and discussion it is the recommendation of that subcommittee to sell the GISD airplane so no one knowing that we have a partner flight school with uh in the pattern right there at the Granbury airport the cell of the GISD plane will not hinder our students from accumulating flight hours and that program will continue to to flow fairly well um again this this won't negatively impact any of the classes in the
087aviation program of study either and that that is a brief summary of what we discussed Mr Wimberley I guess uh there's not a copy of this uh letter but this is basically the uh what the subcommittee uh agreed to part of which Mr Gibson went over but I'll just go over it so I don't miss anything I'll just read it after looking at financial data collected over the time GSA GISD is on the aircraft and considering the liability and potential risks associated with owning an aircraft the subcommittee agrees that the sale of the GSD airplane is in the district's best interest one of the original intentions of purchasing the plane back in 2021 was to save students money is they worked at attaining a private Pilots license over the past year between November 2021 and
088November 2022 the cost of the maintenance inspections Insurance Hangar fee and other plane related expansions were much higher than anticipated based on its financial data and the number of hours sown by students in the GISD airplane we determined that the district would still be able to offer students discounted rates without owning an aircraft the district would continue to go through our partner flight school for the flight instruction piece but the district would begin to use the flight schools aircraft for that instruction in lieu of the ghd airplane the cell the airplane would go through a normal bid process after an appraisal is performed in the funds generated from the sale of the plane will return to the CTE Department as part of the rules governing the CTE funds new GISD Aviation procedures and prerequisites are
089being developed and reflect the Reliance on the partner flight school for student flight hours the cell with the GISD airplane will not hinder our students from accumulating flight hours the sale will not negatively impact any of the classes in the aviation program of study though the total cost will not increase for students as they work toward the private Pilots license for the current Academic Year the way GISD assists students and paying for flight hours and the requirements to fly in the gis de Aviation program will be re-evaluated for the 2023-2024 school year we will continue with the current plan through July 31st 2023. the subcommittee considered all factors from making this decision included but not limited to financial impact on the taxpayers benefits to the students and liabilities associated with the ownership of an aircraft
090thank you Mr Wembley is there any discussion yes I have something I'd like to say I wanted to say I believe we're very fortunate the plain issue came to our attention before a catastrophic event occurred and we would have been negatively impacted for years we had the opportunity to fix this issue before someone's injured or killed my concern is not directed with the aviation program directly and it appears the aviation program is a successful program and worthy of the support of the community and GISD staff my concern is the original purchase use cost and risk liability of the district-owned airplane to include the aviation program into the KBS investigation of scope of work only created concern and confusion to the GISD staff teachers students and community in my analysis the risk to GISD is the
091driving force and whether we keep the plane or sell the plane regardless of the cost analysis of the aviation subcommittee that they've completed the risk is the driving force behind my decision indicate in KBS conducted Granbury ISD Aviation flight program review which is a report the author States the police insurance policy amounts and covered persons are adequate to cover any statutorily kept liability in the event of an accident in addition the author stated this during his oral presentation before the board and the public I find this disturbing the GISD administrators board members and staff would evaluate the risk of the plane based upon the statutory cap liability which is on page 17 of the report basically but what this says to our children families and Community is that GISD accepts the risk the plan creates
092because the most we can lose is a hundred thousand dollars per person according to the insurance policy every time this plane would take off in land it created a risk of accident and a liability to the district as a district accepting the risk of this catastrophic injury or loss of life to a student District employee or Community member based upon the statutory cap liability was disappointing and unacceptable for a public school district the loss of life or catastrophic imagery injury would far exceed the hundred thousand dollar insurance coverage and emotional physical reputation for the district and I am glad hopefully that we will be voting to be selling the airplane does that liability go away regardless of who the kids are flying with that's a good question the one that likely needs to be answered
093by by legal counsel but because we're in a partnership within the pattern there's a good chance that it doesn't but uh but certainly I would recommend the board seek legal counsel on that question just to come moment that I'm in agreement with Mrs Lowry just the liability the risk and the expense to the taxpayers and the children so I'm in complete agreement with what Miss Lowry said so considering that liability with legal counsel if that's something that we have to look at regardless of who they're flying with would your recommendation or proposal be to increase that insurance policy to cover more liability so the the insurance policy would be held by in the pattern okay and yeah and then you know we can certainly uh pull at their their policy limits are and look at
094that as well [Music] and I would entertain a motion to accept the recommendation from the aviation subcommittee and um shall we have a district airplane our in accordance with the Texas Education Code board policy with regard to selling property Madam president elected promotion that we put the aircraft up for sale in accordance with the educational codes and we go ahead and take a vote on that second dad motion by Mr Wimberley and second by Mrs Graf um any further discussion I do want to thank Mr Wimberley Miss Townsend and his craft for giving of their time accepting the challenge of being a sub Committee of this board and thank you for accepting that appointment and at this time we will vote on the motion all in favor show up hands I'll opposed same sign let
095the record show about 7-0 that we will sell the plane and trustees I will get the information related to the questions asked by Miss Gore Union president one thing before we go any further this doesn't mean that the that we haven't finished putting together a policy that needs to be put together for using in the pattern so this as as was said by Mr Wimberley we will continue the rest of this year under what we're doing but next year there will be new um prerequisites and Aviation procedures for students going into the program this does also since it really wasn't mentioned at any time in here there will be no pilots from GISD teaching students thank you for the clarification Ms Townsend any other comments that were moved to be a discussion on the investigative
096findings from KBS report Miss Lowry yes ma'am I read the KBS report over four or five different times and I came up with some disinformation some questions to me it produced more questions than it did answers so I just have some comments here I'd like to read the investigation by Miles T Bradshaw KBS Law Firm was submitted on December 12th the scope of the assignment was stated as follows review of the aviation program with a key focus on the use and operation of the district-owned airplane I believe the stated scope of work was an assignment was misdirected the aviation program was not and was not in question there's no question that the aviation program is a unique and valuable educational resource in the CTE program at GISD playing in its use by GST staff we're
097a very big concern for me and many members within the community principally the concerns are the was the risk involved in GISD owning its own airplane versus the value of the airplane and can provide to students considering their viable other options and significantly reduce the overall risk I'm very pleased that the board has voted to sell the airplane and discontinue the ownership by the district JBS investigated a report of findings clearly identified gisd's executive Staffing boards failure in defining and creating policies to administer the plane through the aviation program GISD employees were free to determine on what was acceptable and what was not based upon their own opinion the report determined The Following on page three the agency makes a statement that the employee otherwise carrying out his duties to fly the airplane there is
098no official position description that clearly stated that the employee's duties included teaching flying or instructional employee matters because this is not and was not clearly defined in his duties it was simply left up to the employee to make this decision therefore one can have a position that it was a stretch for the employee to fly the district-owned airplane in performance of his duties additionally because an employee was has no direct duties defined regarding his need to fly the airplane it is not a value for the district to support or sponsor the employees need to remain current with his PPL additionally this Loosely defined position description most likely places the employee in a high level of personal liability page four item four the author identified that the employee had a PPL beginning in 1998. now where
099does the agency state or determine that the district sponsored or directed him to obtain his PPL furthermore in item four the author states that the employee remained involved in the program to promote it with the students parents and community including the discovery flights and keeping his PPL current in order to do so legally and proficiently nowhere does this investigation identify that the employee had written directives or responsibilities to do so other than him performing this function therefore the employee had no benefit to the district to remain current other than for his own benefit and to fly the district plane the numbers are certainly worth considering on how the GISD plan was utilized when it was utilized and by whom it appears from an investigative findings that the GISD plan has made 136 flights since it
100was purchased it was noted it should be noted but each and every one of these 136 flights had placed the head placed GISD in the risk of liability by the Numbers listed on page 13 of the report the employee made 17 flights since May 6th I would question whether the 17 flights qualified that employee is being proficient to be flying students and staff and putting us at risk according to the investigative report on identified CFI Pilots flew the GISD plan 82 times 48 88th Lake 20 in the pattern and 14 by a parent instructor which is located on page 13 and 15. it is noted that the agency did not interview these cfis to determine their involvement cost savings to them and more importantly verify their CFI certifications it does not appear the CFI Pilot's
101licenses were verified by anyone and that their certification is valid some of these CFI Pilots weren't listed on the insurance coverage on page 19 item 46 the investigator referred to the employee authorized or encouraged all that Loosely page 24 item 49 employee was given fairly broad authority to fly the plane no documents were provided by the agency showing this authorization was made or was any of this authorization in writing or codified in any way the agency investigative report made a reference to the employee duties to fly but the GISD duty is assumed under other duties as a sign which in my opinion is not sufficient for this level of responsibility I have placed a more place a more detailed report on my Facebook campaign page if anybody is interested in Reading anything else they lesson
102learned I think through this plain experience is the GISD must create detailed written policies before programs are implemented into service and especially with a program involves high value equipment and creates a high risk for the program do you have a motion of any kind it's not an action item doctor oh it it's it is an action item I was also originally going to ask for a vote to sell of the sale of the airplane but we'd already done that thank you any other comments with regard to the uh investigative findings from the KBs thank you Ms Lowry that concludes our discussion in action and we'll move to the reports Mr Whiteville thank you madam president board in front of you you have the financial statements for the period ending December 31st of 20 2022 this
103statement includes those transactions that occurred between the period of September 1st and December 31st 2022. you can see in your uh on your financials that Revenue collected to date equals 33.71 percent of the budgeted amount compared to 36.72 percent in 21 and 22. the expenditures of date represent 39.58 percent of the budget as compared to 33.3 percent in 2122. uh the notable uh transactions that you'll see on there under expenditures is going to fall under transportation though there is a little bit of a discrepancy there we monitor fuel prices daily and we have purchased a couple of uh buses and they're not in but they are on PO so they are included in your financials that's the discrepancy that probably sticks out the most in those financials and I'll be glad to answer any questions
104if you have any on those financials are there any questions thank you Mr Ashley I'm moving right on to your next item thank you madam president um boy in front of you to have your cash flow and investment report for the month ending December 31st 2022 you can see that our investments are producing a an investment income this year that uh substantially uh is larger than it was last year those uh rates have increased over 2022 you can and my memo there you can see that that uh they did increase the the interest rates several times that it did uh was lucrative for us in this year um we did a make an amendment at a meeting to a meeting two meetings ago to increase our budget for that because we are receiving more uh
105interest this year and we're keeping us a eye on that to see what those interest rates will do and how much we're going to actually receive this year and you can see that for the month of December we did actually get a hundred and three thousand dollars in interest on our investments been a long time since we've seen those kind of numbers yes sir where's the other side of that coin is if trying to buy a house these days yes ma'am thank you Mr Whitefield um little Buccaneers GISD staff Child Care Center update it's Rodriguez in Miss Middlebrook hello ladies good evening thanks for having us um we are here to bring you some happy I guess to wrap up the meeting um little Buccaneers has been open for three years now this is our
106third year open and it has been fantastic phenomenal um we just want to give you a little update um of course we have lots of pictures because there's lots of cuteness there feel free to stop by and see your kiddos I'm going to let Carly talk a little bit about Texas Rising Star which is something that we've done this year we are extremely proud to announce that we are a four-star Texas Rising Star Center there are um four different categories that we were assessed on starting with the director and staff qualifications and training along with teacher child interactions program Administration indoor and outdoor environments and we were um so we set out with a goal of becoming a TRS Center by the end of this year so may of 2023 and because our staff is
107so incredible we actually achieved our goal in November of 2022 and uh four-star rating is the highest rating possible we'll attain that for the next three years at least it'll be wonderful some other really great things happening at little bucks uh We've we've begun implementing Frog Street curriculum that we've gotten really great feedback from our families as well as our teachers and staff on um we are in the middle of our book buddies program we've partnered up with a fourth grade class Miss ulshak's class at AES they come over and read with our three-year-olds every other week and it's amazing they've developed some really great relationships through that we've also increased our family involvement this year we've had a grandparent day we have had a parent day and we have our first annual sweetheart dance
108coming up next month and we've also received our very first gef grant um and just a little bit about enrollment we currently are serving 62 children but we have several more infants that we're expecting by the end of the year our infant room is actually wait listed until next year we already have our spots full for next year our two and three-year-old room is becoming very full so um the center is just growing we could really use a second location um if you know that comes up in chats or anything like that I do know you know having something on this side of town would definitely be really beneficial for like our membrano Bronner Emma family's um and so just something to throw out there um and then I guess go ahead into the next
109one um we have the world's best stuff we we have to brag on them I mean they truly have hearts of gold and they come in there every day and work with those little kiddos and they just they enjoy what they do and you come in and just see Smiles on their faces all the time there's 15 staff members at the center um our teacher turnover is extremely low we've lost a couple of teachers but some of them actually went into positions in the district um teacher turnover is really high right now in child care so for us to keep our teachers has been really good we can we attribute that to just building relationships relationships with our staff making connections and in turn they do that with their children in their classroom so little
110bucks is a very happy place to be it's always a good day at little books that's right that's all we have for you just a quick update any questions any questions or comments I'll I'll just make a comment I mean Carly and Tiffany are our Dream Team um when this when this Vision became a reality I mean they just took the ball and ran with it um it's been great to watch it uh flourish it is a cost neutral program so our basically it's funded and supported by our parents so the teachers that work in the district they pay a tuition to keep it going yeah and we try and keep it as low as possible we're not obviously we're not looking to make a profit on it but uh one thing I will say
111just uh the the vision behind it was was to retain teachers and I know there are teachers that that stay in this District because they know their kids are cared for it and loved and taken care of at little buck so thank you guys for what you do you at this time we will act down Adam's disgusting closed session there was a retirement we do not have to act on that uh is they are they the um catastrophic leap is an item upon which we need to act we also did Dr Grant's formative evaluation tonight when we were in executive session we do that every every year in January look at the goals and that we sat with them at the beginning of the year and sort of talk about where we are midterm we
112will do is formal and and his summative evaluation in June when his contract will be considered but that is not an action item tonight the only action item is the catastrophic lead Dr Gwen Gwen thank you madam president I want to thank Wes Jones and our HR department for preparing all of the staff recommendations and as far as the staff recommendations report there are only two items one was a retirement that the board can go ahead and accept tonight and the second was approval of the catastrophic leave second request and is already recommendation that you approve both under the the Staffing report as presented that we accept these and I'll second uh motion by Mr score and a second by Mr Moore making a point here that's been a long night um any discussion do
113I have a boat raise your right hand far again same sign let the record show 7-0 thank each and every one of you for taking the time you didn't have to give your time to come here tonight well thank you for coming tonight uh participating in the board and with that we are adjourned at eight o'clock