001Dear heavenly father, we come to you tonight just to give thanks. Lord, we thank you for this time to come together. We thank you for our kids, this district, our staff. Lord, I thank you for all my colleagues up here that I'm able to serve with, dear Lord. Tonight, Lord, we ask you to lift up Miss Thor and Miss French with the loss of their loved one. Dear Lord, um heal them. Place your hand on them as only you can, dear Lord. We ask you to be with us. Guide us this meeting. Uh let it be your will. Uh forgive us for everything that we've done. Ask all these things in your name. Amen. >> Amen. >> Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it
002stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge algiance to thee Texas one state under God one and indivisible sign for sir. >> Okay. I'd like to welcome everyone here tonight. Everybody watching at home. Thank y'all for being with us tonight. I will now move us to three education spotlight. I think we have the middle school. >> We do. Miss Powers. Okay. And I would like to start by inviting up the volleyball players and coaches. >> The whole room. >> Okay. taking a picture. >> Okay. So, uh just to begin, uh we want to brag a little bit on these girls. Um they've had an awesome season and they're going to tell you a little bit about that, but uh they've put in lots of hard
003work, uh lots of dedication, lots of long hours. Um we've we've got to see them win. Um we've we've also had a few hard losses, but we learned a lot during those times. Um and they just want to tell you a little bit about kind of what they've learned through volleyball, maybe a little bit about some of their positions, some about teamwork. And so, uh I'm going to let them talk just a little bit. Who wants to go first? >> You type it out on the script. Maybe >> one go ahead. >> I'll go. >> Okay. Go for it. Uh, we had a really good season this year. Um, >> yeah, >> I liked how everybody came together as a team. We hope to do the same next year. We're better. >> We had a
004good season this year from early morning practices to athletics time. We learned a lot and hope to do even better next year. Kristen here. >> Kristen, you want I think you have some prayer. >> I do. Um I'm an outside hitter for the middle school team and I come from Lufkin and I've only played here for one year and this was the best season ever. I love my team. The coaches has taught me confidence, you know, how to stay tough and work through hard times. And I just had a great season and I love Huntington so much. >> Are you ready? >> Okay. Who else? >> No, >> Hi everyone. This volleyball season at Huntington has been amazing. We first started, we were learning to work together. By the end, we were moving as one
005team. Our serves got stronger, our passes got smoother, and our confidence grew every single game. What really made this season special was the friendships we built. We laughed so much, supported each other, and turned challenges into chances to grow. I'm so proud of how far we've come and how much we've improved. No, I know. >> Um, I think we had a pretty good season this year and um I missed it already and I just like how we all worked together and we came closer throughout the year and and I'm ready for next year. Molly Molly would like to go. >> Okay. Um, we had a very good season this year. We beat Dwolf, which is very good. >> And at, um, we learned to have lots of confidence when things got tough and to work
006together as a team. >> I will say overall, >> oh, it's Ty's turn, man. turn. >> Um, okay. >> We had a really good season. >> Um, we had wins and losses >> and we grew. Yep. >> Just um, all the teams did grow throughout the season. Um, eighth grade A team. Actually, we came in second place to Central Heights, which we pushed to three sets every Well, after we beat them here, we uh played them there, pushed them with three sets, and then pushed them with three sets again in the district tournament. So, we made them work for it. Um, which is always nice because I had never beat Central Heights until this year. >> And so, that was quite fun for me. >> We beat them home. >> Yeah. >> Oh, we did,
007didn't we? Call it. Um and then a seventh grade came in third place overall. Um but seeing the it's funny watching a seventh grader come in in the beginning and you can just see the fear on their face and then after the first few games it turns into smiles and fun and figuring out oh I can do this. So that's always fun to watch. And then just like Molly said and some of the other ones too, just watching the eighth grade grow as a group um because you know you had Emmy coming in from Luck and um and she just added to what we already had which was amazing. So um I was really proud of all of them. B teams rocked it. I think looking at them from where they started to where they
008finished was a good stride as well. So lots of possibilities. >> Good job girls. Yeah. Have fun. Thank you, Miss Powers. That was great to hear from all the kids and hopefully we got some great photos there too. Proud of their group. >> And then there was two. >> I will now move us down to consent agenda. Mr. President, any budget amendments or anything discussed? Okay. Any further discussion? I'll entertain a motion for consent agenda. >> Motion to approve consent agenda as presented. >> I have a motion. Second. >> Have a second. Mr. Renberg. All in favor? Motion carry. Move to five action discussion item a consideration action if any upon the 2024 2025 HISD financial audit. >> Good evening. Glad to be with you again this year. Um I mainly want to focus on
009just sort of some of the changes with the formats. And to begin with, I want to talk about currently we're in a status with federal and state guidelines are somewhat held up right now. So you'll see as far as your single audit goes, the guidance has not been issued related to how we can finalize some of those procedures. So we're issuing a draft of that. We don't feel there'll be any significant changes, but we can't finalize it until they do finalize the guidance, and that's delayed now with the federal shutdown and those type things. So, you'll see that one again later, but it shouldn't change anything related to what we're doing. Uh, there's also been some changes with us. We have we've merged into Carl Rig Ingram. So, you'll see actually Roy's no more. We're
010now golden blue instead of green. Uh, so some changes there. And there are some changes sort of with how some things are formatted. And so I want to start out with that talking about the binder you have that's that's titled required communications. This is a uh sort of a new format that Carl Rigger uses. I think it's good. It's fairly much the same information I've gone over with you in the past in our letters of communication with you, but this is more in a formal documentation to you. So you'll have this to look at over time. And if as you've glanced through this, I want to point out on page three, we've talked about in the past sort of standard required communications. And this outlines these and sort of bullet points. And there were no
011problems this year. Nothing unusual. Everything went well with the audit as it has in the past. On page four, you'll notice that there is a new standard this year, uh, governmental accounting standards number 101 related to acred compensated absences. And that relates to not local days, but the state days that are due to employees of the district that you have a liability for at the end of the year. So that is now recorded on the governmentwide, but not at the fund level. So it doesn't really change your day-to-day operations much like the pension and those type things. It's just acknowledging what that liability is based on the tenure of your teachers and those type things. And so that was a change required by governmental standards. And so that came into effect and it did as
012a result result in a change in your beginning of the year equity of a decline of 486,000 and that was the prior year's liability which changes a little bit during the year and I'll talk about that when we get to the financials. But again it doesn't change anything with your budgeting. It doesn't cost you anything. That's the liability. If you had to settle those teacher state days at the end of every year, that's what the cost would be to settle that liability. And that's a new requirement. Again, it really transfers with the teachers, so it's not really part of the district's liability. I personally think it's an interesting number to look at, but to me, it's not a real liability because you'll never pay it because it is transferable. But the state wants to record
013it when they look overall at that snapshot and those governmentwide statements of everyone. So just want to explain that it's a new change and and so that's a little different. If you look at page eight, there's a listing of five or six pages of the most sensitive estimates, policies, and judgments that are in the financials. There's not really anything new here. These just outline that you are very conservative with how you approach them. you haven't changed any of your measurements of these liabilities, all of those type things. On pageuh 13, you have the adjustments, and we've given these to you in the past attached to our letter. Uh this is for you to study, and and your your adjustments this year were all fairly routine, sort of cut off issues, end of the year. Nothing
014particularly unusual with them. So So Matt did a good job. On page 17, you have our representation letter. And I don't know that y'all have seen this in the past, but this is the letter that management signs for us basically indicating that they've made everything available to us. They have given us all the documentation, answered our questions, you know, all those type things. And nothing's really different from what they've seen there in the past with that. And then uh if you look at page 24 and 25, this is a new sort of approach to things that I think is is very good and we've shared this with management. In the past when we've had issues that were significant, we had a reportable item that we came and brought to you in a management letter. But
015with CRI, they focus on a continual improvement process. So, you'll notice on page 25 that what they have is is four levels of deficiencies. And you'll see at the top of the page that there's what's a material weakness. And that would be something where we would have to report automatically and potentially limit our opinion based on that issue. And y'all have no material weaknesses. Y'all never had material weaknesses. So then there's significant deficiencies which again would require reporting in the report because they could impact something significantly and y'all had those once in a great while not in many many years and and those things do pop up with some odd things from time to time. Then there's control deficiencies which are more or less opportunities to improve controls. And then improvement points is a level
016where there's something that we noticed. It was considered minor, but we discussed it with management. And we've made these comments with management in the past, but now we're going to communicate these items to y'all also in writing every year. So, and these are opportunities to improve your systems and controls. And there were four items that are listed there, all of which are just improvement points. and we've discussed them with with the superintendent and Matt and and we've discussed how to fix these things going forward. None of which have any significant impact on you, but they're just little minor corrective actions to improve your controls or your systems. So, I'm not going to go into those, but I do think it's a good process to disclose these to you. And it's something we haven't done in
017the past. We've we've had these comments and conversations, but they were not considered significant enough to report to the board, but now we're going to report pretty much everything directly to the board. So, I just want to explain that these required communications. And again, everything went well. Yes. Um just in layman's terms, is there anything that the audience that's listening is there anything that in layman's terms that they need to know that uh that might they might come to us for clarification or uh any I know they don't understand everything that that we are getting right now and and can see but just >> being transparent if is there anything that they need to know? Now, basically, you have nothing that's a significant issue in any respect. You have a few items. You need to
018change some procedures and processes a little bit to improve either the functionality of those processes or some of the possible control issues related to it. None of which should have affected your financials. So, again, very healthy, clean financial report. And when we get into the audit be my next step, that's the first thing I'm going to say. Y'all, y'all are in good shape. thumbs up, you know, keep doing what you're doing. Okay, but uh no, no concerns noted there. >> Okay, >> so next let's get into the uh the annual financial report one and in the past this has been combined with the compliance audit, but they're separated as I said again because we're going to have to file them separate this year due to some problems on the federal side. And that's true for
019everyone apparently. So you look at page three, you have our opinion. And as we have uh as long as I've been working on the law school, we're giving you an unmodified opinion. No material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies there. And this covers your governmental activities and that's combining everything together. your major funds, which is general fund, debt service fund, and then the aggregated fund information. So, so again, this is a thumbs up. Y'all doing a good job. You're in good shape. When you look over at page 10 and 11, your governmentwide statements this year, overall, your assets and deferred outflows dropped about $1.2 million from the year before. And what happened there was you saw a decrease of about $400,000 in your cash and that was fairly well planned and in your budgeting and then your
020due from other governments declined. The two issues there were your COVID grants ended and so you you had some final expenditures of those funds. You didn't have some of the receipts for those funds. So that that lowered your cash levels really to sort of what you'd call a precoid level there. So you're about where you should normally be. Your capital assets decreased about $350,000, but this was after 1.8 million in depreciation. So you really increased them by almost 1.5 million in in expenditures during the year. So again, you're continuing to invest well in there. Your liabilities increased 1.3 million. And there were really two significant components to this. One is that acred compensated absences which was 492,000 that was not on the books at all the prior year. So that's an increase in those liabilities.
021And again, it's not at your fund level for a budgeted item. It's really just at this governmentwide level. And then you had the uh $700,000 tax note that was issued during the year. And you take that out, you actually decreased overall your your long-term debt by $200,000. So you saw really a decline of 900,000 in the borrowing of the 700 and then you had an increase of about a million dollars in the the uh postretirement benefits which again that's postretirey health care and health care cost measurable as of 24 because there's always a delay in this increased pretty significantly. So overall your net position declined about 450,000. it would have actually increased by 37,000 before that prior period adjustment. So, so you're really sort of in a flat year overall, which isn't bad given you're
022coming off all the COVID expenditures and all those things with that grant. So, you're sort of returning to what I'd call sort of a stable basis financially. During the year, your revenues totaled across all funding sources, 22.9 million, and your expenditures were about 22.9 million. Both of these were down about $1.5 million from the year before, mainly due to those COVID funds no longer being part of that. So, oh, as I said earlier, y'all are in very healthy financial shape. you've got good capital asset strength and and all ability there. So now to get to page 12 and and 14, these are the financials that y'all look at on a daily basis or monthly basis. The general fund continues to be very healthy. Your cash balance is about $7.5 million in the general fund, which
023is approximately very close to what your fund balance is. That means you've got good liquidity and those assets are available. When you look over at page 14, you'll see for the general fund, you did have a decrease in that fund balance during the year of $786,000. And so it's important that you look over at page 39 to see what happened there. And what occurred was legislative year there's there's usually a an adjustment with some revenue numbers. And so you'll see your revenues were 837,000 on page 39 below what you had anticipated in the budget. And mainly that were was factors related to property taxes as well as state foundation revenue. But then you you compensated for that by underexpending almost 1.25 million of your expenditures. And so you'll see there it was sort of across
024all areas. And so that resulted in you were over a million dollars better than you had anticipated with your budget. Y'all had come up with your final budget anticipating almost a $2 million loss. you only had a $786,000 loss. So again, you did a good job managing things given some of the volatility with the revenue side and you manage things well on the expense side. So one area I do want to point out to you also is page 53 and this is your child nutrition fund. And like uh like everyone, child nutrition is becoming a a difficult area to uh to manage, particularly with the cost of food rising. And so y'all had anticipated having about a $75,000 decrease in your fund balance in that fund. You actually ended up about 80,000. And so, you
025know, that's sustainable for several years, but long-term you could end up in a situation where the general fund has to fund child nutrition, and that's that's strictly due to rising food costs. Food costs were up significantly last year. I know y'all look at ways to manage that as best you can, but that if if you reach a point where you have to fund it out of with a transfer from the general fund, you're literally taking money out of the classroom to fund that program. And that's fine to do. It's allowable, but hopefully things can swing back and you can become in a better situation. you've got several years to to potentially look at that given your fund balance strength, but that's somewhat of a concern as you go forward to look at those type things.
026So, any questions on those items? The last item I want to hit upon is the one that's the draft and that's the signal audit report. We did look at your uh child nutrition program this year and as I said we have uh we're giving you a clean unmodified opinion. Everything looks well with that program. We're just simply held up waiting on the finalized federal guidelines. They've been in draft since July and I don't know when they're going to be finalized and released but probably sometime after the first of the year. Any questions? Anything? uh Caroline that you want to add covers a lot of information, >> right? And and and I'm new to this clearly um and I ask um Matt frequently, but I do think that we're dealing with um a bit of loss
027of revenue um and doing the best we can. So, um I know that there were lots of projects and purchases that were um already planned and then there were some things that were not planned that we had to fix and um put money into um facilities. But any other questions from the board? >> That does a fabulous job thanking us. >> As I said earlier, keep doing what y'all are doing. Y'all are in good sound, healthy financial shape and we'll keep moving forward together. And if y'all have questions as y'all look at numbers, give me a call anytime. We're here to help you. >> Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> I do want to introduce Rebecca. I apologize. I was about to get in trouble. Rebecca's one of y'all's alumni and she
028did the the heavy lifting on this. I'm just here to talk a little bit. So, but uh we appreciate y'all. We're always here to help y'all. Anything we can do, let us know. >> Thank you. approve the financial audit. All right, I entertain a motion for any further discussion on the financial ait. Make a motion to approve the financial audit that was presented. >> I have a motion, a second by state. All in favor? >> Motion carries. Now moves to be consideration action on resolution for public information act. >> Okay, I can share this with real quickly. Um, you all really don't have a copy. I just wanted to explain it real quickly. Um basically what this is is this is a resolution where we are design we choose want to designate 10 days out
029of um our calendar so that um they can be considered non-b businessiness days. Um it was it really came to um surprise me about how many u public information requests we get um on a weekly if not daily basis um that uh really Mr. Clifton turns around quite quickly. However, there are times that we get these requests on the Friday before um holiday break, which has happened as well. So, these um uh we're designating 10 days December 26, I'm sorry, November 26, December 29th, 30, 31, February, March, April. Um those 10 days would be considered non-B business days, which would allow us time to fulfill the request and not be out of timeline. That's the sole purpose of this. What we plan on doing from this point forward is when we adopt a calendar, we
030will always adopt this resolution. It just protects us um so that we are always in compliance. So I just need a motion um to accept this resolution of um regarding non- business days for purposes of the public information act. >> Okay. >> I will entertain a motion. >> Make a motion to uh adopt the resolution for public information act as presented. Have a motion. Second. I have a second by Mr. Robertson. All in favor? Motion carries. Now moves to seek consideration action if any upon the 2025 2026 district improvement plan. >> And to be honest with you, um you all have a copy in front of you. You have already there are six main goals. You have already approved those as a board. So, um, looking at page four, um, this kind of the start,
031the the number one goal that takes quite a few pages is basically that Huntington ISD will provide a high quality curriculum, instruction, and assessments to promote student learning, and post-secary readiness. So, that's our main goal. You've already approved those. What we're doing tonight is um approving the performance objectives. So, on page four, you can see uh the perform we had Mr. Bell put this up just in case. So anyone that might want to see the performance objective um basically students who participate in the accountability system will increase their performance level by 5% across all grade levels, subject areas, performance levels and subgroups. So that is our first performance objective. You can kind of see that strategies are just the means to achieve. You're not approving strategies because they change. we add to we adapt amend
032all of the things we've listed strategies of things we're doing example in the instructional side adopting lube bond it providing training all of those things so um to be honest with you uh pages four strategy one two on page four page five and page six are all strategies to achieve that performance objective if you get to page um seven you've got the second performance objective we are by law house bill three, we have to identify early for early childhood. This is literacy. We've given um some numbers that we hope to achieve for meetats and masters in grade three. It's just one of those laws. Guess what? The strategies are the same. I copied the same strategies. So, all of those strategies underneath objective two um are the same. Flip through till you get to page
033nine. We have by House Bill 3 a requirement to have a math goal. This is an additional um goal or for grade three. It's just uh we again hope to increase every grade level, but this is one that we have to document. Um and we started with the scores that we currently have and for meets and masters. Um and guess what? It's instruction. All the strategies are the same. So we're addressing So you'll see a repetition between these first three objectives. If you flip to page um 12, you're going to see a performance objective regarding CCMR basically addressing college career military readiness. So that's what you're approving. All the strategies underneath or the plethora of things that we do to try to get our students to achieve those targets, the CCMR targets, college, career, military
034readiness, and you um can read those um at your leisure. Um so then we're going to get to page 14. That's the second goal that you've already um uh approved and it's all about research and professional development that we offer our staff. Our performance objective one is basically that they will set uh coaching and professional uh or goals I'm sorry and we will support them by coaching and providing professional de development. The rest of page 14 all of page 15 and 16 are all of the different the um opportunities that we offer. We also are in on page 17 in the process of a performance objective identifying a teacher incentive aotment program to be approved for hopefully approved for by TEA in April of 2026. So we're working diligently on that. You can see the
035strategies on page 18 next performance objective. We talked about making sure that our employees are all competitively compensated. Um and there's some strategies there. We obviously we want to re recruit and retain our staff. Um goal three is next on page 19 and that deals with financial resources. So basically um Matt does a great job and we have an A in our first reading but ensuring that we follow all of the financial components for the first rating and you can see the strategies on the rest of page 19 that addresses um our financial practices and again we may be adding to those as we go. You're not approving strategies but that's how we achieve the performance objective. On page 21, uh we're talking about uh cleanliness, safety, and uh strategic facility plan for growth. So,
036we are beginning a task. I'm sorry, we're beginning a um facility committee. That's the performance objective. We actually meet tomorrow for that to develop a strategic plan for our facilities. That's on page 21. Flip to page 22. Performance objective two. We're talking about how we're going to achieve the highest degree of safety, security, and cleanliness. And all of those strategies relate to our police department, our security um and custodian and keeping things clean. So, um there those are um options or things that we're going to do to meet the goal. On page 24, you have goal five. This is all about communication um and participation by our parent community um our general Huntington community. Um the first one is basically that our parents will receive weekly communication whether it be from teachers, the campus or
037district administration that they will know about uh curriculum expectations, campus activities, behavioral expectations and more. So those um are all the strategies there on that page on how we're going to communicate. The next performance objective on 25 is all about how they can be involved. There multiple opportunities listed there for community members, parents to be involved in our schools. We encourage that. Um, on page 26, u I lump together all of the ways and uh uh populations that are marginal or at risk and how we want to ensure that we communicate with those um as required by law, but also to support their children that are in any of these um homeless, foster, uh dropout, migrant, all the different populations. On page 27, I uh we we have a connection with our McMillan public library
038and we wanted to ensure that we had a goal um or sorry a performance objective aligning with that that we provide support in our with our community through a public library that we are collaborating with. And the last goal is basically about our police department safety drills to improve practices and facilities. And all of these performance objectives are things that we do to keep for safety purposes. You can see um performance objective one on 28 deals with safety drills, fire, intruder evacuation multiple times a year. Performance objective two on page 29 talks about the district vulnerability assessment um and meeting Texas state safety standards. That's on page 29. On page 30, we talk about um officers who maintain their T-ole requirements. Those are state requirements. Um and on page 31, guardian team. And that we
039um implement a guardian team in the different trainings that we do. So um oh, and I apologize on the very back page um we then talk about some internet safety. So not just physical safety, but the internet safety um cyber security, different things like that. So, what I'm asking for is again, you've already approved the six goals. So, now you're approving the district performance objectives. Understand that these are strategies that um we implement, but there's lots more and they uh probably will be added throughout as we do that. So, I'm asking for um the approval of the district improvement plan uh performance objectives and then next month you'll see our campuses relate uh to these as well. Any questions about shared? >> Okay. I will now entertain a motion. >> I make a motion that
040we approve the district improvement plan and along with the strategies presented to us tonight. >> Okay. I have a motion. I have a second by Mr. S. All in favor? Motion carried. I'll now move to the consideration action if any upon the donations to the integral basketball tournament. Thus far we have um we've adopt or approved the others but right now we have $500 from Boots Hardware. Okay. >> Any further discussion on the donations and a motion? I >> make a motion to accept donations presented uh for the Integra basketball tournament. >> Have a motion. Second by Mr. Robertson. All in favor? Motion carried. I'll move to E discussion only. Thank infinite school district investment policy. >> All right. I provided each of you a copy there um as well as as in board book.
041Um our local policy CDA um is our district's guiding uh document for um any of our investments. Uh we have three primary investments. Uh we have a U bank money market account which is um essentially a sweep account that makes it um that makes it available um from liquidity to come in and out. Um they match um our um interest rate that we get with our pools. Um so they work well with us. Um the next two are standard investment pools. It's text pool um and Lonear. The thing to note about that um is each of those investments um and and in any capital accounts that we have um those are um offset by securities um at 110% um of the par value or the dollar value. Uh and really what that uh puts us
042in is a position where we're not at a risk of loss um for that money. Um so any investment that we have is really secure. um you know there's always some risk of loss um in any types of investments. Um I will say this as far as investments go um it has it's been really good to us the last few years we have seen a declining um in those interest rates a little bit. We're currently around 4%. Um which is still uh producing some good returns. Uh but if if I had to if I had to guess, we're going to see those continue to to to move uh a little closer to zero than they have been. Um I I couldn't tell you what those look like uh because our pools really are going to
043follow what the Fed does. Um and really kind of economically speaking where it goes. I mean that they're um they're investing our money in the same places that everybody else is investing money as well. Um there are if you'll see on the first page um there's a list of nine items for improved uh investment instruments. We both all three of our investment accounts uh fit within those. Um, and really what the primary goal of this policy is to make sure that many of the district's assets um are secure and safe um and do not put us at a great risk of loss um in the event of an economic d downturn. Um honestly, I think we probably have three of the um least risky uh investments out there. Um and they meet all the government
044guidelines. So, any questions about the investment policy? that I can answer for you. >> Doesn't require any action. >> No, it does not. >> Okay. Any further questions? >> All right. I will move this. I'm going to go back up. Okay. >> Yeah. On the paper copy doesn't match the online um board book and we apologize, but there is a a piece that we need Dr. >> Dr. Thornton to present. So, I'm going to go back to that. It's consideration action if any upon bilingual exception to the SL waiver. Dr. Okay. And thank you sir. So tonight we're going to present the ESL education program evaluation and this report is based off of your data from 2425 school year. Okay. So I'm just going to start while it's warming up. So Huntington ISD takes part
045in an ESL pullout program. And the ESL pullout program simply states that our students are served by a reading language arts teacher who is also certified with an ESL supplemental license. So um the English uh excuse me, the reading language arts teacher gives English language instruction in the same classroom as general ed students. Okay. So you can go ahead. So this slide just simply shows you that last year during 24-25 we had a total of 18 students that were um served through this ESL program and it shows you the breakdown of their grade levels. In the current year we have 19 students who we serve in that ESL program and again it shows you that breakdown by grade level. You can see that our largest population is in the grades 9 through 12. Okay. So
046then we look at our assessments that we give um state assessments. We look at STAR results and we can see that 29% of our ESL students that tested on STAR with us last year made progress from the 2024 year to 2025 in reading language uh excuse me in reading star or the English EOC. Okay. And on tail pass 16% of those students that tested made progress from 24 to 25 school year. uh students show progress by moving from one performance level to the next in a single year. Um our students uh excuse me the tail pass u rate students based on by what they call beginning intermediate advanced or advanced high. So they have to move from one level to the next to can show be considered as showing progress. Okay. Uh there's several requirements
047for being reclassified, which means exited from ESL. And those requirements are Oh, you're good. Okay. Those requirements are that the student participate in an English instruction class without linguistic supports, that they demonstrate mastery for that grade level by passing all their classes, they score advanced high on the tail pass, score approaches or higher on their reading or English EOC on STAR, and that they score satisfactory on a teacher evaluation. They have to meet all of those indicators in order to be reclassified or exited out of the ESL program. And last school year we had no students who reclassified. So then we begin talking about waiverss and that's kind of like the second part of this presentation. So every year a district must apply for waivers for our the ESL waiver. If teachers who are serving
048our ESL students do not have a current ESL supplemental certification. So part of that waiver when we apply we have three portions. We have to write a professional development plan. We have to write a plan on how we're going to recruit, hire, and retain ESL certified teachers. And that includes the current teachers who are uncertified, making sure we get them and assist them in getting an ESL supplemental. And then a plan to meet the effective linguistic cog and cognitive needs of our ESL students. So, if you go ahead, Tim, this year, last year we should have had four teachers on waiverss. This year after you approve this tonight, we'll apply for six waivers for our teachers. We currently have a total of 10 teachers throughout the district teaching ESL students and six will need to
049be on waiverss because they do not have an ESL certification. We've already working with the campus principles. We've already started working with region 7 who we contract with for EV uh services because we don't have enough to really have somebody on staff full-time to do that. and um they have already set up some plan some prep sessions to help teachers get ready for the ESL certification assessment. >> So, we're working on that, too. >> That's it. Do you have any questions? >> Straightforward. >> So, we just need to ask for an action um to approve um our ability to apply for the ESL. >> A motion. Make a motion to approve the uh presented uh application. >> Yes. That we can apply for an ESL waiver. >> Bilingual bilingual. >> You got it. >> Applications
050exception. ESL waiver. >> I have a motion. >> I have a second by Mr. Robertson. All in favor? Motion carried. I will now move us to F discussion only for maintenance custodian ground transportation and safety. >> All right. Uh maintenance is going pretty smooth. Uh been pretty quiet. Knock on wood for the last couple of weeks or so. So nothing nothing too major down. We lots of work orders just uh normal classroom stuff. We have put a few things in the cafeteria. We put a steamer and some coolers and stuff that Sam got in. We got all them hooked up and going. Um like I said, lots of standard stuff. lots of lights, but every light we do, we're converting LED. So, that's one of less we'll have to do in the future because there
051should be good for several years. So, um doors, I'm sure Mike's going to everybody's talked about this vulnerability survey we got next week. So, lots of doors, lots of door closures. Um, high school intermediates pretty much 100% been replaced. All new hardware closures, locks, you know, middle schools. We've done several middle school. We added some new electric locks over there. The commons area, middle school gyms got all new electric locks on it. Any of our hight traffic areas, we pretty much upgraded and converted the last last year. So, elementary gyms probably our weak point elementary. We've got two sets of doors coming. They should be here any day, but of course, they won't be here by Monday or Tuesday, but but they uh they should be here any day. They're they're working currently doing fine.
052>> Is that when our audience is Monday or Tuesday? >> Yes, sir. >> Yeah. So, we're u we're getting prepared for that. Have been for a while. Like I said, everything we're in good shapewise, but we still have a few doors we'd like to upgrade in the future, but uh elementary gym is our main ones that we want to get done. So, they they have been ordered. They just like everything else are just crazy delayed on some stuff. So, but we have been working on it. Everything is all good. We should be no problem for next week, but we still have some areas that we want to keep working on and replace as we go. So, but like I said, everything has been going good. just um just pretty smooth. Like I said, I hate
053to say it, but it's been pretty smooth. The cooler weather has helped. So, no no major AC's going down and no big issues. So, I I know. Yeah. I hate to I hate to even go there and say that, but yeah, it's uh it's been a little quieter. So, uh that's good. >> So, yeah, like I said, Veterans Day coming up. We got tables and chairs and stuff set up for that. So, it's uh just moving from one event to the other. So, everything's everything's going well. Matt, was there anything for custodians? >> We have all the um custodial we are still down one um custodian. We have interviews set up for Wednesday. We're hoping we can get somebody um filled for that. Um otherwise um everything's moving right along. All the fields have been
054overseated, fertilized. We've received um all the infield dirt that we will begin to start getting everything ready uh to go for that. So um other than that, everything's just moving right along. grasses slow down a little bit, which is nice for the guys, they can move on to some other stuff they'd like to get done instead of just mowing all day every day. So, any questions about custodial grow, >> we enjoyed the lunch the other day and thank y'all for appreciate it. >> Definitely appreciate. >> It doesn't go unnoticed. Like I said the other day, thank y'all for what y'all do. I know y'all work out there in this heat and it's I know it's super quiet, but I appreciate all your people. Thank you very Well, like I said, I appreciate y'all recognizing them.
055They they appreciate it very much, and I do, too. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thank you. >> Transportation. >> Um, uh, the five new buses we bought are in service and going great. Thank y'all for that. U, y'all remember last time I had spoke about we had went in conjunction with the Huntington Police Department and we have one stop up here by Sonic at the apartments that people are running the red lights like crazy. So, we had we had went in partners and bought half and half and bought a red light camera for our bus, a stop arm camera. And basically what that does is every time the red overheads are turned on, it activates those cameras in case somebody runs the lights and we catch them. So, that worked really good. So, Mr. Clipton uh
056he ended up getting I guess it was from our insurance >> uh TPS, Texas political. He he got a grant to install basically it was enough to uh put stop arm cameras on the all of our route buses. So initially we were going to just put them on the ones that run the highways, but we're going to have them on all of them. So those are in. We're starting to put those in. And we're we're also putting new uh twight right now. We have four channel camera systems on all of our buses. So basically that means we we can put four cameras and that's it. We're in the process of putting 12 channel camera systems in all the buses. So, that'll give us the ability to put extra cameras if we need those, uh, including
057the stop arm cameras. So, as soon as Jason can get those, we'll have we'll have all those going. Uh, I did I got an email the other day confirming that the other uh van for a CTE has been uh ordered. So, usually when that happens, it's a month or two and it's going to be in. The next step is they'll send and tell me that it's it's being built. Once that once I get that email, usually less than a month, we have it here. So, that's in progress. Uh, and right now we're working on uh we're trying to part out the 2010 model buses that we're going to sell. We're trying to get all the good tires we can off of them. You need good parts. Jason's he's trying to do that as quick as
058he can. And as soon as we do that and feel like we've got all the good stuff, we'll sell those. Get those out of here, including the red and black ones. >> If y'all want to buy those, I'll let you know when they're up. >> Tires. >> Exactly. >> Become an RV. Change it. >> I'm buy one for the next year. be a mess. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, >> Chief Jacob. >> Well, I want to thank you guys, too, for everything y'all do. And I want to thank y'all for putting safety and security kind of on the top of the educational pendulum. Start out the year, we had to submit our EOP and our active threat annex to the uh school safety center, and we submitted it midepptember. We
059got it back I guess a week or two ago. It passed the mustard. Uh surprisingly I only had to make a few corrections on one of the annexes and other than that they said it was approved. So we got that back. Uh I've submitted all the documentation for our vulnerability assessments that's coming up the third and fourth which is next Tuesday, Wednesday. Uh you know that's been a chore a whole lot of paperwork. Uh a lot of submissions and Dr. Fishetti and myself will meet with the TEA guy. I'm thinking Monday, it may be Tuesday though. The first day we'll go over all the paperwork that we submitted and we have to make any corrections or any more stuff I need to submit. Uh we'll submit it after that. Uh but I think we're ready
060for vulnerability assessment. John's guys have been working diligently on the doors, the locks. Uh every door that needs a peepphole in it, I believe has a peepphole in it. Uh our tent uh our tent guy finished up last weekend. All the tent throughout the district is tented and the caulk is where it needs to be. Any window adjacent to and any door. Uh so I I think we're going to do good on our vulnerability assessment. I've talked to some other districts. It's a real indepth uh process. When the guy comes here and walks around and checks our facilities, he really looks at it tough. But I think it really is a partnership that TA is trying to build with school districts to help everybody get in compliance. I've been to some other districts and talked
061to a lot of other districts. We're fortunate here we're a lot further ahead of the ball game than most districts are when it comes to the safety and security of our faculty and staff. Uh I get a lot of calls from other districts asking, "Hey, what do we do here? Hey, what have we done there?" and I'll give them pointers and they like it. But that's opened up a lot of doors for me as well. I call a lot of other districts and get input and advice and I had to reach out to a lot of districts for all the paperwork that we had to submit for the vulnerability assessment. And I was able to all get it submitted in time. Uh, and the guy looked over it and sent us back some things I
062needed to correct and I was able to correct all those the day before the deadline to get it submitted. So, I'm real eager to get next uh Tuesday, Wednesday over with to see how we do. I'll sleep a lot better. When that's over with, >> and I don't want to go in a whole lot of safety and security as far as protocols just because we are on public and everybody can hear, but I I think we're we're very well equipped here to deal with any situation that may arise and if he comes to our campuses. Do you guys have any any questions? >> No, but I do have a state Okay. >> And I'm going to agree with you that Huntington is way ahead of a lot of different places. I'm in and out of
063a lot of schools on a regular basis and I'm proud to say that we are definitely setting the bar for other people to get to to achieve. I agree. >> And I believe one of the reasons that we are that way is all the TEA laws and requirements that they passed last year after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. We got a committee together and basically we done everything in 2013 that the state now requires everybody to do. So a lot of districts had a lot of unnecessary or not unnecessary but expenses that we didn't have to acrew because we had been doing it for years. So that's a testament to to the board and our leadership here. Well, I will say that is like anything that's come across this board safety related, it has
064been no question and is been for our students and our faculty for sure. >> All right, I will move us to six superintendent report. >> Okay, thank you Mike. >> Thank you so much everybody and and all that you um do for our district. Um in board book is our monthly expenditures. If you have any questions about those, you can let us know. I wanted to share our attendance and enrollment, our attendance percentage is 94.8, so about 95. I've been stressing that um every communication that I have with parents if um we this is how we get funded is our ADA. So, we need our kids at school. Um our enrollment has declined uh through since the beginning of the year. We're at 1,56 students. We ended last year approximately 1,560 students. So we've we've
065lost students. I say we've lost um some have moved, some are homeschooled. Um we we lots of different scenarios, but that's our enrollment now. So uh that's attendance enrollment. C Veterans Day. Wanted to invite everyone obviously to the high school. Um that's on um uh November the 11th. It begins. and we said it today and I didn't write it down 10 10 o'clock 10 o'clock in the morning we would love to have invite everybody to that uh D I wanted to call attention uh that I've joined the workforce solutions triency leadership committee uh team and this is basically where businesses and schools gather to support businesses and schools meaning what are the local business needs and are schools able to uh turn out students that are able to fill of those job opportunities. So, it's
066um it's been a really interesting collaboration and I'm super proud to be on that. Uh so much so that we got invited to host and I called u Mr. Stove right before this meeting started and he enthusiastically agreed that the state CTE director is coming to Huntington and Hudson. So, we're going to host the CTE director, which is pretty cool because um I love that the state's coming to see CTE in action and they're coming to Huntington, which is great. Don't have a date yet. I put near future because I have I don't have that date, but that's exciting. Um I'm going to skip E for just a minute. I'm going to go to F and then go back to um E. Uh I wanted to share that another thing that we've done um in
067the last few weeks um is we have a group. We're trying to grow our own teachers that are interested in becoming directors or leaders, administrators, and our assistant principles that are interested in becoming principles. We have two different aspiring leadershipmies that we've been working with, and it's been really great. Um, uh, strategies about effective leadership, some skill sets that they might need to work towards, goal setting. And so, we're going to meet with them about four times this year. And so I'd like to recognize those towards the end of the year after they they work hard um at that. We I've also started a a student a superintendent advisory council at each um campus. So anywhere from 10 to 20 students at each campus and I've met with all grade levels, third grade, fourth, fifth,
0686th through 8th and 9th through 12. And it is the student voice piece that I think sometimes we adults make those decisions, the lawmakers make those decisions and we never ask the kids what do they think, what are things that we you would like to see. Um my hopes are that we learn um either ideas that interest them, maybe activities, systems, anything. So their their first meeting was why and how they were chosen because they are student leaders and we're trying to grow that leadership and um their homework was to think about uh goals and objectives for their school or district. So by the end of this year, you're going to meet those because we're going to be giving them certificates at a board meeting. So you'll meet that those groups. They're very excited. I
069will say that um my fourth and fifth grade students wanted to meet every single day at lunch. it's just not possible. But they're very excited. And a high school that we concluded the meeting and one of our high school uh volleyball leaders said, um, I cannot take this anymore. Raman back in, grabbed the high the wipe off pencil or pen and started writing all over the board of things that she thinks needed to change at the high school. I thought it was hilarious. So, we have very, very excited kids to participate in this group. It's so funny. Um, and it's great. I wanted to before I acknowledge our principles, I wanted to share that I want to um wish the very best of luck and I'm super glad his mother is here. Um but we
070have Gabe running in the state tournament. He was our only uh cross country runner that made it to state and that is on Friday. So I know that's not in my notes here, but I wanted to make sure that we wish him the very best of luck. We had three of our kiddos go to um uh our 2B determined band um have been driving all day to Indianapolis and they are um performing at the national am I saying this right? National FFA tournament um and for their it's um someone my mom asked me I didn't know the FFA had band but it's the talent contest and they're going to be performing at least five different times and they're there for about five days. So, I just they've been on the road all day in the
071brand new CTE van uh with drums and all the things. So, we're excited for that. So, I wanted to wish um the very best of luck to those. Before we get to personnel, I'm going to embarrass everybody and um they do not like any of this recognition, but I cannot help it. So, what I'm going to ask is I'm going to ask our principles, as I call them, um we have the best group of principles a district can have. And unfortunately, Miss Woodmore is not here because she's furthering her education. She's uh I think getting a second masters. I'm not sure all the things because she can't stop learning. Um and so that is where she is this evening. But we uh we couldn't do this job without our leadership at campus. So I would
072like the following all of our principles to come up. I'm going to move this table because I'm going to speak out because I'm going to get the board to stand behind them in a picture. So, thank you a board for honor or humoring me. Shane Stober, we appreciate all that you do at the high school. Dr. Miss Amanda Powers at the middle school. Mr. Neil at our bright campus. Thank you for doing doing all that you do, Miss Powers and Miss Ford at our intermediate campus. >> Oh, I'm sorry. The wrong one. There we go. So, I'd like our principles to kind of maybe step in and our board can get around that. Principles, you guys get in the middle. >> You're going to get over here. >> How does this work? >> Dr. Come
073on. Come on. No, >> we want to thank them for all they do and I can guarantee this will be posted. >> Okay. One, two, three. >> One more. >> Thank you for hearing us. We appreciate everything. >> They hate being recognized. my job. >> Personnel report. Um, our board has a copy of the personnel report and I am asking uh for uh the approval to hire um our history teacher at the high school, Tyler Knight. His background is he's been in the Navy, he's been in the armed services, he's also worked at SFA. Um he's alternative certified. He lives in Huntington. and his sister just played on the volleyball team and Mr. Stoer we >> won >> one we won the game. So we just beat Wood which is pretty awesome >> in three
074sometimes five and three. So we were we were doing great. Um but he is we are ready to have him take over our history with approval of his contract today. >> Okay. I make a motion to approve the personnel report incident. >> I have a motion. Second. >> I have a second by Miss Davis. All in favor? >> Motion carried. >> All right. Anything else on superintendent report? >> No, sir. >> Okay. I will move us to 10. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll make a motion to adjurnn. >> I have a motion. >> Have a second by Mr. S. All in favor? Motion carries.