001all right we're just going to adjourn in the executive session that is true the time is now 502 pm i call this video the granberry independent school district to order but the records show that a quorum of board members is present and that this meeting 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 5 5-5-1 [Music] the board will now adjourn into executive session pursuant to the following sections section 551.071 private consult with boards attorney section 551.072 purchase exchange lease or value of real property section 551.074 to deliberate the appointment employment evaluation reassignment duties discipline or dismissal of a public officer or employee section 551.076 deliberations regarding security devices or security audits the time is now 503. all right
002the time is now 602 we will reconvene now into open session beginning without invocation led by melanie graf [Music] lord thank you for the opportunity to serve you and our community we recognize the great responsibility we have each been entrusted with we pray that our actions and decisions glorify you and reflect your kingdom give us the courage and wisdom to make decisions for children teacher parents and community thank you for the reign as we continue to pray for our communities of bluffdale tuller lypan and all affected areas of texas please protect all individuals animals homes land and those that are assisting in fighting the fires amen thank you and now for our pledges we're going to have miss ross and miss valaquez come up with their little ones hi good evening everyone we have um
003two students with us we have irani velazquez and her brother liam velasquez and both of these kiddos are nuvia's children and tonight they're going to lead us in the pledges in english and in spanish and if you didn't know um broner houses the bilingual and the dual language program and we have about 220 students in our school who are bilingual and so we're really proud to have a k through 5 and all so many students on our campus we have 11 bilingual teachers on our campus and we were lucky enough this year to have two tarleton interns and so both of those ladies have been student teaching for an entire year in a bilingual classroom and right now miss velasquez is going to tell you just a little bit more about her own children and
004our dual language and bilingual program and then we'll get started good evening um okay so i have idle she's in third grade at broader and she's been one of the first students to be in the dual language program i've had the wonderful pleasure of being her teacher for two years now um and then we have liam and he's over there and he's in first grade with miss espinosa so they're doing a great job over there okay okay you're ready to do english okay attention salute pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and now italy is going to lead us in the pledge in spanish for and then at the end
005of our pledges we say two mottos in spanish every day and we say how do we treat every student and staff member at our school and this kids answer with kindness courtesy compassion and respect and then we repeat that in spanish and then at the end of our pledges we say we have rana we have a motto learning for all whatever it takes and then we say that in spanish thank you very much um [Music] uh and do we have any proud parents out there tonight of these two children no all right and for our achievement spotlight uh we have um okay we're going to have a coach pilato come up for their swim team good afternoon wes jones told me last year i didn't take long enough so i'm gonna take my extra time
006now uh so i'm here to talk about the 2022-2021 ghs swim team uh we were successful despite some obstacles for those people that don't know we lost our pool for about a full week right before our regional meet which forced 26 kids to have to rearrange practice and work schedules and bus up to benbrook each evening just trying to find some pool time regionals was also delayed two days because of another ice storm this is the second year in a row i've had to adjust my taper schedule because of unwanted weather but we still found success the boys and girls were both the district champions for the ninth consecutive year we were regional runners-up on the boys and girls side this is the fourth consecutive year that boys and girls were top two and for
007the seventh consecutive year we took a relay team to state which is exceedingly difficult in a sport that's dominated by club swimming where even one swimmer can kind of adjust the uh the dynamics of a relay uh we were also fortunate enough that for the third consecutive year we had a relay drop time at state and if you don't think that it's exciting and difficult to do replicating those emotions that need is really difficult as jeff's going to show so here would be our assistant principals from granbury high school and right about now they're gonna there it is yep and uh let me tell you there's never been more baseball parent action in the stands than those two right there but they kept things really exciting and diff uh different and swimming kind of works
008like a mountain when you climb that peak it's hard to really find that next peak so for these boys to go down there and do what they did at state was really something speaking about them individually i've got four of them with me today matthew walters who is a senior going to cornell next year to play baseball tyler guidry who is a junior jordan buchanan who is a junior and braxton heffernan who is a sophomore and what i love about these four boys and what i can't get over is that they embody what i've always loved about granberry they're small town ambassadors that are involved in everything uh three of the four of them will be named academic all-state in april the fourth one would be if you were a junior he's a sophomore currently
009three of the four are dual sport varsity athletes juggling a taper schedule at the varsity baseball schedule seems to get more and more difficult each year they missed a lot of practices leading up to our regional meet because they had baseball obligations so balancing those two is difficult and additionally jordan buchanan is an officer in the ghs ffa chapter and they all hold part-time jobs so these boys are really well-rounded individuals and i have to give them credit but also credit their families all four of these boys are children of gisd employees jordan buchanan's mom christy works at emma roberson as a pre-k teacher tyler guidry and braxton heffernan's dads work at the high school as assistant principals and matthew walter's dad is the choir director at ams and his uh mom is the counselor
010at stars so i couldn't be more proud of these boys we went down to state with one goal in mind to not get last and we did not get last so we'll uh we'll bring back three of these boys next year and matthew will be on to do bigger and better things at cornell uh but i'm very very excited and very proud of these four boys uh [Music] we keep seeing these guys up here over and over again they are just some fantastic students who are real proud of them and if there's any proud parents out there why don't they stand up and say hello [Music] all right now it's the time of our meeting where we have our open forums i have nine people who have signed up so i would like to give
011them three minutes a piece and the way this is going to work is each speaker will come up and introduce themselves i ask the audience to please be respectful of all people that are speaking the board will not say anything to them we are just listening at this point and we will start with the first person who is mr stephen rinke it's three minutes thank you thank you all for allowing me to speak tonight i'm here tonight to speak about the all-day pre-k for three and four-year-olds a few years ago i spoke with three or four of y'all about the impact that i have to our industry once granberry started doing full day for four-year-olds and added three-year-olds along with that the impact has made a major impact on our industry here in town uh
012many child care centers here excuse me once again i own creation of childcare and learning centers here in town it has made an impact to us many of our centers here in town we used to have two classrooms for three and fours we're struggling to have one classroom now if granberry does decide to do a full pre-k for three and fours for all that's going to be detrimental to the industry here in town for child care centers and i'm here to show my position for it if that does happen that leaves us with the infant's tods and twos i know what i've been reading the paper about it's gonna save the young family's money not having to pay for three and four-year-olds and it's gonna help them out what's going to happen to the little
013ones what is going to happen those infants and 2s in order for us to stay open we're going to have to double our rate triple our rate redo our centers to make it work i don't know the answer is that yet we've already made adjustments for what has happened with the threes and fours and we made it you know somewhat working but now going after another big part of our business it is going to be tough for us i don't see how we can stay stay open um once that happened what's going to happen to granberry who's going to watch those little children is it really doing it justice to the city of granbury open it up for all um taking away the child care centers of of granberry i don't think they can afford
014it i know we can't afford to stay open and i wish i would reconsider not open it up to all three and four-year-olds keep it the way it is and leave us with something to stay open to help the city of granbury thank you mr ranki and next we have tara lynch hello ms lynch hello my name is tara lynch i am i own and operate small steps child care here in town and i have to echo what stephen said it's it's going to be detrimental to our centers for you guys to have this three and four-year-old program it already has with just the head start edition with a three-year-old's full day um not only will the businesses some of us may have to close um the three and four-year-old market is where we we
015do make the majority of our revenue to pay our staff whereas the zero to two age groups it's not there so that does mean like he said that our infant and toddler prices are going to rise significantly doubling if not possibly tripling which will hurt these young parents that are getting free three and four-year-old child care there's also the fact that there's going to be we're going to have to pivot for those of us that do stay open and find a way to make this work which hopefully will be all of us but possibly not and then when we do pivot to be able to keep our doors open where are these kids going to go during the summer that are with you guys in in the fall in the spring there's going to be
016summer care holiday care and after school care that we may not have room for them when that time comes um so i just want to let you know that we're against that as well for the three and four-year-old full day pre-k thank you thank you miss lynch [Music] and next we have erin jones hello ms jones hi um again thanks for letting me speak and i just have to agree both with stephen and tara i have a daycare here in town circle of life we've been open for 14 years and just through the years we have to make adjustments every time we're adjusting we're barely all just coming back from the pandemic and the struggles that we had and i understand it's already on the ballot so it's kind of a mute point other than
017getting the word out to the parents of how it's really in the long term going to affect you with you guys don't have summer care you guys close randomly for days all these parents who are going to vote for it because free is very appealing because child care is very expensive they're going to vote for it because it's free and you're not looking for how it's really going to affect you in the long term because if we do pivot we can't hold our classrooms available for your summers your random days off your christmas your thanksgiving um so how are you going to accommodate those parents in that time and that's i think that's a we're strongly against it too thank you miss jones [Music] and now we have susan wood hello miss wood hello my
018name is susan wood and i'm retired but i have been a teacher a children's protective worker and a therapist i would like to publicly thank the gisd school board for introducing me to out of darkness by ashley hope perez one of the books that the committee recently voted to ban from the school library it's an amazing book it's poignant tender tragic incredibly well written yes it is a challenging and emotional book the school library journal wrote quote this book presents a range of human nature from kindness and love to acts of racial and sexual violence the work resonates with fear hope love and the importance of memory it breaks my heart to think that our high school students will not have access to it in our school library i'm told this book is considered pornographic
019the merriam-webster dictionary defines pornography as the portrayal of erotic material for the purpose of arousal this book does not meet that criteria in any way so how did the decision get made did every person on the committee read this book did they just read excerpts more importantly is there a way to appeal this decision or even a way to reach a compromise on books the committee deems too emotionally challenging for our students perhaps requiring parental consent to check them out i anticipate that when the books are presented to the public tomorrow the rape scene will probably be flagged for us to view and you'll be horrified and that's good because that means it isn't pornographic remember porn is designed to arouse it also means that you will be asked to judge a book out of
020context rather than reading the whole book you'll miss all the love and support that the characters are given by their families and other members in their community you will miss the historically accurate description of what happened in 1937 when a community with the best of intentions tried to cut corners resulting in the deadly explosion and collapse of the new london school you'll miss how people in their pain and anguish look for scapegoats upon which to express their anger targeting someone who looks or acts differently unfortunately we all know that there are still men who rape and abuse their wives and children in our community today do you think our children our students don't know this that they haven't experienced this or known someone who did out of darkness has received multiple honors and awards here
021are just a few best children's book of the year award best of the best books award choices award distinguished books award school library journal best books award yasa best fiction for young adults award america's award for children and young adult literature discovery prize michael l prince award and the thomas rivera mexican american children's book award for older readers i would ask that the board consider these factors when making their decision that there be a clear procedure to be followed that committee members and board members making these decisions be required to read these books before voting and that we look for a compromise there may be many parents in granberry who want their children to have access to challenging books who want their kids to expand their understanding beyond the confines of their current situation and
022see different viewpoints and life circumstances thank you last sentence these parents should be able to give their consent for their children to do so if we put them in a consent section thereby maintaining our students first amendment rights thank you for your time thank you wood [Music] terry call hello miss carl hello my name is terry call my son is a student at cranberry high school i will not form an opinion on a book until i've read it in its entirety i read six of the books that were under review before they were returned to their shelves well i read five of them completely one book didn't interest me so i stopped reading it about a third of the way through i am only halfway through out of darkness by ashley hope perez which gisd
023recently banned i would prefer not to give my opinion on it since i haven't completed it but since the board meeting is tonight and not next week well here i am for those of you who have not read out of darkness it is a novel i would call it a historical fiction that takes place in the 1930s in an east texas oil field town where racism is blatant it was a reality of the times out of darkness touches on some difficult topics it is extremely well written and has great character development in the first half of the book there are probably individual lines or passages that when read out of context someone might decide they aren't appropriate i can attest that each one is important to the storyline and the character development no one wants
024to think about young people being abused but reality is it happens right here in our town our students need the opportunity to read stories that show that sexual abuse is never the fault of the victim it is important to read stories of characters who are different from us to help us develop empathy and understanding i can't imagine living in a place and a time when anyone would think it is okay to have a sign in a store that says no mexicans or coloreds allowed i'll wait until i finish the book before i decide if i recommend it to my teenage son based on the first half i would recommend it to all high school students and adults i have not read we are the ants or this book is gay the other two books that
025were recently banned so i don't have an opinion on them but they are on next on my to read list i do appreciate the school district and the parents for wanting to read books that their students are reading that's being a responsible adult i hope parents are also reviewing what their children are watching on tick tock and messages they are sending out on snapchat anytime a book is removed from a school because it is deemed inappropriate i hope the district will place it on a public list thank you miss call [Music] next is megan cook [Music] hello newscook hi um the last time i was here i was also here on the topic of the books and i'm very concerned as a parent of two children in our school district that our school district would
026make the decision to ban books and no longer offer them to the kids i feel very strongly that as a parent the compromise that i would really hope our school district would proceed with is not removing them from the shelves entirely but placing them on a plate on a shelf that my child can have access if i have given them consent to have access i feel like this is fair because i am lucky that i'm privileged enough that if i really want to buy a book for my child i can buy that book but i know that not every student in our school district has that same luxury as my children do but i feel like they should have the luxury to read a book if their parent has consented for them to read that
027book and secondarily i would say that things that are emotionally evocative things that raise questions in children's minds or even in our adult minds as we are reading those books that isn't a bad thing if anything that is a great thing because that can motivate our children to action it gives them a sense of morality to identify what is right and what is wrong and those kids are so so brilliant our kids in our in this district are so smart that they're going to read those books and recognize that the rape in that book is wrong and they should not stand for it and it may inspire them to stand up for their friends that have had that experience and that book just lends power to them and so i really feel that our district
028needs to do better than than banning the books then removing them from the shelf we need to find a compromise and so that is what i'm imploring you to do and i'm hopeful that you would proceed in doing that in a consent section a parental consent section thank you ms cook [Music] and next we have nate cruzwell hello mr criswell hello madam president how are you oh well hey uh thank you all for the opportunity to talk today uh as an aside before i get started uh i do want to say i am in agreement with the early childhood learning centers that the going to all-day pre-k is probably not the best idea and i would like to applaud you all for taking the action you have taken to uh you know get some of
029the problem books out of the library so with that what i want to talk about today is safety so we know that there are three schools i forget which ones i know acton elementary and oakwood because i drive by them during the pickup and drop off times and it's a dangerous situation we've got those three schools that need a pickup and drop off loop right here recently and this is very tragic a student was struck outside of the high school and that's awful and we don't want that to happen again so my question is why are these pickup and drop-off loops not being prioritized higher why are they attached to the upcoming bond election now i would like to think that it's not to play on people's emotions as a way to sell the bond
030or market the bond out in the community but then i watched the bond video which is on gisd's website and in that i saw that in my opinion things like cte the literacy initiative free dual credit are being juxtaposed as to being part of the bond and it's causing a lot of confusion out in the community they say well how can you be against the bond we're going to do free dual credit for everybody well that's not coming out of the bond and there are some other things that i think should be highlighted as not being accounted for yet you know if y'all do move to all-day pre-k the increase in staff is going to be coming out of your m o correct you know that's not factored in yet in any of the numbers
031i've seen and then we still don't have a line item deal of hey the new high school is going to cost this much the improvements to the elementary school are going to cost this much not that i've seen anyways and if there is i hope to get that here soon and i guess what i'm saying is if we have the money to buy the 85 acres for the bond that hasn't passed yet and is being marketed in a questionable manner why do we not have the money to go ahead and make those improvements to the school safety aspect with the pickup and drop off loops i'd like to see that as something part of the summer projects i think you'll do during the summer big construction stuff like that so if there's a way to
032prioritize that it would be excellent thank you thank you [Music] is it craig mayberry hello mr mayberry hey how you all doing tonight yes my name is craig mayberry proud parent of and concerned of a former gisd graduate and at the board meeting on january 24th eight speakers got up to voice their opposition to the removal of the pornographic materials under the consideration by state of texas my question for those who said these books should not be banned and that is how did you come to the conclusion that they shouldn't be banned libraries contain books and books contain ideas ideas always have consequences and bad ideas have victims believe it or not there are some ideas that should never be made available to the people to act upon if i go into any library i
033should never expect to find a title like principles for successful and discrete meth lab management production and distribution or chop shop procurement tactics for dummies why not because those books promote ideas that hurt people they have the end goal of selfish and personal gain at the expense of freedoms and safety of others or they have subtle yet serious negative and unintended consequences that hurt people later on not only to individual but to society as well many of those speakers claim to be in the lgbtq community or at least sympathetic to it and as dr glenn vehemently stated lgbtq is not the issue explicit porn is okay so you say what's the big deal with porn you ask plenty starting off with the fact that porn is no different than drug alcohol gambling addiction it's a
034fuel that equally affects the gay or straight population it cares not what label you represent and is an equal opportunity poison reading watch in porn will in most cases forever alter the way you view your spouse your partner your friends and even total strangers the entire idea behind porn is to subconsciously objectify another person for the sole purpose of feeding one's own own selfish lustful desires at the expense of another what many don't realize that these books under review are still limited to and for the moment generally adult on adult action and as we know when the left pushes an agenda we know they never stop until there are no more avenues to exploit if the point that is under consistent consideration receives acceptance it won't stop there the next stops down the slippery slope
035are incest pedophilia bestiality and necrophilia and just like smoking porn has no benefits whatsoever for the reader viewer its sole purpose is to uncontrollably inflame the lust of the flesh for its natural and carnal desire porn has its way of burning scene and images into the retina of your mind and soul that you can never unsee those images are subconsciously brought into every person relationship thereafter gay or straight it creates an unspoken expectation of how the other party in relationships is to be treated finally i do wish to say i admire the courage of students who got up here to voice their two cents worth but with all due respect kids there's one conclusive thing it can be said about your desires to keep these books in the library and that is you have absolutely
036no clue what you're talking about in terms of the impact and consequences of reading and watching this stuff so how can this fat old fart say that very simple you have no obligations to anyone outside of yourself none of you have someone who is completely financially dependent on you you don't have a career you don't have a spouse or even a lifetime partner you don't have kids or more your suv payments and you certainly don't pay taxes to any meaningful extent translation you have not lived long enough to reap the consequences of what it is you're desiring to hold on to and anyone in this audience over knows over 40 knows exactly what i'm talking about because we have all tried it thank you thank you mr mayberry new writing did i pronounce the last
037name correctly thank you house whitey hi thank you for letting me speak today my name is lou whiting i am a junior at granberry high school and i will say i don't have much to say i won't be taking up much of your time rather i am standing up here today to serve as a reminder to granberry isd that we your students have not forgotten about the books removed from the shelves i want to stand here as a reminder that despite the recent crossless book ban and despite how much granberry isd has managed to push so much information under the rug information that impacts its students and its staff present and future that granberry students will not stand down and granberry students will not forget this we have come together in an effort to protect
038the diversity and the unity of our school libraries and you cannot and will not stop us from doing just that we are here and we will protect our books just as our books have protected us thank you miss whiting [Music] and that concludes our open forum and public comments [Music] just a quick reminder as we had so many people that mentioned it tonight we will have a town hall on the bond tomorrow night at 6 pm and i know several of you brought up questions as it relates to the items discussed in the in the bond in the long range planning committee and we'd be happy to to engage in dialogue tomorrow night at 6 and that'll be live streamed in case you can't make that meeting and there i think we have a total
039of three okay we're going to go on to uh discussion action first consider consent agenda items are there any items that a board member would like to pull out and discuss i'd like to make note that under the budget amendments antonia segura has donated two thousand dollars toward the pilot preparation program so that students who might not otherwise be able to afford it will be able to uh get their flying time and move on to get their pilot's license so we certainly appreciate all that these community members do for our students and if you know this individual please make sure you express your thanks for that thank you dr harrington is there anything else that anyone would like to pull out to discuss [Music] okay do i have a motion on the consent agenda item
040madam president i'll make the motion that we pass the consent agenda items as presented thank you mr jackson can i make a comment about one thing on there of course okay before we vote i just wanted to talk about the mou that we're talking about doing with tarleton i looked it into the u.s prep renewer educator preparation and that's not on the consent that's afterwards right right okay okay never mind scratch that all right so we go back to coming up so we have a motion do i hear a second thank you dr mcdonald so we have a motion by mr jackson second by dr mcdonald all those in favor raise your hand any opposed it is unanimous all right now moving on to consider approval of hvac units purchased for ghs ams gms aes
041mr whitefield thank you madam president board in front of you you do have the csp for the hvac units that was let was sent out to 120 vendors three of those did respond it's a recommendation of the administration for the board to accept the texas air systems which is the lowest bid of all three of them and the bit did come in at 200 and 200 thousand 338 dollars higher than we have for extra funds however this morning mr brown told me that she may be able to find some of those extra funds to fund the rest of that and that would complete all four schools so it is recommend recommendation of administration to approve this csp are there any questions or comments on that madam president i move that we recommend that we accept
042that approval of the hvac units to be purchased for ghs ams gms and aes under csp 202. thank you dr harrington do i have a second i'll second thank you mr moore all those in favor raise your hand any opposed it is unanimous moving on to consider approval of bi-annual contract with templeton demographics dr glenn thank you madam president you have before you tonight the the contract uh for templeton demographics for the 22-23 school year as you know templeton demographics is not just the demographer we use here in granberry isd but they're widely respected across the state regardless of the the outcome of the the bond election in may uh we're going to need to uh do a demographic study uh look at the zoning for our elementary schools our junior high and and also
043kind of get an idea of where where the population trends are going as many of you know because we've shown the slide over and over and over again back in august i believe there were 20 actively building subdivisions in our community and about 14 future subdivisions we know that that number has grown and continues to grow and so it would be my recommendation that that we move forward with templeton demographics for the 20 to 23 school year and then beyond that we may be able to to let it go for a couple of years and watch those trends play out but i think we're going to need their services moving into the summer of 22. are there any comments questions do i have a motion madam president i believe that we need to extend the
044biannual contract with templeton demographics and continue on all right so we have a motion by dr mcdonald seconded by ms gore all those in favor raise your hand any opposed that is unanimous moving on now too consider mou to partner with tarleton on texas covid acceleration learning support t-class program thank you madam president i'm very excited to bring this uh t-class program to you uh we will see funding on this and we've already received funding for this year next year and the 23-24 season up to 20 candidates can participate in this program each year and they will receive 20 000 dollars for tuition fees and living expenses the mentors are selected by granberry isd and will be paid up to five thousand dollars each year uh the difference between this program and uh the student
045teaching program is that uh this is for a full year and that uh and not a semester and that there will be a lot more evaluations feedback video taping and a lot more people involved so i include a lot of things in your packet but there's any questions just to comment uh thank you for being proactive when i read about the position our cohorts across the state find themselves where houston has had between 200 and 300 vacancies all year i think this is an excellent proactive move and thank you for moving forward i like the idea of being able to offer that to our teachers i've you know as a teacher myself i went through student teaching and i understand how valuable that can be for student teachers i have a couple concerns with the
046u.s prep and what role they're going to play with the student teachers in tarleton state i know as a district we don't have any say over who they use but i do have some concerns raised with the u.s prep and some of the things that i've found that is in their program i'm not sure if it's part of the program that tarleton will be using but it it does contain some issues that you know i addressed during my campaign so if those are going to be in the program i wouldn't be able in good faith to be able to vote for this i would second what courtney said i'm i'm in agreement with courtney as well yeah and i'll ask stacey brown do you have a second to come up to the podium uh she
047could probably address the question better i'm sorry what did i say oh okay from what i understand from what i understand the us prep is kind of mediator between tarleton and ourselves and so charlton and us so we're going to kind of build the program ourselves uh there's numerous meetings planned in the future to work all these details out but uh that's that's kind of from my understanding they're kind of the mediator and just kind of guiding us through this station you just want to touch briefly on the role of u.s prep basically it's just like mr jones said us prep provides kind of a framework that a district will use to build their program along with tarleton along with a variety of other people so it's not just u.s prep that's involved that is
048one of one of the agencies that that is involved does that help at all yeah and if you if you want to you you can feel free to address the concerns and we can let you know if we've we've heard of anything specific as it relates specifically as it relates to crt okay they have material online i like i said i don't know if it's part of the program that tarleton will be using but that material is available it is part of the some of the programs that they do implement and i wouldn't like if they're going to be putting educator through that program here in texas and then we're incentivizing that through our district i wouldn't be able to support that as much as i would to support student teachers um i don't want
049to incentivize bringing that into our schools either if that makes sense sure so i think for for clarification the the curriculum piece uh for the student teachers is taught through tarleton yeah that's really independent of grammar there are requirements that u.s prep does require out of tarleton to through these esser funds um so it does have some requirements that are specific um you know as far as um which specific requirements um i don't know if it's a possibility that we can have the discussion as to the specific requirements under u.s prep i think from a from a local isd standpoint what i can tell you is the legislature has been clear on see a critical race theory not being taught in texas public schools and so we're we're going to honor that as far as
050higher ed i'll be honest with you i'm not i'm not as familiar with uh what their requirements are as it relates to critical race theory and state funding sure and we've been using tarleton in the past too for heavy recruiting and bringing great teachers to our district absolutely absolutely we use tarleton quite a bit i've got a question around i mean it seems to me we're buying this big machine and then we're going to read the owner's manual after we bought it i mean if if we are going to approve this tonight and provide you the framework to build this program of tarleton assuming we get past any curriculum issues that that might come through the program my questions were more centered around how we can identify mentors within gisd what are your criteria going
051to be who are these teachers going to be that are going to be mentoring these young people out of tarleton so i would tell you and and mr jones can speak to this as well but they have a very specific program that they're planning to lay out here are the requirements for a mentor of this teacher and as well as specific and i don't know if there's an application process but it would involve a specific requirements for the mentor teachers um some sort of application a committee-based uh decision um and and so it would be more than just okay you're gonna go with so and so you're going to go with so and so it'll be definitely attaching a variety of funds to it is going to make it a more stringent process a more
052i don't want to say specific process but the outlining the specific criteria for this is what a mentor teacher will be this is how you get to be a mentor teacher as well as this is how we assign you to a specific person so i know that that they've been working on outlining the program how they would qualify what are the indicators specifically for you know what makes a great mentor and and how do we how do we decide which mentor goes with which teacher and vice versa so the process currently for for student teachers is to be i guess it's mainly the campus principles i would assume at least from what little i know through my wife i mean it's it's they go to the more experienced teachers and say hey would you be
053willing to mentor a student teacher from tarleton this semester i mean is that sure this is a little bit more uh a little bit more a little deeper i guess you could say from a student teacher perspective our principals are fantastic at saying okay this particular student teacher is looking for a bilingual second grade teacher okay so i've got two of those over at bronner uh maybe we could do you know part time at bronner and then we could go down to kinder so they they really kind of work the situation with student teachers but that's a much shorter time frame and the specifics surrounding the internship are more stringent as well as the the process that granberry isd will be using specifically to assign the mentors with the teacher for the year there will
054be more time involved that's why they're talking about paying these mentors five thousand dollars because it's a lot more intense than our current student teaching mentor yeah i i and i couldn't agree more with dr harrington's point we all know we have a teacher shortage in this country and it's hitting harder and harder closer to texas in our own isd and i i'm intrigued by this program but but i'm i've kind of got some questions open in my mind and and you know are we dipping or toeing the water here with two or three of these positions or are we talking up to 15 i can't remember what 20 was in here up to 20. so we currently have 19 in the district that started um before this specific process was awarded and so uh
055we were in the process of application etc and so again clarifying and putting the specific procedures in place for look how is this different from from i don't say plain old student teaching but internship versus versus student teaching it is different it is longer it's more intensive there are classroom requirements tarleton has set requirements um we will set specific requirements as to you know what's expected form from the interns from the teachers and then from the from the campuses as well at this point we don't really have anything to look at in terms of beyond this mou we've looked at we don't have anything internally we've worked up no no criteria or i mean i think you guys are going to a meeting on thursday so i've got one tomorrow okay so it's going to
056be a lot of planning they found in the past that a lot of these graduates are just getting their degree and then using the alternative certification so they can get paid at the same time and so they're trying to because it's so important they get that preparation yeah and again tarleton approached granberry isd as well as a number of other districts about this program because again it is this is federal funding and for those in the audience they're kind of wondering what we're talking about we're talking about esser funding and so as we look at the federal money that we're able to apply for this is an opportunity it's an opportunity to to further our partnership with tarleton state university it's an opportunity to to help out student teachers who have been working for us
057for the course of the year and so i think there's a lot of good that comes with it if we decline it i mean it's just like any other federal grant that money will will be pushed off somewhere else but we have a a good partner a good educational partner that has asked us to to enroll in this program to help their student teachers some of whom might become granberry isd teachers and so as we as we look at the dynamics of it and tarleton's willingness to work through the process with us uh we see that that it really has the opportunity to be a win-win do you know of any of the other uh or isds that are considering doing this with tarleton do you know do you know i do not know i
058know tarleton is with the texas a m system and they have multiple texas isds but i don't know specific west is there a deadline on when the mou needs to be approved i mean would tarleton want to come to the april meeting and provide more information um [Music] yes i mean we were supposed to approve this last month i mean i say there's not a deadline but they wanted us to to have that that meeting they they want us to approve it because they can get their teachers they can get their student teachers paid quicker correct okay so that that's where the deadline resides yeah is there any harm in pushing it back i mean would these teachers still be able if it were to be approved making it back one more month would that
059be something that is doable so we can get some more information i i would think so yes i would even be willing to sit through a special call meeting to hear a presentation about it so that we are when we vote we will be informed maybe we can bring charleston over and they could speak to their their uh end of it too yeah if it's the board's uh desire to table this issue we'll reach out to dr sloan and tell them that uh that we've requested a more formal presentation about outcomes and about the u.s prep sure okay so do i have a motion to table this i'll make a motion to table you don't have to do that okay we're just gonna go okay we're just not taking action on that one thank everyone
060for their due diligence in that particular item and we will now move on to our reports dr glenn thank you madam president hope everybody had a great spring break i do want to start by giving a special shout out to our campus principals not only did the the common assessment scoring uh come back uh very positive for the district knowing that we're on the right track knowing that we're addressing some of the coveted slide issues that we've seen we also know that uh we are six weeks away from uh star testing and just i cannot thank our leadership our campus leadership enough for the job that they are doing so god bless you for what you do we know you work hard each and every day and be sure and pass our gratitude along to
061your teachers i also want to congratulate and i'm sure we'll see him at a for a future meeting but five-time national champion marine corps jrotc program led by colonel casey and first sergeant rositas they continue to bring award after award and championship after championship back to our district and they truly have become one of our flagship programs here in the isd then finally i would like to give a special shout out to a jimmy dawson while most of us were enjoying our spring break he continued to to stay up here at the office he scheduled tours for some campus administrators to get the opportunity to go look at construction around the metroplex and and while we were off the clock he was on the clock so we appreciate the job that he has done and
062then just two more quick reminders for everybody be checking out the district website we do have three town halls upcoming related to the bond and then we have one special town hall related to parents who have kids enrolled in the high school that are trying to to navigate the uh the process of preparing children for life after high school and we're going to try and provide three or four unique perspectives from parents specifically dads who have who have navigated their own children through this process but it's open to moms and dads we think it'll be beneficial and all of that information is on the district website as well as the breakfast with the board at ams so we'll be there with miss pennington um on wednesday morning and i believe that is 7 45 and
063so we're looking forward to that as well madam president that's all i have this evening hey thank you dr glenn okay and it why don't you go and give us the financial statements and then go right into the cash flow thank you madam president board in front of you you have the financial statements for the period ending february 28 2022 it reflects that the revenue collected to date equals 80.23 percent of the budgeted amount compared to 86.44 in and then 91.63 in 1920. um notable on that is going to be the property taxes um they are just shy of what they were in previous years however i did a analysis set this afternoon and um those funds have come in in this month already so it'll it'll make itself up next month and under expenditures
064today the expenses represent 46.93 of the budget compared to 47.22 and 2020 2021 and 46.86 percent in 1920. some notable things on those i will be uh under our function 33 for health services we added a district roaming nurse and then transportation we have increased costs that have to do with uh fuel right now so that's just the way it's going to be it looks like and then i'll remind you that under 51 are the portables and the oakwood property cleanup that we did at that point um moving on to the investment report i just want to point out to you that i left that note on there about our long-term investments short-term investments are up in our interest rates however long-term investments take a hit when we do that but we have started the
065process to liquidate those long-term investments and as they mature we are cashing those in so um your investment report looks about like it's looked every month we actually made money in february but it's still we're still below on our budget right now but hopefully when we get them all moved into uh yeah more liquid investments we'll make more that's your investment report thank you emmett all right at this time we consider the action on items we discussed in closed session uh first the staff recommendations do we have a motion well do you have anything to say first dr glenn now uh once again just want to thank wes jones and the hr department i know they work hard especially this time of year get teacher contracts ready and then also thank our administrative team once
066again uh for providing those in a timely manner getting the evaluations done in a timely manner and at this time it is it's our pleasure to recommend the uh the staff contracts as presented as well as the the new hires very good do we have a motion do you do those together we can do them separately today right then i madame president i moved that we approve the staff recommendations as presented and do i have a second i will second okay we had a motion by mr moore we have a second by ms graf all those in favor raise your hand any opposed that's unanimous and now do we have a motion for the term contracts [Music] madam president i make a motion that we accept the term contracts as presented thank you ms gore
067and i'll second thank you miss thank you dr mcdonald all those in favor raise your hand any opposed that passed unanimously thank you very much and at that we are adjourned at 7 03 p.m all right thank you