Granbury ISD School Board Meeting - April 25, 2022

001[Music] has been dually called and that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the texas open meetings act texas government code chapter 551 we will now be going into close executive session this board will now adjourn at for that and we will be following 551.072 discussion of purchase exchange lease and value of real property 551.071 private consultation with ford's attorney 551.074 discussion of officers employees and personnel matters and there was one more nope that should be i already said that one ah 551.076 considering the deployment specific occasions for an implementation of security personnel and devices the time now is thank you hello thank you we will now reconvene in the open session by beginning with an invocation that i will lead allow me to pray papa god i pray for your presence

002among us this evening may our words and our actions be focused on the students of cranberry isd and on their academic success heavenly father i ask for your wisdom as we make decisions tonight that affect our students our staff and our community lastly i pray for our students as they prepare for end of the year testing give them peace give them confidence and total recall i pray all these things with confidence for you know and love each of us personally i know we will now have the pledges ms dawson [Music] i need to adjust it bring it up higher [Music] hi my name is mrs dawson and i am one of the assistant principals at acton elementary and i have tanner and jase milligan with me tonight they are a part of our pirates with

003purpose program that program we developed a couple years ago for boys that we think that are chosen to be really good leaders in our school and our community and tanner and jace are third grade twins and they are in our pirates with purpose club uh we have a meeting or an activity at least once a month to grow them as leaders and teach them leadership skills like eye contact and shaking hands and all those wonderful things and they were also chosen this month for pirate proud recipients for the month um character trait this month of courage so we are very proud and honored to have them leading us in our pledges boys i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under

004god indivisible with um [Music] oh [Music] and do we have the parents of these two young men in the audience good they did well mama all right now we're going to move on to our achievement spotlight and the first one uh complete fccla sponsors allison allen and alyssa hansen it's your turn that's right it's your turn hi i'm allison allen i teach at cranberry high school and family career and community leaders of america you probably knew it back when you were in high school junior high was used to be called fha future homemakers of america will be changed in the 90s we are now with the times in fact more than half of our enrollment is boys so that's pretty exciting but what we're here for today is to award two students one of whom

005is playing baseball cole bradley and carolina berry they have both advanced to nationals after scoring second in the state with a presentation for sports nutrition and what they had to do was they had to come up with a diet an exercise plan a hydration plan what else you have to do macronutrients micronutrients i mean it's just a whole big thing and they had to present to two different sets of judges so far they were first and second in region second in state and so we're hoping when we go to nationals in june to san diego california that we'll actually bring home the gold so where do you want us jeff right back here we're going to shake hands [Music] very nice [Music] and do we have any proud parents of carolina in the audience [Applause]

006all right we have even more we're going to celebrate today the state science fair contestants with uh priscilla lumbreros is going to be the presenter [Music] i have to make sure i have everyone okay good evening dr glenn uh school board and distinguished guests we have a full house today uh thank you for recognizing our students it's been a long year with covet and everything it's been kind of crazy but uh our little group is growing this year we tried for the first time to have contestants at the middle school level and we have two contestants from acton middle school and i said come on let's try it let's see if we can figure out you know what the winning you know solution is for this and it looks like we figured out what they

007were looking for placing first is santiago numbered from acton middle school and he plays first in computer science and third overall so he had the third best project in the whole fort worth region for the middle school division he designed a fully functional sensor that responds to hand movements and his plan is to help those with hand nerve damage specifically uh cancer patients they do receive a lot of their their hand functions is really disabled because of it also from ams we have amaris who plays first in the animal sciences category and she is the second best overall project in the fort worth region she tested the effect of led writing on the common cricket and her plan is to see if all this artificial lighting is affecting our insect populations in some way and

008she actually found some interesting results going on from granby high school placing fourth in the computer division is tristan poole and he's a newcomer to granberry this is his first year here and i know when i was uh recruiting at the high school he came up to me he goes you know miss i'm here from new mexico and everyone is you know i have this idea and i said wow um he plays fourth but i do have to mention that this is probably the most competitive category in at any level and for him to be able to go head-to-head with some of the best in the region was amazing and for his project he developed a machine learning model that can predict various aspects of a cancer patient's treatment uh he is planning on developing

009his motto with a company uh named mercurio ai and so he's a junior i'm very excited to have him back as a senior next year and see where we can go with this uh unable to join us unfortunately uh is scout skaggs she's held up you know with something else and she plays first in the environmental engineering category and she is the seventh best overall she was an alternate for the international science and engineering fair and she this was four years of her developing a bioplastic and i mean it was just amazing what she was able to do i do have to add for scout and tristan they are receiving the illuminate scholarship for 750 each scout being a senior she has amassed i believe fifteen hundred dollars for her participation and being able to

010go on to the state science fair for two years in a row uh i do have to add you know i'm very proud of scout she has a full scholarship to purdue university where she plans on studying uh aerospace engineering and through these experiences she was able to you know kind of find what her craft is and what her passion was for her future but thank you so much for all your support thank you [Music] um [Music] actions [Music] and i bet we have some very proud parents out there for these three children as well do we there we go [Applause] hmm hello okay our next achievement spotlight is state powerlifting contestants and we have our coaches to come and talk about these students i'm sending lindo head powerlifting coach i'm followed by greg baloo

011assistant powerlifting coaching leah haley assistant powerlifting coach um i want to thank the board everybody seated here for your support uh these kids worked really really hard to achieve what they did we have a bunch more kids uh but these these young people actually uh advance to the state competition so thank you for your support thank you thanks to the community uh you've heard from the brains of the high school now we're going to talk about a muscle um alex sutton is a junior uh alex uh made it to state for the first time uh but being a junior we fully expect higher expectations for next year the next three are actually two-time state qualifiers um we have a couple of seniors and then sophomore may london is a sophomore she advanced last year as

012a freshman she advanced this year as a as a sophomore so you know where we're going with this next two times stay qualified we'll be on a sandoval phoebe has been in the program for four years and is one of our true leaders she she leads by example she's kind of quiet but that's okay because her work ethic speaks speaks volumes even more quiet than dvd colton trevino a two-time state qualifier had an excellent season has put in lots of years of hard work thankfully he found us from cleveland texas and hadn't looked back ever since congratulations thank you again walmart um [Music] she's [Music] okay [Music] we're going to have this picture taken and then we're going to have these these students tell you how much they lifted and one of the things the

013coaches just told us is they bent more than one bar this is made london so i'm a sophomore and my best squad was pounds my bench press was i believe and it's bench press is the most difficult one i believe and everybody's and for deadlift i lifted 2 30. thank you uh for squat i did 3.75 for bench i did 175. and dead lift it was 3 15. [Music] for squat i did 6 45 for we benched 400 and then dead lifted 5 45. bench was 445 lift at 6 20. let's see some of these proud parents of these young students that was a lot of dedication and time thank you so much [Music] all right in our last achievement spotlight is the lamar award with uh mr merritt [Music] school board members guests and

014special guests what a pleasure it is for me to be here tonight my name is gary merritt i am a past master of grammar masonic lodge number 392 a member of the grand lodge of texas and an officer of the grand lodge of texas as the lady said the school board member said about the lamar award does anybody here under know what the lamar award one or is great it is named after marabou bought apart lamar and for those that you don't know here's a little texas history lesson after the battle of san josento lamar was appointed secretary of war for the republic of texas and then in 1836 he became the first elected vice president of the republic of texas and he was inaugurated the second president of the texas nation in his first

015address to congress he called for the appropriation and the support of public schools and he created a land grant and they set aside two parcels of land for public schools that became two universities one under in the university of texas the other being texas a m a little proud i see but what he did earned him is his vision earned him the title of a father of public education for the state of texas and any strong stance for human liberty and state's rights and addition for public education and under the local school board control now as this worked out back at this time there was little or no education taking place for the young kids because most of them were working in the fields and that sort of thing so with masons in the communities

016and we're going back in the 1800s here they built a building and it generally was two stories but also the bottom story was the school the masons actually paid for the teacher and the building and the second floor was used as the lodge room but it also served as a centerpiece for the community weddings socials and events because it was a lot of times it was the main facility and structure for the whole town uh the tomorrow award was created by the grand lodge of texas and the purpose was not just to commemorate lamar and what he did but to spotlight somebody that's in the educational industry teachers staff military state of straft and also students now we understand we've got some great teachers that do a great job no doubt we don't dispute that

017but what we're after is the teacher that thinks outside the box does something maybe she's not required to do takes that student or classroom to a new level then we go into the adversity side that they do this with things that happen it's life ladies and gentlemen things happen and then for the students the adversity they may experience through the year but never taking their eye off the ball and that is their education so this award shows this and displays this and i'm going to go right into it this time like i said young people who are outstanding achievers who overcome personal difficulties and hardships and for those who accept the challenge to excel and help their communities their state and make their nations stronger and that's why i'm pleased not to be here to

018present these awards [Music] my first board goes to a student who has went through some major adversity this year her emphasis is on voluntary work personal accomplishments citizenship and overcoming handicaps and academic achievement she is on the cross country team the swim team and is an officer of the medical team at ghs she is meant to maintain several epidemic experiences while she's been taking care of things this year and she's also been a major major support system for her little brother it's been a struggle for her this year but with her accomplishments tonight she is my first recipient of the lamar award can i have please emily dolan come forward ladies and gentlemen here's a certificate from the grand lodge of texas for lamar award presented emily dolan for a personal achievement this 25th day

019of april signed by the worship master of our lodge and our secretary with the seal [Applause] next ladies and gentlemen i have the actual lamar award the medallion and has his bust on the front with the information but more importantly it has emily's name on the back i present that to her this time get a picture [Music] emily you can go ahead [Music] my next award for lamar i'd like to see braden connor come forward please braden's had to go down a rough road this year and life's been a struggle for this young man but he makes excellent grades and then still has an incredible attitude and sometimes for a young man or young lady that's hard to do in adverse times is to maintain a good attitude braden has decided to educate his peers

020on his condition he understands empathy and wants his classrooms to understand the power of empathy as well he has inspired so many not to let negativity bring them down but to instead teach others how to be empathetic and continue to spread kindness he continues to share his happiness throughout his challenges braden has left a positive attitude and beaming joy at this time i'd also like to have miss reagan's come forward [Music] ladies and gentlemen i've had this lady step forward tonight like say families go through adversity and hard times sometimes and struggles my hat goes off to this lady as well and her family she has just proceeded and got through 19 months of covert and with the whole nine yards to be here with us tonight we're so proud and uh [Music] you might

021be good thank you [Music] thank you my next one is to a young lady um it has high aspirations and dreams of college her career and involves the service of others however she is anything but typical she has some physical limitations she receives physical therapy at the school which leads her the opportunity for the students and teachers to cheer her as she works to rebuild her strength she is an inspiration to the other students and they admire her courage and enthusiasm and her excellence to excel in academics there's not much more to say here i think it's all been said our next recipient goes to casey reid congratulations [Music] thank you she's not shy there we go there we go [Music] i had one more recipient here tonight and she is a teacher but she

022cannot be here tonight she's in atlanta with one of her students and she's taking care of the things that she's been taking care of by supporting that student in that competition and uh that's kaylee peterson and i'll be going to the high school to present her personally and uh mr mitchell is going to take care of that friend and we're going to take care of that ladies and gentlemen um i've done this for quite some time and every year we get the applicants and what they do is they kind of they tattletale on each other because nobody the teachers and they don't like to beat their own drum but believe me others do it they tackling them and we get the information so i like to come and beat the drum for those that have

023not been doing it and and giving them the recognition they deserve school board members grand bay lodge thank you all so much for letting us be here visitors guests see you next year and before any more parents leave if we have any of the parents of any of these lamar recipients i would love for you to raise your hand so we can congratulate you as well but they may have already head out the door madam president yes ma'am i moved that we changed the order of the board agenda and move 9a superintendent's report to the next board issue do i have a second time ad or any discussion a second thank you motion made by dr harrington seconded by ms gore we will now have the superintendent's report all right thank you madam president and

024i appreciate everyone coming out tonight i'll say that i'm grateful for everyone who's here tonight in support of our district i know there are many of you here specifically in in support of the administration and our teachers our school board myself i'm also aware there are some here to voice concerns about the decisions made by the district regardless i'm glad you're all here tonight and specifically to see some of the outstanding kids that we just got the opportunity to recognize you know we all see the world differently and i think that's a good thing opinions don't always align i can tell you that i don't have to agree with you to like you or respect you i know that when i met with our librarians and our staff to discuss governor abbott's letter i knew

025that not everybody in that room was going to agree with me and there are a lot of employees in gisd who do not share my world view but we have one thing in common we all care about kids and we want them to be successful in an effort to protect all students and show them they're valued and they're safe in our schools we made a decision to remove some books deemed age inappropriate by a review committee made up of parents community members and staff tonight i want you to know for any student employee or parent who felt marginalized by this decision or by my comments please understand that our district cares deeply about all students there are resources and staff in place at all gisd campuses that can help you navigate this situation people often

026don't get help because they don't know where to start i'm here to tell you tonight that our campuses are full of caring teachers counselors and administrators who will listen or provide guidance to you and your families make no mistake like every employee in gisd this board and myself we all want what's best for students and there are a lot of great things happening in our district as i look around the room tonight i see shelley kurtzinger right here on the front row for those of you who don't know they did cast for kids this past week and they had 50 boats out on lake cranberry with our special needs life skills kids that's that's something that's pretty amazing but in addition to that every saturday she's doing game day with the y with our special

027needs kids and in consistently going above to make sure that our most vulnerable are taken care of and i'm proud of her for that next tour i see miss ledbetter who gave a large endowment to make sure kids had scholarships to go to college especially underprivileged kids and also for teachers to have the opportunity to travel if they so desire which is awesome to have a study abroad program for teachers i don't see miss bonite out there but she's normally here in our meetings this week she took the uil academic team to a regional competition in lubbock you know we give athletics a lot of praise and publicity but the reason we're really here is for academics to make sure our kids have a solid academic foundation in the back i see coach cheesy i

028know he and coach pope on saturday took a group of middle school boys over to tarleton to watch a spring football game that was the highlight of my son's weekend um now coach cheesy doesn't have sons he has daughters uh which can be scary too because i got a daughter uh but uh but the fact that uh that he did that out of his own time he gave his time and his talents my son came back and i said what did you do he said dad they talked to us about courage and about character about chasing your dreams that's what kind of coaches we have on staff here i saw a picture that jeff meador posted today at gms showing our ropes course had been installed out of the audience i see stacy mitchell who's

029president of our education foundation this year over a hundred thousand dollars will have been donated in to different programs including that ropes course at gms which tammy clark and dr smith in the back advocated for but programs like that are good for kids in addition this jumper who i don't see here tonight pirates robotics they'll be headed to the world championships coach uppers baseball team he told me today that uh we're going to finish either second overall or second to last so he's got a big gap in what's going to happen but he is making a run for the playoffs margaret rodriguez who's our principal of stars back there getting ready for another 30 graduates or more out of stars this year and as you guys know that is that is certainly a mission field

030for us and then earlier today i saw where jimmy dawson sent out an email to all district staff about the field day all of our elementaries are getting together to compete against each other for field day but the most important thing to jimmy dawson was to make sure we don't have a workman's comp issue with that with field day so he made sure our principals were aware and and i tell you that say the list of accomplishments for our staff and kids goes on and on it's just that time of year and and certainly you'll want to check your emails to see what's coming up for us but this week we're going to begin star testing and you know that always puts a lot of pressure on students and on staff and let me just

031say this that since june of 2020 we have been back up at work with in-person instruction the governor shut us down in the spring of 2020 as soon as we could come back with summer school we did we did pivot to virtual instruction for a while we realized it didn't work we quickly pivoted away we worked hard to stay open and then since this year began uh house bill 4545 required additional accelerated instruction for our kids and our in addition to that in the reading academies and the extra time required of our teachers they didn't complain they just continued to put their heads down and work hard for our kids because they know it's important and they know our kids fell behind due to cobit i want you to know because there's so many in

032the audience tonight that our our principals and teachers have been nothing short of amazing over the last two years but like many superintendents across the state of texas and in the nation i can tell you that our staff is burning out because they've been working hard and they've been taking a lot of criticism just trying to do what's right for kids and with so many here in the audience i'd be remiss if i didn't tell you that if you see a teacher or a paraprofessional or a campus secretary or a bus driver or a custodian or a cafeteria or a principal who works for this district stop and tell them thank you because they have carried a yeoman's load over the last two years and we are blessed to have each and every one of

033them in short they're rock stars madam president and that's all i have in my report tonight you dr glenn and uh again from the board we agree we have the best staff in all of texas and i feel blessed to be the president of this school board we will now go into open forum with the public comments we have 23 tonight we are going to limit it to three minutes per speaker all speakers have completed a form and handed it in to mr jones the board will not be able to answer questions from the speaker or discuss whatever they're talking about i do ask the audience to please respect each speaker and we will begin now and our first up is going to be mr whidden mr robert whidden and please forgive me if i

034don't pronounce names properly that's pretty good and we do have um mr moore he's going to be uh keeping time for us and he will let you know when you're done if i go over one minute something's wrong okay i did want to thank dr glenn for your character for supporting the kids in a most meaningful way there's a famous quote of j edgar hoover he said in your life you'll have friends and you'll be admired by those friends but you'll be distinguished by your enemies and hoover said i've been very distinguished and i want to say [Music] that you too are very distinguished and you've you've been unfortunately a personal witness of what daniel patrick moynihan used to talk about the defining of deviance downward and i mean that's that's the civilization we live

035in today but anyway that's all i have to say is thank you so much for being who you are and brevity is the soul of wit thank you mr whitten next up this is adrian martin hello my name is adrian martin i am the chair of the democratic party in hood county that being said i'm speaking on my behalf like most democrats i'm a supporter of public education and i deeply believe in the democratic values of equality inclusion and diversity in my opinion this board and superintendent have proven they do not support these values the school board and superintendent have spoken against the fictional boogeyman of crt spoken about how a program that has never been in our schools is a danger to our children meanwhile the district has turned a blind eye to the

036very real problem of students of color and lgbtq students being subjected to bullying being called slurs and hearing hate speech used by fellow students this has been reported to the schools many times and many times people have gotten little to no response time and energy spent by this board decrying crt and fighting library books could have been spent helping marginalized students jeremy glenn has made national headlines for removing library books and for being taped making transphobic comments and telling staff if they're not conservative they better hide it there have been no apologies for these words that may have hurt students and staff and no apologies for the damage that has done to this district's reputation per dr glenn's words we are a very conservative community this is true but there are democrats here and we

037vote in my opinion the bond is fruit of a poison tree members of the school board and our superintendent have broken public trust and failed at their most important job ensuring the safety and mental well-being of all students therefore they cannot be trusted with nearly 400 million of our tax dollars jeremy glenn likes to paint a picture of what he calls an education destination google granberry isd and scroll through the results do they look like stories about an education destination you can't be an education destination when you are banning books when staff are leaving because of what they're calling a toxic work environment and you can't be an education destination when many lgbtq students and students of color do not feel safe in your buildings no matter how new and fancy they are thank you

038for the time thank you martin [Applause] next up we have jim jarrett [Music] thank you my name is jim jarrett my address is 3315 glenn rose highway here in granbury texas and i'm here tonight as an individual an individual who wishes to speak favorably about gisd and all those involved who make this a great institution some things about me first i graduated from austin college in sherman texas with a degree in english and a teaching certificate i currently serve in the board of trustees at austin college and my sister is the dean of the college of wayland baptist in lubbock texas and i say this only so that you know that i have i'm not a stranger to the education process so background for my remarks over the weekend i had the opportunity to engage

039in conversation with a new granberry resident she informed me that her family had moved to granbury so their children could go to granbury schools when i asked how many children do you have she replied not yet but when we walk when we gap some we want them to go to granberry schools another quick note austin college recruits students from cranberry isd this recruiting effort has been going on for at least the past five years and granberry is the smallest city and the granberry isd is the smallest ice iced that austin college visits the others are all in major metropolitan areas across the state and around the united states austin college goes where they know they will find students who will successfully complete their college degree and give back to society in their chosen field of

040study they don't waste their time they know what's here says austin college and many others recruited granberry isd because of the quality and the capabilities of students so from preconception to post graduation it it is obvious to me that the granberry isd has a very positive reputation and reputations are earned in this case the reputation has been earned over years and positively reinforced over the past few years it's reinforced by the excellence of the students the positive involvement of the parents the resourcefulness and competence of the staff and administration and most of all by caring and dedicated teachers coaches counselors and all of those people that you mentioned earlier that need to we need to say thank you to and yet each and every day this vet this very positive reputation is attacked and it

041has to be protected the leadership of dr of gisd led by dr glenn and the school board are the protectors so as an individual and a concerned citizen i ask that the gisd leadership continue to defend the gisd reputation but most of all protect our students and let their successes be the gisd reputation thank you thank you mr merritt next up is deanna valdez good evening board and guests and attendees my name is deanna valadez i'm a mother of four i have a sophomore a seventh grader and a fifth grader in gisd schools i also have a sophomore in college who attended granberry high school freshman through senior year she is in college and is a successful contributor to society she just got into nursing school so thank you my husband and i um support

042the school board and dr grant 100 just wanted to come as a parent you know that especially recent events i believe school is for education and all facets of morality should be reserved for parents alone to teach their children when my husband and i moved here seven years ago we were driving down highway 377. it was a new place new state and we were anxious then we noticed a police cruiser ahead of us it had the words in god we trust on the back of it we knew we were home i applaud granberry for upholding these values thank you for making the school safe for my children thank you ms valadez next up is miss julia pannell [Music] thank you superintendent glenn president townsend and member sitting on the diets as gisd trustees my name

043is julia pannell and my husband bob and i live at 403 west bridge cranberry we're here tonight for two reasons i want to encourage everyone to vote yes for the upcoming vote that will allow our schools to grow and be a place that meets the needs of students today but more so in the future i was on the original team that met studied the future needs of gisd and voted that team did 100 to move forward with these actions vote yes we are also here to offer our full support to dr glenn i remember when i first met him i wanted his business card do you remember this he gave it to me i looked on the back as i do and there was a scripture i asked him how can you do that and

044he said they fully knew who i was and what i stood for when they hired me thank you for being that person we encourage you as a board to join us in standing fully behind dr glenn in his effort to keep our conservative community morals and characteristics as a part of his efforts as he creates plans for this district we too believe that there is one male and female gender and to have books that want to teach a student how to be otherwise is not the educational academic tool that the majority want in our school library yes as a parent you have the right to use the free services of the public library to offer such books for your children but not in our school libraries in working with several members of the city council

045on a controversial topic we also embraced a statement that brings truth and open doors for interested in learning and it certainly can be used here tonight do the best for the most and in this case we join and applaud your actions as superintendent for what books in the library what they are what academics should be offered to our students we applaud how you expect the best from your staff your teachers but most of all you expect the best from yourself today i read a blog comment about stirring the water board members be strong stir the water stand firm and not lift a few challenge and win remember to vote and do what is best for the most thank you next up we have rebecca wheatley rebecca wheatley hi i'm rebecca wheatley i live at 203

046casa still sur street first of all i'd like to say thank you to dr glenn i think you're doing a fabulous job and also to the board for your service i would just like to say that the media has portrayed cranberry the school district as being as all of this being about lgbt and and that sort of thing well i i received an email it was sent by monica brown and i believe she's speaking tonight but she has done some research on some books that were actually on our library shelves and i'm going to just speak to one of many of these books and she verified that it's actually on the library shelf it's called the haters there's one copy it's in at the high school library and this is written by jesse andrews now

047i'm not going to say all of the words and i'm only going to read one little piece of a lot of excerpts from this book and my whole point would be that this type of material is not a learning tool and should not be um where our children can just get their hands on it to go to a movie that's r-rated they would have to have a parent to give them approval to get in i believe they're supposed to anyway under 18. but yet they could go and get this off the shelf without their parents uh trusting that our our school would have only good things for them to learn at school so i'm going to not say one of the words i would not read this book and i would never want to read

048this book out loud but i'm going to read something and i'm going to tell you i'm not going to read one of the words and you can imagine what it is then she reached over and grabbed my blink i mean she really couldn't get a handle on it because it was in my pants and stuff and i i won't go on it's horrible the whole all the excerpts are horrible and yet it uh it is on the library shelf and so it is not and this is heterosexual sexual stuff it is not lgbt material and so i'm just trying to set the record state straight that there are books on our library shelf that should not be it's not learning at all and um i don't believe that that we're doing enough really to to

049make sure that this kind of material isn't there it has not been pulled for review thank you next up we have sherry johnson good evening hello this is a little scary okay all right my name is sherry johnson i've lived in granbury for 10 years i'm a straight woman a christian a wife a mom a grandmother a retired public school teacher and guess what i'm a democrat but that still doesn't make me a bad person this is how i feel about book banning we should not be wasting our time as a school district banding books i'm concerned for the mental health and well-being of the students and teachers of granberry isd we don't need to give any oxygen to these bad faith culture war requests banning books is antithetical to a well-rounded k-12 education we

050live in a cultural moment that is comfortable with suppressing or discouraging speech and i believe the place to stop this has to be in our schools public schools are incubators of democracy where we're not where we not only prepare our children for the world but also to be independent thinkers that will challenge or preserve institutions for the betterment of our country our school board trustees need to be comfortable calling out these culture war attacks for what they really are a manufactured moral panic that is part of a larger effort to dismantle our public schools if we try to play both sides of this issue and give anyone the idea that it is socially acceptable to ban books or conversations than were dangerously close to a 1984 dystopia which by the way is a book that

051was banned in the past let's focus on the issues that really matter in our district no one should feel comfortable in my opinion about banning books thank you ms johnson next up we have kelly ford good evening everybody board superintendent dr glenn i'd like you to hear it straight from me i stand with you on the biological fact to science that there are girls and there are boys the emotional constructs created are another matter and those matters belong at home not in public school that's not banning books but ensuring that appropriate books are in our school libraries and classrooms that's the school board's job and i stand with you thank you thank you miss joy next we have mr renee sharda hey these speakers before me are too eloquent um three things i would like

052to say tonight and i've gotten to know some of the trustees in personal relationships and jeremy i'm getting to know you a little bit too first i want to thank you guys all of y'all for standing strong and being honest and being a you know a broke or an honest broker in this that those that don't agree with you you'll listen to and you'll talk to but don't take pot shots um from people who are hiding out in the hedges i just want to encourage you to stand strong the second thing i want to say about these books these books are trivial matter i'm in agreement with y'all but it's a trivial matter in a larger war that we're in and i found out yesterday i did not know this and i don't know if

053y'all do 15 and this is from the american academy of pediatrics female to male adolescents reported attempted suicides at 51 adolescents who identified as not exclusively male or female 42 we are in the battle we're in is for the lives of our children it's not about just right and wrong or rights this is about their lives and i'm going to encourage you all to hold strong and the third thing i'd like to say is that i can make a request to the board i've thought about this and you know we're in the schools now volunteering with a few people i'm looking for all these people to come volunteer with me i thought about character and integrity and i was going to come up here and say would y'all please consider putting a program of character

054in integrity but that's too narrow what we need is we need something that builds community from pre-k to 12th grade and i'm asking the board to consider putting some educators together as well as some citizens that have done things implementers and thinkers and out and someone said this earlier out of the box thinkers to get together do an exploratory team and see how we can do this and then let's create community for all the people black red pink lgbtq straight whatever but let's create community that everyone feels a part and so i'm asking the board to consider that and um thank you great job guys next we have mr fred orcutt okay i don't know why he'd want to be me dr glenn members of the school board thank you for letting me speak i

055want you to know i appreciate you all you all do a fine job and i'm here to support that i'm here to talk about the book issue and i've not been deeply involved and involved hardly at all with it but i had some thoughts um a lot of the book issue talks about freedom of speech that's not what this is about the constitution guarantees freedom of speech freedom of writing you can write a book you can speak about anything you want i don't have to listen okay and we as a community if we choose don't have to listen the constitution doesn't guarantee that i have to listen that i have to read what you write the school board and our administrators are obligated to follow the law and within this to respond to the mores

056of our community no one can seriously argue that green berry or hoot county is not a conservative community we definitely are we do not want these immoral books and materials in our school their purpose is not to teach learning their purpose is to teach ideology accordingly in response to this community's more gisd is under no obligation to allow any immoral material in our school libraries thank you very much next up is katie coleman can everybody hear me okay okay i'm here to represent a group oh i'm katie by the way but thanks for being here everyone for caring about the kids i'm here to represent a group of parents students and employees of gisd who care about students civil rights and mental health this is about students lives he is correct okay i'm going to

057talk about some tough topics so if there's any little ones or you're going to get upset trigger warning earmuffs whatever granberry isd violated students civil rights when they ordered the removal and investigation of books about gay people trans people brown people black people and displaced people y'all can talk about the law but it's already federal law that you cannot discriminate against gay people it's federal law you cannot discriminate against gay people you broke the law when you took the books off the shelf i want to say thank you to the members of stacey brown's committee who read all of those books and voted to put most of the books back thank you for making the committee thank you for trying to make it diverse at the end of the day whoever ordered those books to

058be boxed up you broke federal law no committee no matter how diverse can change that to make matters worse someone told people at the hood county republicans club those people are our friends and parents that the book removal was about porn making everyone trying to stand up for gay rights and black people look like creeps thanks thanks a lot the definition of porn is material meant to sexually stimulate and using kraus's list as a guideline and saying it is about pornography is a lie here are some statistics 8.3 percent of the books on krause's list are about race and racism not about sex and our school's employees are to take these books off the shelves because they are pornographic i don't know about you but stories about the racism in our country's history does not

059sexually stimulate me 62.4 percent of the books on kraus's list have characters who identify as gay lesbian trans bisexual or questioning like this book i read this book the main character's best friend is trans it's a coming-of-age story there is no sex in it at all the main girl has a crush on the main guy she doesn't even kiss him she talks to her parents about it this is a great book 14.1 percent of the books are about sex education age-appropriate books that talk about sex are not pornographic do you want kids to learn about sex in school where there are professionals who can help them navigate these feelings or do you want them to learn about it from their friend's youtube account or worse do you want them to learn about it from their

060date on prom night is that what you want them to learn about sex i'm asking you all to look into your hearts and decide on sexual assault awareness month you you have a choice to make a public stand for our gay kids or you can side with people who beat their lives and spread misinformation on facebook thank you very much thank you miss coleman [Applause] next up maureen griffin [Music] a little bit shorter good evening thank you superintendent trustees and administration and invited guests here this evening i'm actually speaking on behalf of my daughter lou johns de la garza who is a senior at granbury high school she says good evening my apologies for not being able to speak in person this evening however we have required uil choir practice for our upcoming competitions this

061weekend it is important to me lou to share this message tonight as we started early voting for the gisd bond election i wanted to thank our gisd school board trustees for putting propositions a and b to our community for a vote also thank you to the gisd administration for your hard work in this process as well as the long range planning committee members the voters of hood county have an important decision to make on investing in the lives of our granberry isd students as a graduating senior i have just a few weeks left at granberry high school i have been blessed with so many opportunities in my academics athletics and fine art fine arts programs but tonight i'd like to focus on my journey as a ghs stowaways drill team member my freshman year there

062were only eight stowaways on our team and we had three directors in one year thankfully our third director shelby sargent is still here and doing amazing things at gisd last friday night if you attended our pirate dance recital in the ghs auditorium you would have witnessed 175 students dancing their hearts out on stage from ghs gms and ams with with now over 200 students in the dance program at all three schools we are bursting at the seams and need space for this continued growth why do i share this story i want to create a visual in voters minds of what 200 middle school and high school kids dancing looks like on stage and the space they need under the district's g2025 plan it was a goal for every student to be involved in extracurricular or

063groups they are doing that and so we need the space to do it i'm headed off to vanderbilt university in the fall and i'm proud to represent granberry isd my hope is that our community can come together this spring and support the plan in place to provide adequate space for academics athletics and fine arts for all of our students and when i come back home from vandy i'll be gleaming with pride and a little envy of the facilities and opportunities that our community provided our students through supporting propositions a and b in the school bond election thank you lou johns de la garza senior at granbury high school thank you ms griffin next up we have chris tackett if you do not know this you've probably been under a rock but granberry is a very

064very conservative community and our board is very very conservative if it's not what you believe you better hide it because it ain't changing in granberry and here in this community we're going to be conservative there's two genders there's male and there's female and i acknowledge there are men that think they're women and women that think they're men and i again i don't have any issues with what people want to believe but there's no place for it in our libraries i think specifically what we're getting at let's just call it what it is i'm cutting to the chase on a lot of this it's the transgender lgbtq and the sex sexuality and books if you don't like it you're welcome to come visit with me in my office i'll talk it through but it's probably not

065changing because it's not just coming from me i'm just bringing the message of what really is the expectation from our board those are the words of our superintendent on january 10th how has the district responded the district is aware of the comments made by the superintendent in an effort to comply with governor abbott's request i and the entire board are behind dr glenn our school board has full confidence in our administrative team and teaching staff to provide all students with a safe and secure learning environment our district leader was coercing staff to hide it making homophobic and transphobic comments in a meeting where the mask came off at the january 24th board meeting the superintendent told us it wasn't about lgbtq books that the people saying that are gaslighters but in the audio from january

06610th it's very clear what the initial goal was of the book review it's the transgender lgbtq and the sex sexuality and books and there's no place for it in our libraries i can only imagine the people in that meeting who are trained to ensure diversity in our libraries were likely surprised shocked and in some instances horrified after hearing that direction they also heard if it's not what you believe you better hide it is there an or else implied there on january 25th the superintendent spoke to the hood county republican clubs characterizing those speaking up for books as wanting pornography and textbooks and then pushing this message that it's going to take the people rising up to take a stand because i will tell you there are individuals out there who want to destroy what you

067believe they don't believe in the same america that you and i grew up in behind closed doors staff were told by the superintendent to hide their politics but the same superintendent two weeks later made his politics very publicly clear and very partisan we have students saying they walk through the halls of their schools and hear derogatory comments directed at the minorities in the district be it race or sexual orientation the words of the superintendent only add to marginalizing those kids and that somehow creates anything but a safe and secure learning environment but the stance is still i and the entire board are behind dr glenn there are people in this community kids in these schools who continue to stand up stand in the gap and go the extra mile to ensure that everyone is respected

068and valued unfortunately too many in our community have been silent perhaps chasing a taj mahal or maybe they really are okay with all of this for our kids future the superintendent should resign and failing that the board should remove him [Applause] mr cruzwell i have one mr jacket i have one question for you you've spoken several times about the fact that we should remove the superintendent you understand the procedures that need to be done to file such a grievance have you done so i have filed a grievance with the texas education agency have you done it with the procedures that are here at gisd i'm more than happy to love to have you done it yes sir i haven't would you like me to thank you sir awesome mr croswell thank you good evening everybody

069i'll try to be brief going to try to cover three topics uh first on the bond i was recently made aware through a member of the granberry four for one pack though i understand there is no official connection here that there are emails dating back to november that implicate coordination with dr glenn barbara townsend and mark jackson there are still some basic questions that haven't been answered about this bond that haven't been made available the night of the meeting others the night the election was called there was plenty of stuff that was left unsaid now before i move on i would like to ask that due to some of the other contents of the agenda the minutes that are from the four for one pack i would like to ask that due to the current

070ethical mistakes uh all subcontractors that donate to the four for one pack be prohibited by the business or be prohibited by the district from participating in the bond as we get ready to go to this election or to the budget cycle we do like to talk about how the tax rate continues to drop every year and that on paper does sound good but the fact is since 2016 we've had a fifty percent increase from fourteen hundred dollars to twenty one hundred and sixty six dollars for your average residential taxes due with the economy in the shape that it's in i would like to make sure we're fully considering all the dollars and you know if we can try not to spend everything on the bond if you do get authorized for the 394 million which

071is yet to be seen which also brings up another point again i still have some heartburn about buying the land for the proposed new high school before the bond is passed and i believe there are some measures on the agenda tonight that are preempting the passage of this bond now all that aside i do want to thank each and every one of you for the way you've handled this uh book stuff dr glenn i have tremendous respect for you and the things that you said that day uh you know after hearing that i actually found myself liking you more and it was it was a good thing and it does take courage and courage is contagious and if you've noticed that since this all kicked off in granberry isd there are more districts around the

072state that have followed suit tea i think has actually sent out about four or five of these letters similar to the ones you guys received because you know somebody saw hey it's okay to do this so it's it's spreading other places so thank you sincerely for that please do not shy away from controversy when you're doing the right thing you will make enemies and the last thing you know a while back i had started searching on the gisd library index you know for different things and one thing that i could not find was a copy of the holy bible so if you are open to it i would like to donate 10 copies of the holy bible king james version and others to every district every school in the district thank you thank you mr

073criswell next up we have gregory gifford [Music] i apologize for the shorts but i got one bad leg okay members of the board i thank you for having open comments my name is greg gifford i live at 6201 sonora drive in d cordova have been to states which is part of the gisd my comments are here to discuss the idea of removing certain books from the school libraries and i thought is there any jurisprudence on this issue and the most important case i could find is called pico versus the border vet board of ed island trees union school district in the state of new york i'll summarize it very very quickly the supreme court rejected supreme court of the united states rejected the board's ability to ban books here's the quick facts island tree's board

074of ed was acting contrary to the recommendations of a committee of parents and school staff and they ordered the certain books be removed from the district's junior and senior high in support of its actions the board said such books were and i want to quote directly here they're anti-american anti-christian anti-semitic and just plain filthy that was the board's complaint one of the students named pico and some of his buddies got together and they brought suit the challenge board's decision the board won their first round in the local court plaintiff's pico and others took it to the u.s court of appeals for the second circuit up in new york and a court of appeals reversed the decision and said the board had no such authority the board in its excitement petitioned the united states supreme court

075to hear the case the supreme court thought it was so important they heard the case here's the question the supreme court framed and then addressed did the board of education's decision to ban certain books from its junior high and high school libraries based on their content violate the first amendment's freedom of speech protections here's what the board what the supreme court came out with in their decision yes it violates freedom of speech although school boards have a vested interest in promoting respect for social moral and political community values their discretionary power is secondary to the transcendent imperatives of the first amendment further in that decision the court held that as centers for learning involuntary inquiry and the dissemination of information and ideas school libraries enjoy special affinity with the rights of free speech and press

076therefore the board could not restrict the availability of books in its libraries simply because its members disagreed with their kind their idea content if any of you want to research it it's pico versus board of ed and it was i was 19 1982 decision thank you thank you mr gifford [Applause] linda his song could you pass these out i have these available for the board uh i'd like to have had one for every one of you but i don't have enough ink in my printer and first of all thank you first of all i would like to thank dr glenn and those on the board that have the same voice as many of us here tonight in support of cleaning up the selection of books and the libraries i'm handing out excerpts from books that

077i find inappropriate for students to view or check out in our public schools please follow along with me i'll use the word blank in place of words i find defensive however the entire paragraphs are offensive first page you will start and then flip to the next one are you going to eat her blank earl can be sort of profane sometimes he actually mellowed out a lot since his middle school days believe it or not back in middle school he would have asked this in a much more violent and horrible way yeah earl i'm going to eat her blank yeah do you even know how to eat blank no not really well papa gangs never sat you down and said son one day you're gonna have to eat the blank but no he did teach me

078how to eat blank now this is in our inner skulls this is horrible another one um a little bit shorter look at he says in a thick voice pressing my head toward it i stare at scott's blank there's a pearl balanced on the tan tip it smells like liverwurst look at like a lollipop he's begging now breathing hard he wags the blank in his hand to get my attention now there was a time that books like this were written with adults as characters and you mainly found them i think in adult book stores triple x bookstores now these books are being written with children as the main characters i know that i realize we in the world are experience a moral decay and a fast pace and children are exposed to more adult situations and

079decisions at a younger and younger age we're asking for more strict policy for allowing the books to enter our libraries thank you next up we have paul duncan [Music] so my name is paul duncan i've lived in granbury for 17 years i read two of the books that have been approved and returned to the student libraries read them cover to cover and these are the two that that you have reviews on i read shout and she loves me she loves me not my personal reviews are attached there in the packet that you have received i want you to read those my concern is the persistent pornographic and age inappropriate content i won't get to she loves me she loves me not but just to describe the pornography that's there being drawn to a woman's hard

080nipples and the description of a stripper's pole dance i think would fairly fall into the category of pornographic and age-inappropriateness content these books were both approved by the committee and therefore recommended to our children it's led me to ask an important question what is the school's philosophy of education regarding sex parents and taxpayers are a clear explanation of what you are training our children to become and judging by the approval of these books gisd has a clear commitment to two things first gisd is encouraging the use of pornography fiction books that describe and celebrate sex acts are pornographic second gisd is encouraging children as early as possible in the safe as possible we can congratulate that but encouraging as early as possible and as safe as possible to engage in sex acts by this i

081mean fiction books describing and celebrating sex acts between students at the high school baseball field are for the purpose of encouraging the same among our students so if gisd is committed to encouraging the use of pornography and if the school is encouraging our students to engage in sex acts as early and safely as possible then it is your responsibility as the board to work with dr glenn to state that philosophy publicly defend this educational commitment train our teachers accordingly it is the board's responsibility to work with dr glenn to ensure our children receive a good education and become fruitful citizens so again my question what is the school's philosophy of education regarding sex the school has one has a philosophy illustrated by the support of pornographic and agent-appropriate books in our student libraries if this

082is where schools and students are going then make it public and go for it if this is not where our schools and students are going to make it public and make changes our students and families deserve to know what you are shaping our children to become if the school is committed to encouraging pornography and sex acts among our children then is dr glenn and the board's responsibility to make sure all our students are safe i encourage each board member to read shout by laurie halts anderson i've given my review of the book addressing the the prevalence of forced oral sex rape and intercourse among students and educators is the purpose of the book so my plea is straightforward make a plan communicate the plan and work the plan thank you next up we have karen

083lowry more handout dr glenn members of the board my name as you just heard was karen lowry i'm speaking today on an issue of great importance for our children and our community i speak about sexually explicit and age and appropriate content of books in the gisd libraries and materials available in the english lit classes each of you have been provided a copy of the tea letters to to governor abbott governor abbott's letters the penal code and copies of the three excerpts of the books of books from the libraries the tea letter clearly provides you the authority to act in part this letter states provides for significant local control in how these policies address the selection of instructional resources including library materials the tea model policy also explicitly references the standards regarding inappropriate and harmful content

084for students as defined by the texas penal code governor abner states you have an obligation to texas parents and students to ensure that no child in texas is exposed to pornography or other inappropriate content while inside a texas public school the parents grandparents and residents of hood county need to have confidence that our tax dollars are not being used for sexually explicit age inappropriate books in our school libraries will you agree to abide by the tea and governor abbott's letters and implement new procedures and processes to vet books before being allowed to enter gisd before the 22-23 school year i was privileged to sit on the book review committee i have firsthand knowledge of the poorly designed process used to vet the list of 133 books in addition it was discovered after the vetting process

085began newly sexually explicit age-inappropriate books were being added into the library this indicates that the process for approving books before being placed in our school system is deeply flawed and needs to it needs and doesn't need to conform to the procedures outlined by the governor and the tea the tea letter gives you the authority to set up policies that define procedures and processes used within the school systems in a host of operational areas we ask that you stop allowing books to be added to the library immediately until appropriate policies procedures and processes are implemented in a thorough transparent means i can confirm there are sexually explicit in age and appropriate materials in the school libraries as i along with others from the community have performed comprehensive reviews of several books this comprehensive review was performed

086on our own initiative outside the flawed book review process established by gisd parents need to be given assurances that gisd has implemented the appropriate policy and procedures of how books are being reviewed and accepted into the libraries these procedures and policies should be administered by a committee consisting of parents community leaders and the gisd staff the process should not be rushed and the comprehensive review of questionable books should be made before being accepted into the libraries i was going to read excerpts from a couple of books instead you may read three excerpts tabbed for you in the paperwork given i encourage you and those who are listening to visit the granberrytexasbooks.org to see a thorough and actual review of over 50 books thank you miss lowery thank you now mr brent northcutt oh my goodness

087and to think i was excited about coming up and speaking uh i'm going to go a little bit different direction i had several bullet points written out that i wanted to cover but i've kind of changed directions a little bit since i've seen what's happening tonight and so it may seem a little unusual but i was one of the 83 of the well-documented 83 out of 83 that wanted to go forward with the bond and there's something interesting that happened there when i showed up for the first meeting i looked around the room i didn't know probably 50 people in that room and i've been in the community for 35 years and so when i got to look in this diversity was incredible in that 83 that room by 83 people different religions different backgrounds

088different socioeconomic status and i thought different political uh ideologies and i thought this has the potential to be a real dumpster fire in this thing here and as we went along what i found was something very interesting that we all had a common purpose and that was to do the right thing for the community for the school district and for our kids and so all of that other stuff all that angst all that rancor was put aside and it was kind of a neat thing to watch and i think that our community as a whole could use a lesson from that 83 not only going forward with the bond project but how to get along and how to respect each other i think that's what i got most out of that that 83 person group

089now the other thing i wanted to address was a a phrase that i heard a while back stand strong in hard places you're in a hard place and you stay in a hard place for the life of me i've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why would you do this board did you not know it was a volunteer position there's not a salary associated with it i've given a lot of thought to this and i've wondered why would you do it why would you disrupt your personal lives why would you disrupt your family lives why would you disrupt what else you do in your day-to-day activities to do this and the only thing that i can come up with is that you love education you love your community and you love your

090kids that's all i've got [Music] stand strong in hard places you've committed to do that continue to show the courage that you've already demonstrated and let's work on being more civil to each other and taking others feelings into account and from what i've seen and from those of you who i've known for decades and some of those i've just known for a few minutes i see that coming from you and i see your commitment and it's inspirational thank you keep doing what you're doing thank you mr northrup next up is mary cardon i'm mary cardon i've been a pastor in this community for 30 years and i've ministered in this community for 40. and i'm so inspired by you tonight when those kids came up with those awards my heart just swelled i know yours

091did you're doing such a good job thank you thank you dr glenn we stand strong with you i also represent the hood county pastor council a group of pastors in the area that are concerned in the community and love the community and stand for biblical values and this is what i wanted to say tonight i know you're in a hard place but i also read the books in question i saw several excerpts and these are the ones that were put back i don't see how anyone could tell you that's it's not porn i don't understand that it absolutely is my biggest concern about it is as a pastor and i understand burnout by the way as a pastor i have seen the horrendous damage done by pornography to young minds there are scientific studies where

092it literally changes the brain when i read these books and it honestly it's not about gay or it is about taking the sexual relationship and presenting it to students in such a way that it has no integrity or relational value i read a rape scene that was so horrendous i'm still trying to unsee it it was violent it was denigrating to women several things i read were so denigrating to women but like i said most of all just so devaluing of the sexual relationship and putting it in a place was scary for young minds so i ask you to consider the damage the proven damage that pornography does to young people it hurts them so we are for protecting students but i ask you to look at these books and get them away from young

093minds there is nothing good in what i read the violence was appalling next we have dave eagle [Music] my name is dave eagle i live at 2615 hillside believe it or not and i'm here to stand for jeremy glenn dr jeremy glenn and the school board dr glenn you're a good guy you and i have gotten to know each other over the months and i believe that dr jeremy glenn reflects the majority of the values of this community dr glenn and i do not always agree miss townsend and i do not always agree but we can acknowledge our disagreement and we could move past the one or two issues that we disagree on and we want to do all wants to do what's best for our children and in my case my grandkids and their

094future because the kids represent the future of this county the city the state and this nation so why do we do this why don't we stand up here and speak at the risk of being called out when we speak the truth from our hearts that some do not want to hear i will tell you why i do this i'm here for my two grandkids they are my legacy and i'm also here for your kids and i'm here for your grandkids that's why i do what i do and believe me i take slings and arrows and i understand where you're at dr glenn and this is not about banning books i heard somebody quote the pico case i wasn't planning on doing a case law study tonight but the pico case is a 1982 case that

095was trumped by a 2006 case of the american library association about inappropriate material and if i or dr jeremy glenn or any of you school board members or other public figures stand up and speak out against political correctness tyranny and those who would silence us rather than listen to an opposing viewpoint then all i can do is salute you and urge you all to stand strong and do the right thing and i will close with this the new county news is bird cage liner thank you mr eagle and next up we have monica brown [Music] hi i'm monica brown i was nominated to serve on the book review committee for the 133 books that were recently pulled for review hood county newspaper reported the book committee reviewed 100 books in only two meetings that should

096have been a red flag to everybody 100 titles were put back into the student libraries in granberry under 4 minutes per book no one read the books cover to cover until well after those 100 were put back use granberrytexasbooks.org to see content for yourself not an opinion to see actual content then you can decide where you stand morally on what's being done here in granberry i'm ashamed of it during the review process i was inside granberry high school i spoke with students about the books and why adults are reviewing them everything in the school has been designed i hope for student enrichment and success there's many things to praise about granberry independent school district if you find something that is not working or is harmful or god forbid it's exploiting students which it is you

097remove it and you move on to better things you stand up and be the adults that's what you do while in high school library in early march librarians had books on display that contained sexually explicit content gone a teacher a student crossing the line this book is about a 17 year old student having sex with his 30-something-year-old hot teacher on display cranberry middle school has similar books that describe teachers drugging students and having sex with them that's in your libraries grand bay high school has the bluest eye 120 copies being used and promoted by teachers in lit circles you need to look at it and read excerpts there is a book author who has 15 titles in our libraries we reviewed nine of those books all of them are extremely sexually explicit and they are

098heterosexual books they are not lgbtq and those are trash also what would make a librarian display a book in a city like this with nudity and sexually explicit content in a student library and how do these principals walk in there and not see it i do not know could that librarian be sexualizing students some of you have taken flack for standing against sexually explicit books and while you are being threatened by people for your stance that's happened to some of you you have staff members putting more sexually explicit books in the student libraries and we are not talking about banning books we're talking about boundaries if you want to know where the books are go to granberry texas books and it will show you how to discover if they're in your library elementary all the

099way up to high school you can see how many copies are there and you can also see related titles there are many that have not been explored you tell me what is the educational value or benefit to students to put a book like shout back into the student library goodreads has labeled that as one of their top 25 sexually explicit books but you know what our committee had no problem putting it back the book review committee voted to put shout back in the student library along with others read the content for yourself several of the book review committees were trusted educators why would a librarian and a teacher award winner vote to put sexually explicit books back in the school why would a principal on that committee vote to put sexually explicit content back into

100the school i'm baffled and i'm concerned and i'm here to support you guys standing up and taking your rights to turn this around and turn it into a an inspiring library that will lead students in the right direction thank you miss brown greg harold [Music] good evening and thank you for the graciousness of not making me follow dave eagle attorney and politician so i appreciate that um i'm here to support each of you as board members of the granberry independence school district i'm here to support you dr glenn as superintendent of the school district i want to begin by saying or asking a question really and the question is not only directed at each of you but also at all of us that are out here in in this room and even in the community

101and that question is this is there anything wrong with anything is there anything wrong with anything well clearly it's a rhetorical question and the answer is truly well yeah there is and so then the question has to become okay if there is something wrong with some things then who gets to decide well you answered the question in your opening prayer president townsend you all here reflect the community you reflect the community the community gets to decide that there are indeed some things that are wrong and so that's your charge you reflect the community you reflect who all of us are now that doesn't mean that we all agree but when dr glenn when you made the mention that we live in a conservative community all you were doing was simply acknowledging where we live that's

102it and i back you for that i appreciate the fact that you recognize that now i want to close by paraphrasing a man named g.k chesterson and he lived in the early 20th century he was a writer and a philosopher my paraphrase is simply this before here's what he said before you remove offense please take a moment to stop and think about why that fence was put there in the first place simple now i'm a rancher we have a ranch down in the hill country and i have my cows underneath a high fence and when they're there i'm very comfortable with where they're at i know that they're protected i know that the bull that is in that high fence is not going to get out and wreak havoc amongst my neighbors conversely i know

103when they're under the high fence that they're protected from predators so it works both ways the fence is a good thing you all are fence minders and we appreciate everything you do do your job thank you thank you mr harold next up scott mitchell good evening i would like to take this opportunity to excuse me to express my gratitude to dr glenn and the members of the board on behalf of the all too often of the all too often silent majority of the people in hood county our state and much of our nation a vocal minority who refers to the removal of pornography in our schools as censorship who promote the erosion of morality and the values upon which our country and community have been built these are not our voices and they do not

104represent us dr glenn you've been burdened with the task of carrying out the will of your board and have done so with integrity and courage you have protected your school board and stood tall in the face of brutal criticism this responsibility has sadly made you a target a political opportunist who have sought to exploit a larger conflict on our small town stage in order to shamelessly promote their own platform potential careers or to make a quick buck selling t-shirts i applaud your determination and steadfastness to stand for what is right and you are standing on the correct side of this moral conflict to the members of the board you represent the will of the community who elected you to represent us a community that loves cares for supports and protects one another part of this

105protection is to ensure that our children are given an excellent and well-rounded education but one that also tries to maintain a focus on material that is intellectually emotionally and morally beneficial to our students by directing our superintendent to review and pull a handful of reprehensible books from our library shelves books that have zero redeeming or educational qualities you have fulfilled your elected duty thank you as well for standing for what is right look around you in this room the vast majority of the people here are behind you we support you we're in your corner so in the face of raging opposition take heart be strong and take courage do not fear or be dismayed for the lord your god is with you and so are all of us thank you mr mitchell we're spared well

106thanks for this opportunity uh dr glenn um i'm a hundred percent behind where you stand on this issue and i'm so thankful for a board and everything that you guys have done i'm going to kind of shift gears a little bit because uh i was one of the 83 in zero that voted in favor of the bond proposal both a and b and we are now in early voting i would really love it if everyone will go vote i mean i'm not going to tell you how to vote yes but i think i think there's we looked at multiple options i raised my kids in this community i have grandkids in this community i really do think that we need to have a different political deal which just is the common sense party i think

107that that would be really smart um and i'm just so thankful that i raised my kids here in granberry and we're raising our grandkids here in granberry and i know uh that this bond proposal is the right thing for granberry the train is coming uh we know the growth is here we all would love to have little old cranberry when i moved here 40 years ago but it's changed when i first started coming through grandma there was one light you know now there's more than one light and uh and it takes you a while to get across town and it's disturbing but we can only do what we can do here which is for the kids and getting the right facilities the right opportunities the cte program when i graduated from high school in mineral

108wells texas my dad lost his job about three weeks before i graduated and he said good luck son and i was fortunate because i went to tarleton on an rotc scholarship we've got one of the best rotc programs in the country here we've got we have got cte programs you know i i did shop and that kind of stuff going on but we have got amazing opportunities because we know not everybody goes to college and the opportunities for these kids uh now to be able to start in in middle school i mean the opportunities are are boundless and so i'm very thankful for the board thanks dr glenn and uh vote yes thank you dr dr board that finishes our open forum i would like to take a 10 minute break to give people a

109chance to get up and move around and then we will continue on with our meeting [Music] uh okay can i please have the rest of the board back up at the front dr glenn calling dr glenn dr glenn calling dr glenn [Music] i appreciate everyone's participation i appreciate everyone's respect for each person that spoke this is what democracy is all about and it really was a wonderful thing to see thank you all so much for your time and how this all went we are now going to resume our meeting on first on the agenda would be consider consent agenda items does anyone have anything they want to pull out or talk about in those items i have some notes on our donations again the american heart association donated a hundred dollars for kids for heart

110challenge the optimist club donated 500 for cards for the junior optimists for their graduation cards c-o-r-d-s the lady pirates basketball boosters donated four hundred and eighty four dollars and thirty cents for travel um robert byrd donated eleven hundred and eighty dollars for travel or 1080. i can't read my writing but again for travel and bennett camp camping center donated uh fifty dollars for the super um uh fan program a total of four thousand two hundred and fourteen dollars and 36 in thank all of you for being here tonight and for your support and the way you and these other people support our kids it's all about kids and we appreciate you thank you also trustees i do want to draw your item uh draw your attention to item 4 on the consent agenda review first

111review of district policy efb local that's a teas model policy regarding books in the school district currently we have ef legal and ef local next month tasby is supposed to release a model policy uh but this will certainly give you an opportunity to read it before we look into taking action action at next month's meeting at this point it will be just a review of that so please spend the time to look through it madam president i have a question and questions about three items on the consent agenda okay go ahead do you just want me to start with the first one and then go from there yes ma'am okay the first one would be item c consideration and possible action to approve the construction manager at risk ma'am that's not part of consent agenda

112items okay no worries no worries so did you have anything under consent okay very good are there any other comments for the consent agenda items do i have a motion to accept president i move that we accept the consent agenda as presented thank you dr harrington and i'll second thank you mr moore the motion by dr harrington seconded by mr moore next on the agenda all in favor hope yeah that'd be helpful all in favor please raise your hand it's been a long night and he opposed it passes unanimously next approve and ratify an agreement regarding the donation of real property to the district dr glenn thank you madam president as part of the agreement to purchase the the rollins property located on hecton highway the seller wants to donate a section of land 4.6

113acres as part of the r merit survey that'll be part of the transaction it does not affect the purchase price of the land it just helps offset some of the costs for the seller very good no additional cost for the district are there any questions or comments about that free is always good so i appreciate the donation of this property it will certainly help us gain access to james road it looks like yes uh with the prospective uh site for the new high school um i i would like to go and make the motion to accept this gift at this time thank you mister you you second it okay the motion was made by mr jackson it was second year by ms gore all those in favor raise your hand any opposed that's unanimous moving

114on to consideration and possible action to approve the construction manager at risk method thank you madam president uh the first uh the first step in the process uh for moving forward with uh selecting a contractor is actually selecting a delivery method and so the state allows several ways that a board can deliver a construction project competitive bidding uh competitive sealed proposals construction manager agent construction manager at risk risk excuse me design build and then job order contracting and so up for a project of this magnitude most of the time what you see is competitive sealed proposals or a construction manager agent it is i'm sorry construction manager at risk construction manager agent is is similar the district actually takes on all the contracts with subcontractors when you don't go construction manager agent and then the

115the construction company just serves as kind of an outside entity overseeing the project construction manager at risk the construction company actually they hold all of the contracts for the district so one entity answers to gisd and provides us with a gmp or a guaranteed maximum price for the project so we know before we ever begin construction what it's going to cost and so construction manager at risk you should be familiar with because that was the method used to deliver the project in in visiting with stantec it is the recommended delivery method for this project tonight we'd like to recommend that the board move forward with choosing the delivery method of construction manager at risk however we will not actually push out uh proposals for companies until after we know whether or not the bond is

116ratified by voters at such time we'll narrow it down to finalists and then bring the finalists for the board to interview dr glenn if we do not approve if we delay this to may 5th will it impact anything in our a plan to build the next board meeting is is may 16th uh it's required to be posted in new newspaper two consecutive weeks so what we'd like to do is uh what we'd like to do is go ahead and just post it after we know you're saying post early no i'm saying i'm saying can we uh if we approve it can we wait and and actually uh sign and agree or do whatever we need to do after may 5th yes so so short answer is yes all we're asking for tonight is the delivery

117method that we're going to move forward with construction manager at risk to deliver the project so that's how we're going to do it that allows us to get the rfp the request for proposals ready and then on may 9th the monday may 9th when we come in we'll go ahead and push those uh requests for proposals out we'll have to post it in the paper two consecutive weeks after that qualifications i'm sorry request for qualifications we'll post it for two consecutive weeks work with stantec to narrow it down to finalists based on the matrix that's been established through the rfq and and then we'll bring the finalists to the board to interview and all of that will take place after the bond election well i have a lot of confidence in the in our community

118and i i but i don't want to put something out there and someone come up with the idea oh well they've already moved past that and we've had to explain to people that to even get to this point we had to have direction from architects and from financial advisors and all that i just i just would like to avoid the perception that we're not waiting for the boat that we're moving forward with right all this will do is we'll start teeing up the documents as it relates to to cmar construction manager risk and so we'll we'll put all the documents in place give you an opportunity to review them and uh and then assuming a successful bond election on may 9th we'll begin postage posting in the newspaper other comments i had some questions um

119on page 67 in red it's talking about a prevailing wage rate and um gi grenbury isd utilizes the prevailing wage determination for hunt county texas as issued by the u.s department of labor my question is when i was looking at this why we were using it s-type oh that should have been hood county okay it should have been hood county okay thank you and then the next question and maybe it doesn't matter is it said to go to exhibit h and when i went to exhibit h there was nothing there yeah and that's because exhibit 8 should be the hood county prevailing wage rate and you hit a third um i have a second my last question concerning this issue also was uh page 70 there's the notification of criminal history i think it's page

12070. it was crossed out i just wanted to verify that um what i was concerned about that was crossed out was the notice must include a general description of the conduct resulting in the conviction of a felony i just want to make sure i just want to clarify that whole issue because later on in the book i saw it again so i just want to make sure that when we contract out we're not going to have anyone who's convicted it actually stays in there it has to stay in there as they're working with school districts it would just move to a different section okay so what is the i will i will get that they would not they do not well they should not now we'll say this let me talk to our attorney just

121to ensure when it's uh when they're an off site so like you're not working around kids at all let me ensure that that that's covered in the contract as well that's my concern is if we have renovations with elementary schools are we going to have convicted felons they will they will not be in there okay so if we're doing a renovation of an elementary school absolutely not a high school built out on 150 acres by itself i need to get an attorney to answer that okay thank you yes excellent questions thank you very much other questions that anyone has i looked over the different uh delivery methods that we could use under construction night i agree that i think the construction manager at risk makes the most sense i love the fact that it has

122a guaranteed max price i think that that is the best way we as a trustee can make sure that we're going to give our our community the best that we can other questions comments my last comment is nice base um until i know for sure on that last question i had um i don't feel comfortable voting on this until we get that answer from an attorney [Music] on whether or not they can have felons at a high school that is being built we know that that one's in there because we other contracts we've emmet for other contracts that we've had like when they're working at brawner right now how has that worked anybody that said that has a phone on their staff that person cannot work on a campus yeah and it's actually addressed on

123page 79 background check felony convictions and it's going to be it just diverts you to another section on page 80 it goes into detail about that it says that um all subcontractors and all sub subcontractors shall ensure that any person assigned to perform work at any district location under the contract meets the following following criterion and then it goes down into all of that and it talks about no felony convictions no misdemeanor and um sex offender no uh positive drug tests etc that's on page 80 in my book i'm not sure it is okay thank you so are you comfortable with that miscraft excellent no it's it's it's a it's a great question it's weird no it's very clear that it was crossed out so oh absolutely i will still get that refined and make

124sure that we're all comfortable with the language before the rfq is pushed out so do i have a motion with the amendment go ahead i move that we approve and ratify the agreement regarding us the i um the wrong one up i apologize um i approved the construction manager at risk method as the delivery method providing the best value to the school district by the 2022 bond issues and authorized the superintendent uh or his destiny to publish selected criteria and criteria prepare a request for qualifications open and evaluate the qualifications and request that five or few offers provide additional information including fees pricing evaluate the additional information and provide recommended rankings to the board after the bond is approved in a second all right any other discussion is all those in favor raise your hand

125all those opposed okay so we have the motion by dr harrington the second by dr mcdonald there were six in favor and one abstentia moving on to the next discuss and consider policy and our procedures regarding hb 547. thank you madam president this item was brought to the administration's attention by a couple of trustees and so we were happy to bring it to you guys for a vote that would allow us to put in place a policy that would allow home school students who live within the gisd boundaries to participate in uil activities beginning with the 2022-2023 school year does anyone have any comments on this that they would like to discuss i have a question concerning just wanted to clarify as i was reading through it as far as varsity goes with the home

126school children be included in like varsity sports yes okay thank you my question is uh have our coaches vented this and evaluated the challenges that it might present because i know that districts who are who have approved these policies um have run into some challenges so very very few this was new this year and very few districts have adopted it so like anything change is change is always hard i will say i know there are coaches that are concerned about it and probably most of all from like an equity standpoint so if you have a home school kid that is coming in the district and you have a public school kid that is at first period every day here before school making all the practices i think from an equity standpoint the coach just wants

127to know that they don't have to make special exceptions for a homeschool child that both the homeschool child and the public school child will be held to the same expectations in their class i do know that when we have we're doing remote learning that some of the issues that with which they wrestled had to do with the kids who were on remote who were bringing in i mean more of those kids ended up with cobit and some things and and i'm just i'm just concerned that well i would say the uh so a positive is that uh we're extending opportunities to the kids of taxpayers in our community uh i think another positive is this is something that the board year to year can make a decision on so if we get into it we're

128like ah that was terrible we could always back off next year however i i really believe giving anytime anytime you extend a hand to kids who live in our district that are taxpayers their parents are taxpayers and you say hey we want to provide you with an opportunity we're going to make it fair and equitable as as best we can you know i certainly understand that there are going to be differences but i kind of ask myself when when i'm given the opportunity to look at these things what's best for kids and and to me this is a decision that's pretty easy if we can help kids and it doesn't hurt us why would we not do it well and i think we have safeguards i was concerned about well what happens if a kid

129who's in school and gets into grade trouble or something else and decides to go home school and and there are safeguards there because they they will become ineligible if they've been in the school system and go out and so there are a lot of safeguards there i just again i was concerned what our coaches stand uh yeah that's correct you you can't flip you can't flip flop back and forth right and i'll say this we'll lean in to our coaches pretty heavily to help us craft a policy you see uh weatherford's uh policy in there and so we'll put one together that's similar and make sure that it's included in the student handbook for you guys to approve this summer i've got a few questions around this madam president but let's say um first of

130all this is the first i've i've heard of this issue and and to kind of still align for one of my fellow trustees i don't know if i'm comfortable voting on this tonight with so many questions swirling around this and i'll explain i i do totally agree with your two primary uh rationales for opening this up it is best for the kids i totally agree i i started both american heritage girls and trail life here in the area for several years was involved many home school families in fact most of them were homeschooled families i have no issue with that they are taxpayers they deserve to use these public facilities and resources every bit as much as kids who are there every day that said though i i've just got some things in mind that

131i'm having difficulty getting over one is there are certain requirements that the child the family has to meet in order to get them into whatever program it may be let's we're talking about athletics so let's assume for now we're just going to open up our athletics to their participation [Applause] they have to be on grade level and they have to prove it as such and and there are certain tests that they can present to show that that child is on grade level but when they're not already in our world that you know you gotta like anything verify and and so i'm just it seems a little bit problematic on how we do that um secondly if you look on page 112 there's a question there's kind of a q a that was provided to us

132in our board packet well homeschool students that participate recounted in our snapshot snapshot account for realignment purposes and it said no home schools or homeschool students are not counted in the snap shot count for realignment purposes as everyone knows every two years uil realigns our districts and all the other teams we compete with well if you read the very next question i'm really confused by this it says if a district decides to allow homeschool students to participate can the district reverse that decision anytime in the future and discontinue allowing home school students to participate well i just heard you say we would revisit the summer year but yet the answer says this is a local school district decision not under uil jurisdiction however it should be noted that altering said decision could have an impact

133on your reclassification or realignment when the question just above said they won't have an impact on that so i really need that question answered before i can i can move forward with this and and then the other thing that caught my eye was we all know there's uil rules and standards of of practice uh certain the coaches can't do certain things in the summer for example they can't bring in uh specialty coaches or consultants and practice their kids more in a certain number hours in the day and then once the school year starts they have to confine their practice a certain number of hours per week is that not correct correct okay well how problematic is that if you have a homeschooled child who may be in a select league and maybe you know playing

134ball in other places or may have their own uh tutor or coach private coach we have that now with public school kids right right but if you read the answer it it it presents us as if that's a problem though if because you can't monitor again you can't monitor home school kids you don't know how many hours of the day they're putting towards these url activities yeah i think it's my understanding on that again they're they're trying to line up the the school practice and game restrictions with our coaches so they're held to the same standard with our coaches above and beyond if a kid wants to go out and practice extra with his dad or his dad hires a someone on the side to work with him on the weekends you know that doesn't

135affect us kind of like in band i know your son is in band you know mr eason is required to adhere to the eight hour rule however if you want to spend a little bit of extra money to make sure that your son's getting some practice on saturday and sunday that doesn't count against us and so it's the the same applies here to kids that are homeschooled they're they're they're under the same eight hour rule with our coaches so for like example let's say all of our football kids go in and have first period athletics and second period starts and all of those kids have to go to chemistry now [Music] and the homeschool kid is like well hey i'm i'm free i've got a little bit of time coach can i can i be

136in the weight room can i work out can i go through a few more drills that policy is is in place to say no you're creating an advantage for that child right so but if that child wants to leave go to city park and work with a private coach we can we can't stop that any more than we could stop you having a private tutor for your son after school right does that make sense it it does and it doesn't i mean there i i see some logistical issues too with a homeschool kid just kind of floating in and out of campus and i mean i would have liked to see instead of weatherford isd kind of what they're doing i'd like to see us kind of let's define what we're going to do before

137we just approve this and and then go build it i've used the same argument before with other things i i mean this my first read on this and again i am not opposed to this i have many many friends who homeschool their kids and and in some ways they're they're shorted really because they're paying property taxes and they're not getting the full force of an isd at their at their disposal so i'm i support this i just want to see a lot more definition and get some of these questions answered and see what exactly we're proposing as administration to the board how we're going to do this because right now i've seen only 30 districts out of 1080 in the state have adopted this sure that's not many at all it's it's been in place

138a year and it was it was really controversial when it came it came right and again i'm i'm not trying to sell it it i don't know either way for me is good and and i i'm hey i'm i'm great at being a trailblazer i was on the trailblazer i was on the board when we adopted district of innovation we were one of the very first in the state to do so but something like this is a huge step because we do have a very large homeschool community here i know at least two co-ops uh there's probably more that operate in this area so very good and i i again i'm supportive of allowing their kids to to to come in and participate in our sports but i i just i want to see something

139more than just what weatherford's doing right now i'd like to see what's granberry isd going to do so in fairness all we're asking for tonight is would you be in favor of allowing us to create this policy before we go before we send everybody through the legwork of creating a policy i mean oh that's that's not the way i read it we're proving to do it it's the way i'm reading this in the board and and we would go create a policy to allow kids because we need we would start letting families know right now hey you're gonna have the opportunity to get involved you're gonna have the opportunity to be in athletics as a homeschool family next year and then our coaches could start working on building a policy now we can invert that

140too and we can build the entire policy and then the board can vote on it i just wanted to make sure y'all were in agreement that it would actually be worth doing before we invested that much time all i'm asking just me is one trustee is let's treat this as a first read let's do a little more legwork and bring it back next month i'm fully supportive i just i'm uneasy again we connect we tapped the brakes on other things before and i i don't think it's asking a lot let's define this a little bit better for granberry before we move forward i just wanted to add a comment if i could about because my children do attend one of those homeschool co-ops and um just for my family and myself we do document everything

141that they do as far as their hours and as far as those kiddos being out there after our practice i mean parents are pretty responsible in picking up their kids and i just think from where i said it would be good to see the community come together so often i feel like we have homeschool kids private school kids public school kids and so i just i see it as a great opportunity for the public school kids and others to come together and that's just my comment until august the 1st i'm sorry we have until august the 1st uh we do but i i think they're like our camps and stuff begin this summer and so in in fairness you know i mean i know if i were a homeschool dad and uh i i i'll

142go i go to church with one um so i can tell you that like you know he's he's excited to like know something so he can say hey i'm going to get my kid up there involved in summer camps i want him to go meet coach hepler he's a baseball player and and so so i kind of understand like from from their point of view like a sense of urgency like man it puts us at a disadvantage if you tell us to start in august when i know my my two boys that are in athletics they're they're going to start in june i mean they're they're in it now and so so that that's probably why we would bring it so early it's just so that we could let kids know as we get ready

143to hit summer that look you're going to have the opportunity if you want to take it i i can't imagine we're talking about you know hundreds of kids here either i mean i think it's probably going to be smaller numbers but again it's this is truly the pleasure of the board if you want to move forward with it if you want to table it you know we we will do whatever you guys want to see on this i definitely would like some clarification with the uil whether they count or they don't count that that can be kind of a a big deal so no not that i'm not in favor of it i just the uil thing is confusing with the contradictory information it's very it's very confusing and so it was my understanding they

144did not count but we can get that clarified and i'd like to comment from the standpoint of the teachers and coaches as a former high school teacher who also took lots of kids to uil activities i think it would be really great to be able to hear round table with our teachers and coaches because they we know they're already all stressed out we know they have a lot of things to do and this is definitely going to make some changes to what they already do so i think taking a little bit of time to step back and hear from them on how we can come at this in a really positive manner without it being okay here's another thing for you to do and there's not even a plan in place okay so so you

145want me to survey the coaches and then bring that back next month and then if you all approve that and then we'll then we'll develop a policy and then we'll bring that back for approval the month after am i hearing you all correctly i think we're talking about more than just coaches yeah the uil coaches okay english as well as science i like those people that work with the the youngsters that we honor tonight whether it's the science team or whatever what is it what is it going to do and on all levels because i will tell you that most of the elementary teachers work within the school day from bell to bell working with those students who participate in uil activities storytelling in the second grade number since i all of that that they

146do in junior high and high school in junior high they probably work a lot during the day when they get to high school those whether they're coaching number sense accounting whatever it is those people do a lot of of hours outside of school i agree with paula on that so it's a lot of extra work for very very little pay on that but again i think it's a bringing in all of our kids in our in the whole school district to do something like this is fantastic i just think we really need to have a great plan and call some of these other schools and talk to them what were what did you guys encounter this year how did it go so that we can go into it in a really positive manner yeah paula

147you just asked what i was about to ask have you specifically talked to weatherford isd has anyone spoken to them and talked to them extensively about this it would be coach butler is here tonight i you know i'd like to know how how how the interaction's gone between the homeschooled kids and the in the every i have so much time every day kids public head kids public kids uh you know just to ensure that you know we are truly putting something beneficial out for the kids and then secondly i haven't seen any specifics are we just talking athletics are we including fine arts and academics i mean let's put a little more definition just how many uil activities are we opening up i'll apologize for bringing this way premature and next month we will have

148a survey of the coaches we will have a report on all the other school districts that are actually doing it that are 5a or 6a and it will allow for more board discussion and then at that point if y'all allow us to move forward then in june we'll come back with a policy for you all to vote on [Music] that sounds good all right if you'll make sure that gets relayed to coach butler to call the schools we will table the uh discuss and consider policy and procedures for regarding hb we will now move on to consider mou to partner with tarleton on texas coveted acceleration learning support t-class program and this is wes jones thank you madam president um we have provided the mou that you had last month and uh i say we

149i'm i'm taking a little credit but uh we have dr sloan uh chris long would you all come forward uh dr ryerson from tarleton and dr and uh mr danny knowles from region 11 that was assigned to us by tea for this t-class decision five uh they are here to answer any questions you could have danny has worked very hard and dr sloane had worked very hard on revising this for you and making sure that it's a agreement between tarleton and granberry isd first before you even start thank you so much for your patience and getting to this point it's been a long meeting and dr glenn did say you probably won't have to get here till like eight so we got here actually when y'all were in closed session so yeah it's been a

150long evening um so actually i'm gonna uh if if you'll bear with me i would like to introduce the year-long residency to you first um and how that started and so i'll have dr rainerson start us off with how we got started with that sure good to meet all of you um so in 2019 i was coming into my role and my background is not in teacher education my background's in psychology it just happens to be in the college of education so coming into the role as dean and we are of course within the texas a m university system and they gave all the system schools the opportunity to undergo an inspection nationwide inspection for our teacher ed programs with the intention of making sure that we were preparing highly qualified teachers for the state

151of texas and we went through that inspection program and we learned that we probably had some areas where we could improve and it was a little eye-opening and we discovered the year-long residency model as something that would extend the time that our student teachers spend in the classroom co-teaching with their public schools supervising teachers and the strengths that they build in terms of their competencies and their skills and how very different that is that two semesters of that experience as opposed to just one semester and what that looks like when a student graduates and we were sold and so that was our i guess our entree into building the year-long residency program and i want dr sloan to tell you a little bit more about the details of that program so about two and a

152half years ago that the leadership team at tarleton in teacher education program decided to embrace the year-long residency program but we needed a partner to do that with and i remembered i think it was my third year here as a faculty member going to an auditorium at tarleton and dr glenn was speaking to my students and he said if you want to work at granberry you have to be innovative and you have to know technology and you've got to be the best teachers that tarleton produces and i remember that speech and actually sat in there the whole time while you gave that and thought if i'm going to have teachers trained by quality teachers this is a district i want to partner with and so i i knew that as a faculty member that that's

153what we should be doing and we have been partnering with granberry for years and having student teachers in a traditional clinical model here at granberry but when i had to make when we had to make a decision on what districts we would partner with in a pilot program of 24 students we asked in i don't know if you remember when we were up in the president's suite and uh you were there and and uh um jones and and you were there dr grant and we asked i asked can we do this with you guys and uh so this was our pilot year was year before this year we started with uh 14 students here in granberry isd and tenant huckabee isd and we asked the principals we asked the teachers have you noted is there

154a noticeable difference and i had seen it it was not anecdotal and the difference is not double the difference because you double the time it's exponential the the quality of teachers that come out of year-long residency was so great that instead of doing a gradual increase in numbers tarleton decided to go to a hundred percent and granberry agreed at that time to take on an additional 10 which was a huge commitment on your part and we appreciate that so right now we have 24 students that started the year we have 23 right now that are currently in granberry isd doing the year-long residency 100 of tarleton students right now at the stephenville campus are doing a year-long residency that is how much we are sold on how how this program works over and over and

155over again we hear how great the teachers are i heard somebody say earlier tonight from this panel i can't remember if it was dr glenn or if it was you man president i can't i don't remember who said that that grand bay isd has the best teachers in the state of texas my goal as the current department head of that department and the associate dean of the college is to produce the best teachers in the state of texas the great state of texas i want to make sure that the teachers that you receive from us are the top quality that the teachers that are in the classrooms for each student that is in the classroom are the best teachers that they can possibly be and we are doing it at tarleton state university we value

156the partnership with granberry isd and we are excited to move forward with you this grant and i'm going to let mr knowles talk about that but this grant is something that allows our residents and there's some extra money for the district as well but our residents to get paid for the time that they're spending in the classroom if you think about the old model for those who are educators are familiar with education the old model was one semester seven weeks in one classroom seven weeks in another and then they were done one of the things i tell my residents is you can fake it pretty good for seven weeks twice but you can't fake it for a year there's no way i will know whether or not you can be a teacher in this state

157and whether or not you get the tarleton stamp of approval but it takes a lot a lot of them don't have to give up their part-time jobs a lot of them have to give up their way of making a living while they're doing this the first semester they're with you they're guaranteed three days a week in the classroom with your teachers the second semester it's five days a week which means they can't work another job and so this grant allows the district it's a district-facing grant the district has applied for this money and actually the district is sitting the district has the money right now this grant allows the district to pay these uh teacher residents we call them now not student teachers teacher residents a salary or a stipend in order so that they

158can make a living while they're doing this and not have to i will tell you during the the pilot program and the 24 that we had going through initially i did i had to tell them where the food banks were and that's not right when we're trying to get educators trained so that they can teach your children and so and my grandchildren so i want to make sure that the funds are available for them part of this grant is to also be a sustainable model and i'm going to let mr mose talk about that thank you dr sloan madam president dr glenn and members of the board it's honor to be here with you tonight uh so i do work for region 11 service center i am a strategic staffing specialist for the service center

159and this is a relatively new position for the service center as a result of the t-class grant and our goal is to continue this partnership and sustain this paid residency beyond the scope of the grant itself is a three-year grant it gives the school district 20 000 for up to twenty residents and then an additional five thousand dollars to uh support student teacher i mean um your mentor teachers as with stipends if that's what you choose to do in addition to that the third part of the grant uh offers technical assistance to help develop a strategic staffing model and that's where i come in and so my services to granberry isd is to help facilitate the process over the next two years we'll start with year one which will be the 20 22 23 school

160year as a design year and i'm going to work with your team and the team from tarleton state university to help sort of look at different strategic staffing models to potentially reallocate or reinvest in the teacher residency program so once that t-class money goes away and this is year one so two and you got two more years of t-class money once it goes away we would like to be able to sustain this teacher residency continue to pay the teacher residents and it doesn't necessarily you know have to be the twenty thousand dollars which is what the grant insures them uh that's decisions that will be made over the design year with the staff and faculty of granberry isd and tarleton state university in a collaborative effort and so i'm just here to help facilitate that

161process and it's the in-kind support from texas education agency through the t-class grant so if you have any questions i'm sure we'd be happy to answer those for you yeah i just want to be clear there is uh no commitment on the part of the district to to continue on with the grant uh beyond the the initial three years that that were funded that is correct yes sir and you know i i have to ask that because again school funding could be tight after the next legislative session i'd like to comment on the fact that we all know that we're in a major teacher and education educator shortage and so i think programs like this that are coming in line with us is fantastic and i know i would have liked to have received some

162money when i was going through teacher residency what was student teacher back then and so and also having the chance for them to experience a full year of activities with a school district i think that's essential for both sides to see if that's if they are comfortable even being a teacher and if they like the district and likewise how they are performing as a teacher so i think it's a fantastic idea and i appreciate you guys choosing to partner with us i just want to say thank you to everyone in the coordinated effort it took to get this mou together very thankful and happy to be here and hear you present this and how it's going to help not just our district but the future educators to our children and the the return on investment

163so to speak is is going to be astronomical and we're going to see the benefits of this for years to come i just have a a question um i know it was removed because it was a question we had earlier but um i was just curious when looking through this what the if you could define for me what the equity chief red clay is i didn't know what that was that is so there are some districts some of the bigger urban districts that have an equity division as part of their um district positions that's not a something that grand bay isd has and i thought we actually removed that from the mou it has it has okay yeah and and i'll be honest with you yeah i'll be honest with you i've been working in

164conjunction with tea to uh structure this mou and i'm not really sure what red clay meant um i yeah i it may have been a typo in the in the initial um mou that was put together it may have been a typo and then i've worked with tarleton state to revise that and make sure that it was up to par yeah and and i'll be honest with you i'm not 100 sure um what an equity chief does in a district like um fort worth isd i know that it's really about um you know ensuring equity and diversity among the staff equity university amongst the education of their students but specifically what that role entails i honestly couldn't speak to that sorry there any other questions we can answer for you do i hear a motion

165yes madam president i would like to make a motion for the mou with tarleton state university for texas coveted accelerated learning support program okay the motion was made by dr mcdonald uh mr jones i'll let you decide which one of these two you want to pick for your second okay i want to give it to uh ms gore because she really worked hard on getting this work with that so we will give that to ms gore so all those in favor raise your hand please any opposed okay any opposed okay so we have six four one against and the one against will be miss graft dr sloan would it be possible uh i know i'd visit with dr hurley about bringing the interns together and uh doing some sort of formal presentation that you can

166contact mr jones and we'll schedule that and then we'll make that next couple of weeks we'd love to do that and get our get our trustees together with them so awesome thank you so much for being here thank you all right so we are now moving to reports i won't make you read your report again uh dr glenn so we will move on to emma early learning center before she gets up there i will say don't forget we have breakfast with the board here at 8 15 tomorrow dr h requested a breakfast with the board for admins i know i'm i claim it i thought we ought to come and see these folks i was planning on being here at 8 o'clock 8 15 8 15. hello kelly hello it's a long one yes yes

167ma'am okay well this is just going to be a very very quick recap of uh i guess i talked to you at the beginning of the year and now we've had almost a full school year for our campus and i'm just going to tell you a little bit of how it turned out as you can see on the first slide it just talks about all the classes and how they're broken up we have 21 total classes including pre-k3 pre-k 4 and special ed the attendance has kind of hovered around 325 kids it's gotten as low as about 300 and we didn't really pass the 325 at one time so that's more than we expected um and just all of our teachers are all highly qualified we have um our special ed we had to end

168up adding an additional teacher those kids when they turn three no matter if it's after september 1st if they qualify we have to serve them we were able to keep not our 11 to 1 ratio but our 9 to 1 ratio so that was huge our experience rooms the kids are rotating through the camping room uh the zoo room is almost finished we have a few little things to add into that and they'll be rotating through that in may and then as you'll see we're going to have our farm to market by december and then our pets by december as well and then we think we can get the space one done as well by 2023 so those experience rooms are really really doing well the curriculum that we were using is frog street that's

169our state adopted curriculum and so with that it has conscious discipline included in that and that curriculum has worked great it's the same we use for three with head start partnership and the four-year-olds and then the main thing that i wanted to share tonight is the data that we have turned out not knowing how we would get all of these kids i had a pretty lofty goal which is still not the end of the school year but i have uh actually 26 percent of our students reading i had some more come read to me today which is huge and this is our four-year-olds and we have 55 of those students approaching reading that means they're already on their way they're just not quite as fluent in and getting those words blended together but they're almost

170there uh then all of those skills that we have above 90 are listed there and the ones we have between 70 and 90 are listed i don't read all of those but uh amazing amazing work from our teachers we set those standards very very high and those kids met those standards it was very very impressive then i have just in here some of our i always have our research and how important it is that our campus is instructional it's proving it is instructional if you can see it you'll see that it's instructional it's something that i defend i defend it every day i'm a believer my teachers are believers dr glenn is a believer and acton elementary came and visited our campus today they are believers and when i send them these kids and how

171high they have become and how how far they have gotten they're all going to be i think very happy with the results that we have so it all worked out this year absolutely beyond what we expected and very very grateful for the support that you've given us to do that campus and run that campus the way that we do it as a team and every teacher and every staff member on there has a huge huge part so is there any questions thank you for what you're doing there i i'm really super impressed with all the hard work and i know that those rooms took a lot of you guys spending your own money and going out on your own time to make those happen so thank you so much you're welcome it was fun it's

172great but it really has made a difference i fully believe in the experience rooms the idea what these children are getting in that experience room is what others would get if they had the opportunity to go camping to go to a zoo to go and learn these words that many who have opportunities just get anyway you talked to me one time about the difference in vocabulary levels of an economically disadvantaged child to one who does have more advantages do you remember i think it's in our research there it's a the 32 million word gap is that that that's the gap at what age is that gap uh that was for our pre-k um that's the that's the research that we that we researched along with mansfield that study that's been repeated and that's at pre-k

173age at the age of four so at the age of four there's a 32 million word gap between an economically disadvantaged four-year-old and one who has had more experiences yes and these experience rooms are helping to fill that gap and i really think that's fabulous other question for you do you have any idea what percentage of our economically disadvantaged population we are able to serve at this time how many of the three and four-year-olds that we have the funds to handle we're actually serving i think if i'm understanding we have 89 percent low ses kids on our campus but how many more are out there do we have any idea unless they come and register and fill out the paperwork we don't know i don't know how many are out there how many um i

174know i have several families that come and try to qualify but they don't qualify but we're seeing classes typically of 600 to 650 kids we average just over 50 percent economically disadvantaged so probably in a given grade level you're looking at 325 kids so and that's where we're at 325 okay that answers my question any other questions i just want to say thank you for all you all are doing pre-k is where i fell in love with teaching and is what inspired me to actually become a teacher and so i really appreciate all the hard work and effort that i know y'all pour into those children you're welcome thank you kelly thank you all right we are now to the emmett whitefield show thank you madam president board in front of you you have the

175financial statements for uh the month ending march 31st 2022. um these financial statements include data from september 1 2021 through that march 31st date and uh revenue collected to date equals 90.62 percent of the budgeted amount compared to 89.58 percent in 2021 and 94.53 percent in 1920. i'm the notable fake uh five notable things on those uh revenues are of course the interest investment income and we'll talk about that a little bit in a while um and then our property taxes uh which is currently 94.56 compared to last year's 95.35 um i do know that on 4-4 there was another 1.3 deposit on on those books and we are currently in line with what county appraisal district is expecting to receive so we're on target to reach that the maximum on those revenues uh emmitt

176could part of that uh amount that has that were short be due to the uh procedure of allowing those over 65 to pay over months instead of all in january that is completely possible yes ma'am i can tell you that it fluctuates from year to year on those property taxes um and like i said i've started collecting data from hood county and it's a report that i've received in the past and they've just started to send it to me again and we are on target to hit those numbers that they have in there as well well i i do know that one of my neighbors pays her taxes a quarter of them in january a quarter in march a quarter in may and a quarter in july and and i just don't know in these

177hard times now how many of our people have gone to that payment schedule that's very possible i can tell you that uh historically um between the months of april and august we receive anywhere from 1.5 to 2.6 million dollars in taxes thank you yes ma'am the expenditures to date represent 54.37 percent of the budget compared to 53.81 in 2021 and 54.42 in 1920 um again we've talked about some of those uh areas in there but i'll just remind you that um function 33 which is health services we had a an extra nurse this year so that's a kind of increase there and then our transportation costs and that's fuel costs that are going up and i know you saw earlier that we are moving more money for fuel to finish out the year as well

178and then the other notable would be function 36 which is a co-curricular travel which we have increased quite a bit this year because we're back on the road again and that is your financials for the month of march 31st 2022 emmett i have a question on the facilities construction and acquisition yes ma'am does that include the broner kitchen remodeled yet no ma'am it does not we have not moved forward with that we need an electrical engineer and we're waiting for a few things to fall in place so that we have that ready to go um that that construction is gonna run us about two hundred thousand dollars and does that come out of this or does that come out of the kitchen child nutrition yes ma'am that will come out of child nutrition's uh 240

179fund okay thank you yes ma'am uh moving on to the investment report um we've talked about investments uh to the point that it's just not fun to talk about anymore and you can see those on there we are moving away from the long-term investments i can tell you that we've moved the majority of landing rock out that balance now shows about 2 400 and that was the last interest payment that we receive and we will eventually move that out the ameritrade will start moving out in may by september 1st we will be able to move out about 1.7 million dollars of that and then in [Music] 2023 will move out an additional 3.3 million dollars and then the remaining half a million dollars will be out in january of 2024 to more liquid uh investments

180okay and that's all i have if there are unless there are any questions thank you for all you do emmitt thank you doing a great job yes thank you and we are now to the action on items discussed in closed session all right thank you go ahead thank you madam president thank you trustees you have uh before you your last three action items of the night you have staff recommendations uh probationary contract renewals and then you do have one catastrophic leave request all this was put together by our director of hr wes jones we appreciate what he and his department do is the recommendation of the administration that you approve all three items you can take them separately or together does any board member have a problem with taking them together at this period of

181the night absolutely not madam president i'd like to just compare notes with my colleague we don't recall a catastrophic lead request being discussed in closed sessions do we have one to consider or not yes we do there was one it was it was in the board book there was one in the board book well i must have missed it because i was right at the front it was right at the front of the board book we can certainly jump back into closed session here we go okay page four yeah i printed front and back i'm i've got a bad habit of not looking on the back okay i'm good with it on that note i'll make an emotion that we approve all these items a b and c as presented by administration thank you mr

182jackson do we have a second all second second by ms gore all those in favor raise your hand all opposed is your hand raised okay just doing this okay that's unanimous then thank you all right folks the time is now 9 18 and i adjourn this board meeting thank you board