La Porte ISD Board Meeting 2/10/2026

001All right, good evening. It is 7:01 p.m. The board of trustees of Leaport Independent School District is now convened. I wish to extend my warm welcome to everyone present. Every student success is our number one priority. As a Leaport IC board of trustees, we are here to set goals, adopt policy, approve budgets, contracts, personnel appointments, and communicate the district's vision and successes to the community. It is not the role of the board to make day-to-day operational decisions. The management and day-to-day operations of the district are the responsibility of our superintendent. This is a public meeting of the board of trustees, not a meeting of the public. Schoolboard meetings are open to all who wish to attend and hear the matters discussed. Audience participation is limited to the patron presentation portion of our meeting. Board members

002may not respond to the public comment section. These proceedings may be recorded and I respectfully ask that you please refrain from talking while others are speaking. Thank you for taking time this evening to join us for and for your interest in the Leaport Independent School District. At this time, will you please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance? Joining us of Leaport High School JOTC tonight, American Rifle, >> Cadet Staff Sergeant Xavier Aguire, >> American Flag Cadet Commander Sergeant Major Danica, Texas Rifle Cadet Captain Kaye Bailey, and Texas Flag Cadet Private First Class Aurora Flores. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. Present colors. >> I pledge algiance 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

003for all. >> Now the Texas flag. Honor the flag. Igiance to the Texas. One state under God. One indivisible. Order push colors. Ready and arms. Order arms. Mark time. Mark forward. March. Please remain standing for our invitation this evening led by our board secretary, Mrs. Melissa Crutchard. If you would please bow your heads with me. >> Father God, we just want to come to you with thanks uh gratitude from our heart and just all the love in the world. We know that you are here with us in Leaport ISD and we know that you have filled every student, every staff member with your goodness and you are bringing everyone together tonight to celebrate in one way or another and that's why this room is packed and we just are so grateful that you were able

004to bring everybody here with us tonight. Lord, we hope that you keep a strong hand on the path that we set forth for our district. We ask that you guide us in everything that we do. We ask that you give us clear heads, strong hearts, and let us everything that we do be for our students, our staff, and in your name. Lord, as everybody leaves here tonight, please watch over them, take care of them, keep them safe in their journeys, safe in their homes, and safe on their path to school tomorrow. And it's in your name we pray. Amen. >> Amen. >> You may be seated. All right, we will turn to item five, board recognitions, performance by Jenny Reed Elementary. Would you guys want to come? Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the Jenny Reed Elementary

005Tiki Club under the direction of Miss Jennifer Arisco. Thank you so much. We are very happy to be here and honored to be invited. Um here I've got before you some of my wonderful road runners from second grade. If you're in second grade, raise your hand. If you're in third grade, raise your hand. If you're in fourth grade, raise your hand. And if you're in fifth grade, raise your hand. There. There they are. So, um we are we are going to be uh singing and playing for you a song that you know I know you know it and we could use your help singing it. Um Deep in the Heart of Texas and I thought you might want to know a little bit about this song. Uh it was it was written in 1941 by

006June Hershey and Don Swander. And now there's some interesting fun facts about this. it um in 1942 the five five separate versions of the song were on the Billboard charts on the on your hit parade 1942 the most notable recordings that have been made and it's been recorded over and over even uh Ray Charles recorded it in 1960 Jean Audrey it's probably the one most of us um the the one that I grew up listening to Bean Crosby also recorded it with Woody Herman man and his wood choppers and the Mary Max and then Ted Williams and his orchestra uh with Perry Ko singing. One of the one of the fun facts about this song is that in 1942 in the middle of war, World War II, the BBC, the British broadcasting system banned it

007from their radios. And the reason why is because everyone loved it so much and everyone stopped what they were doing if they were in the in the machine shops and the munitions war efforts. They stopped what they were doing to do the four claps. And so it was very dangerous in amunitions if they're dropping, you know, all the gunpowder and everything. So that was banned until the end of the war. So I thought that was interesting. So we are going to sing that for you now. Good. Thank you. All right. Yellow. Purple. Ready. You're welcome to sing along. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. And parents, while they're uh lining up for the photo, I just want to remind you if you could exit this way, the hallway will take you around and

008it will avoid a bottleneck out here. The students will be exiting that way as well. Outstanding. >> Yes, ma'am. You see everybody Heat. Heat. She's not talking. Ladies and gentlemen, two of our performing arts students were recently named All State. And here to present a couple of recognitions is director of fine and performing arts Dr. Matthew Burke. Thank you, Mr. Holland. Beginning in late August and going up until about a month ago, over 70,000 music students in the state of Texas begin the process to audition for the Texas Music Educator Association Allstate Band. For the second year in a row, Leaport High School is represented in this group, prestigious group, by our percussionist, Mr. Isaiah MSAS. Isaiah, come on up. Isaiah went through four grueling auditions starting in September and ending the beginning of January

009to be repres to be Leaport High School's representative at the TMEA all state music conference and convention which begins tomorrow and it will be for three the next three days and he'll be uh participating and performing with some of the best musicians in the state of Texas and across the country. So congratulations guy. Also with him tonight is his band director Mr. Jason Harvey who will be accompanying him as well. >> That was good. I'm sorry I don't >> also tonight we'd like to rep uh recognize Miss Sienna Neron Narin excuse me Miss Non was selected to participate in the all-state dance team with the Texas Dance Educator Association. Sierra attended the annual TDA convention and performed as a feature dancer with other all-state students from across the state of Texas. So, congratulations. Tonight with

010her is Miss Janine Watson. Where's Miss Watson? Come on up. two feet. No, no, >> congratulations once again. National Counseling or National School Counseling Week 2026 was this past week. We focused on public attention to the unique contribution of school counselors within US school systems and in particular Leaport ISD. Tonight, we recognize Leaport ISD's wonderful counselors and highlight the tremendous impact that they have in helping students achieve school success, plan for a career, and with social and emotional support. And we will start out with our elementary counselors. First, Cindy Martin, Beayshore Elementary. Audra Mazaros, College Park Elementary. >> Hillary Mlelen, Heritage Elementary. Diana Heroka, Leaport Elementary, >> Lisa Cox, Lommax Elementary. all these people back here. >> And finally, Miss Melissa Mansfield, Rudo Elementary. >> Okay. Elementary counselor, smile for the camera. >> Moving over

011to our secondary counselors, Danielle Knight, James H. Baker, sixth grade campus. Brenda New Leaport Junior High School. >> Jill Howell's Lomax Junior High School. Thank you. April Hawthorne, the Academy of Viola DeWalt High School from Leaport High School. April Keys, >> Casey Smith, Alo from Leaport High School, Jennifer Cummings, >> Lacy Rodriguez, >> Brenda Sadler, >> Aaron Cameron Webb, she couldn't make it, but we'll move on to one other, and that is our district level counselor Dr. Nancy Oriana, coordinator of advanced learning and student services. Appreciate you. >> Thank you counselors. Thank you. >> It's okay. >> Thank you. Y'all have a great night. Ladies and gentlemen, now with a very special presentation or presentations is Charlotte Penny, executive director of the Leaport Education Foundation. >> Thank you, Adam. Well, thank you so much everyone

012for accepting kind of our secret invitation. and you're about to find out why. But before we get started, I want to introduce the LPF board of directors, Mr. Joseph's Workin, the president, Miss Debbie Wade, she's a chair of our grants committee, Mr. Michael Barry, Miss Erica Menddees Gutierrez, Sarah Copelan, Christina Thraws, Thomas Green, Sherry Regan, Miss Melissa Crutcher, who's the director and also secretary of the LPISD board of trustees. Also, Mrs. Karen Wheeler Hall, who's on our board and also a trustee. Right now, we don't want to hold you up. We know time is valuable. We're going to toss it to Miss Debbie Wade, who's the chair of our grants committee. Well, since this is the month of hearts and love, we want to thank our wonderful donors. Um, and the Leaport Education Foundation is

013able to award because of these donors our Share the Love mini grants. Again, this year totaling a little more than $9,800. We will be presenting these many grants to 43 Leaport ISD teachers and staff. These grants were submitted as Amazon wish list for $250 or less for a wide variety of teaching and classroom supplies across the district. Grant winners, we will be ordering your wish list items in the next couple of days. So, be on the lookout for your packages. And please share your videos of you opening your boxes on our LPF Facebook page. And now for our share the gr Share the Love mini grant winners for 2026. When we call your name, please excitedly come up here. From the Academy of Viola Dealt High School, Kristen Baliseri. and Par Goazorro. I guess just

014kind of line up down that way. Stay up here after your name is called because we're going to get a really big group picture from administration. Michael Newman. from Beayshore Elementary. Kim Crawford, Michelle Gilchrist, Brittany Hernandez, Sarah Vargo, Taylor Harris Guerrero. Woohoo. and Mary McDonald is also winning a grant, but she was not able to be with us tonight. Now from from College Park Elementary, we have Kristen Jennings and also Lorie Flores, who could not be with us tonight, but we will get those uh hearts to them. From Heritage Elementary, we have Trina Joy Budro, Amy Cole, Dama Goins, Alyssa O'Quinn, and Marcy Trailer. She got the memo. She wore her red love shirt from Baker 6th grade campus. Jessica Cotton Bernard Danielle Knight. Where is she? I know she she walked out. Maybe we

015could see if she's out there with the counselors having a party. Okay. Paola Magdaleno and Candace Stakes. All right, we're going to have to we're going to have to double up on the rose here. I think from Jenny Reed Elementary, we have Julia Cadre. Is Julia here? Not here. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Brooke Drech. >> Yeah. And Katherine Kazal. >> Y'all are just going to have to arrange yourself from tallest in the back to shortest in the back. All right. Now we're going to Leaport Elementary, >> Sierra Lewis. >> And Sarah Stockdale also, but she is not with us tonight. From Leaport High School, Shelby Jones. She's not here with us tonight, but she's getting a grant. Robbie Lacier, >> Emily Rey, >> Teresa Agarado, and also Karen Butcher and Bobby Murphy who neither one

016could be here with us tonight but they are getting grants also from Leaport Junior High. Hannah Gambiano, Amanda Maddox, Alyssa Ruffin from Ruto Elementary, Courtney Puit and Jennifer Vargas >> from Lomax Elementary, Trixie Hatfield. Denise Pool, Rebecca Clark, Laura Hog, and Emily Sanders. And from Lomax Junior High, Kirsty Fontnau and Steven Mabberry is receiving one, but he's not here with us tonight. So, those are our Share the Love mini grant winners for 2026. Congratulations, more chair. Hang on. Are we missing anyone? >> There we go. This was beautiful. A good feel good moment, right? We're good. We're done, guys. We're done. We're done. Oh, heat, heat. Yeah. Heat. Yeah. Heat. Yeah. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. All right, guys. We will turn now to item six, public comments. The board will now hear those

017who wish to make comments and who have completed and return the public comment participation request. This section will be conducted in accordance with the Texas Open Meeting Act and board policy. Complaints and concerns for which other resolution channels are provided shall be directed through those channels. Just a reminder to the board, we unfortunately cannot respond to any comment. Uh, I'll ask Mr. Vice President if we have any. Oh, >> here. >> You want to read it? Mason, do we have any comments this even? >> Yes, sir. >> Uh, we have Chris Reigns from Valley View Drive would like to talk about the golf program. >> Thank you. Good afternoon. I came to the June of 2025 meeting to talk about some questions and concerns I had about the program. Um, within days, Dr. Jackson and

018Mason Perez contacted me to get details on this. I'd like to express my appreciation for everything that was done. Not only the what was done, but how it was handled. The kids are super excited about using the rooms. And they appreciate everything that y'all done. That's mainly all I came to say is thank you for everything you've done for them. And we have a little token of appreciation for everyone. >> Awesome. >> There you go. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. Oh, I love it. >> My bad. >> Yes, sir. just uh it started because you showed interest and I know I still remember the night and I remember you were very uh apprehensive about coming up to talk to us that night but um I'm glad you did and

019that it was fruitful. You know, it just takes a parent having a concern and and bringing those issues to us. We don't always have a solution, but the fact that you took the time and came up and welcome attention, that's how you know results happen. So, thank you for your part in it as well. It's a collective effort. Everybody's got to do their part. So, thank you. >> Thank you all. Dr. Mart, I know you had a big Dr. I'll put you on the spot, but you want to say a few words? We had a chance. You showed a couple of us uh the finished product. You want to say a few words on that? >> Sure, please. >> Um staff staff. >> So, just uh we're we're super excited, guys, and and we know

020we're like 99% there's a few things that we want to button up and so I was glad I got to get some facetime with a couple of our booster club parents tonight. Um, so we're going to meet, we're going to discuss more about what we can do to to just make that a space that it's going to be um, you know, yours for years to come and we're excited about it. And so we we're excited because you're excited about it. So um, just uh, we're looking forward to it. Um, you know, hope that you guys hopefully we can grow the game and grow the passion and and um, just continue to be a good experience. We thank you guys for speaking up for uh letting us know and and we're happy the product and and

021it really is fantastic to do like a little open house where they can they can everybody can come in and see. Thank you all. >> Thank you. Turn to item seven are m reports uh a a superintendent report. >> Thank you Mr. President. The board has a copy of the superintendent report. I will not read that tonight. Um, Lord, you have a copy of that for your uh pleasure. And uh it certainly has been a busy busy month and a busy uh second semester already. But I'll yield the floor, Mr. uh President uh to just having the board read it on their own time. >> Okay. I appreciate that. We'll turn it into item B uh delinquent tax presentation by Purdue Brandon. Okay. So, good evening, Dr. Jackson, President Martin, and board of trustees. uh

022for our monthly board financial update, Justin Barlo and Jason Bailey Bailey with Purdue Brandon uh will present an overview of the Leaport ISD's delinquent tax collections. So Justin joined uh Purdue Brandon in 2020. He focuses on delinquent tax collections and litigation. Justin helps to oversee litigation in Harris County in tax courts and in Harris County's district courts. Jason Bailey joined Purdue Brandon in 1996. This year marks Jason's 30th year as a delinquent tax attorney. Jason maintains his present uh his presence in litigation, but also provides a wide level of expertise for Leaport ISD related to operations and other services uh offered by the firm. Justin and Jason are Leaport ISD's tax attorneys. uh and they will review Leaport ISC's tax accounts and directly engage they review Leaport IC's uh tax accounts and they directly engage

023with the accounts through the collections process from the time they are turned over to Purdue Brandon until they are collected presentation is on the board and it's also you have a copy thank you very much >> thank you Mr. President Martin board members Dr. Jackson and guest. Uh, thank you'all for giving us an opportunity to come up and give you all an update on what we've been able to do for delinquent tax collections. Um, we appreciate the opportunity. Tax collections are kind of a year behind. So, y'all said the budget. So, last year in 2024, y'all set your tax rate, mailed out the bills, they went delinquent in February of 2025. In April of 2025, the business personal property were turned over to our firm for collections. Then in July, all the remaining real property

024wars. So that kind of sets the calendar and you'll hear Justin talk about those dates. Uh but before he gives you the good news, I just want to let you know that we have worked for the district for a long time. We have developed a program that we call compassionate collections with proven results. And that's what we're trying to do. We want you to know what Justin talks about the statistics and the great collection numbers we've had for the district. We're reaching out and contacting every one of your citizens to give an opportunity to pay. U we view it as a mutual problem. They owe the district money. they need to resolve this debt. It grows each month with more interest. So the quicker we can help them resolve that. Truth of the matter matter

025is over about 98% of the people pay the taxes in your community. So it's that last 2%. There's people that just don't want to pay taxes. I'm not going to tell you differently. We'll deal with those. But a lot of them something's happened. And so our job is to do a a we do an outgoing contact campaign to reach out to the people. Uh, what you won't hear Justin talking about in statistics, everybody sends a letter. What separates us from our competition are phone calls, text messages, emails. Um, my daughter won't read a letter if you send it to her. She's 26 years old cuz I'm old as you heard. Uh, I hand her a letter that gets accidentally sent to my house, she throws it in the garbage. It doesn't come across her phone.

026She doesn't do it. So, we've had to adapt to that. But, we're going to reach out and give everybody an opportunity to try to pay these taxes. We view filing a lawsuit, we're going to talk about them, as a failure. uh we want to reach out to the person normal husband, wife, mortgage company, that's $800 in court cost if we follow suit. They can use that money to pay the taxes to the district. So, we're going to give them every opportunity and to get to the collection results that we have. I just want y'all to know that we're making sure that we reach out to your citizens and give them an opportunity to pay. But, I'm going to turn it over to Justin so he can give youall some good news on the collection numbers

027and we'll be here to answer any questions you have. >> Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Uh, as Jason indicated, I'm Justin. I am a little bit more hands-on. I'm going to kind of take you guys through some of the weeds. Jason gave us the 50,000 foot view of what we do. I'm not going to go so far into the weeds that, you know, we could be here all night cuz I love doing this. Um, but just to go ahead and get started. Is this the clicker? The mouse. Okay. All right. So, just to get started, um this is a breakdown of the total base tax that's been turned over to our firm since our time representing the district. So, you'll see that's about $3.8 million. What you want to take away from this chart

028is where is that money? What are we doing to actually get it collected and back into the district? Um you'll see that the largest category is in litigation. That's kind of a good thing. That means we're working it. We're getting these accounts funneled back to the district to get people paid. Sometimes they are paying. They're in the process of a payment plan, but we have to go through the litigation process because maybe that payment plan is going to be for an extended period of time. But to protect the district's interest, we'll go ahead and take the judgment, work with the taxpayer because as Jason explained, it's about compassionate collections. These are the people in your district. These are your neighbors. These are the uh patrons of the school district. So, we don't want to get

029in the business of shaking anybody down. We're definitely trying to make sure that the district has the money that it's owed, but we're also going to make sure that we do it in an efficient way. Uh the next section is going to be the action pending. Um and what that means is perhaps maybe we don't know where this person lives quite yet. So we have to do a number of researches to make sure that we find the right person. We're getting to the right people. Uh whether it's a business, whether it's a residence home, you know, sometime sometimes a person says, "I have to talk to the wife before I make this decision." And we're in that process and we're walking people through step by step in the way to uh uh collections. um bankruptcy,

030whole other set of of issues outside of litigation. Bankruptcy is is uh walked through by uh bankruptcy code. We have a board certified attorney that also helps us with those accounts. Um she makes sure that accounts at the federal level, at the national level are uh monitored because some of these businesses, as we know in Leaport, do go on a national scale. And so we're in in those courtrooms uh fighting for the the port's interest in those regards as well. Um if I'm going too fast, please feel free to just jump at me, stop me. Um but again, this is just a breakdown as to where that money is since it's been turned over to us. Dollar range. How much money are we actually talking about? What do the accounts look like? What you'll notice

031is the largest portion, that 54% is $10,000 and up. So that means that that account is is owing at least $10,000. The thing I do want to point out to um everyone this evening is that out of 1,448 accounts only 58 accounts make up that provision or that portion. Um what are we doing with those accounts? I can tell you a lot of them are uncollectible which means it may be a business that was here and has since moved. Uh the appraisal district has the account open so we're going to try to investigate it. We're going to try to make sure that we again track those people down, make sure we get to the right people um to see if they're going to pay that or if they're they're going to close the account. If

032they close the account, it still gets it off of Leaport's books and we can kind of clean up the tax roll in in a separate way. Um again, just a further breakdown of how much each account might be worth. Uh the next biggest section is the 14% at 5,000 to 10,000. Moving right along just in the interest of time. All right. So tax years, how does that break down? Out of that 3.8 million, where are or what which tax years are making up that biggest portion? Obviously, the 2024 tax year is going to make up the biggest portion because it's the newest tax year that's been turned over to our office. So Jason and I haven't had as long to sit and work on those accounts because they were just turned over to our office

033in July. Um, and this report uh was updated as of 1,20, 2026. So again, from July to January, um that should be the largest portion that we are still in the process of collecting. Um what you'll what you will notice and is kind of some of the good news. As the gears go further back in time, they get smaller. That means because Jason and I have had the opportunity to sit with them, work with the taxpayers that are uh owning these accounts, we're getting them paid. So even though a tax year may be getting older, doesn't mean anything to us. We keep working it. We keep trying to find these people to again filter that money back to the district. So this next provision is kind of an evidence of that. So this is specifically

034talking about the 2020 tax year. So what you'll notice in that first text or in that first year of the 2020 year being turned over to our office, we were at a 60 67.58 uh collection rate. Now, the longer we have to work this account, the better the number should look. So, we're up to 82.9% on this on the 2020 tax year, um, specifically, and you know, just to kind of give, I guess, a little bit of a war story. Um, we just had a tax year that was owing for 2019. It was Jette Rentals. U, we didn't get a judgment on them until 2023. So, though we filed the the suit uh in 2020, it took three years of litigation. And I can attest I was the guy in there banging on the desk

035objecting everything. Um, but you know, I joke when I say that, but it is collaborating with opposing council, collaborating with that business to make sure that it gets paid and we got it paid uh just this past December and Miss McDow was updated on that. Um, you know, we we do make sure that we uh are making sure that the the district remains informed as well. Um, so we were able to collect 268,000 um for through the 2023 year and they're going to close the account for 2024 2025. It's their position that they we're no longer here in the port. So they're just going to close the account and again we're compassionate. We're going to give them time to do that, but we're going to make sure something happens. Um, so just moving right along.

036Again, it's a similar uh spiel for 2021. We started at 58% up to 76. started at 69 up to 73. 2023 there's a little bit of a caveat here. What you'll notice is we started at 62 and Justin you went down. Why are your stats going down? Reason for that because we don't pad our stats. So what you'll notice at the top of each uh slide we highlight the base tax that's owed. The reason for that is as you know the longer a tax is owed the more penalties penalty and interest acrew on it. So, we don't pat our stats to say, you know, Mr. Hanks, I got more money because it took me longer. We start with what that base was. So, because that base starts at X, taxpayers are afforded the ability to

037protest their valuations. They're afforded their administrative rights under the tax code, and we have to allow them to do that. So, there were two accounts specifically in 2023, the names of those. it was um Hazmat and Axios. So these are business personal accounts. They're big they're big companies. They were large accounts and they they uh took advantage of their administrative remedy to protest their valuation. So their value didn't actually come out until 2024. So that's why the 2023 tax year was then applied in 2024 that next year. Um and thereby bringing our percentage collection down. So again, we were we are still working with them. Uh Hazmat is currently on a payment plan. Uh they did file a bankruptcy. Um we're working with them to go ahead and make sure that everything gets paid. Similarly,

038Axios, they'll see me in April for a trial. So again, we we do make sure that we're we're staying after people, but obviously in the most efficient and effective ways. Uh 2024, our most recent tax year. uh as of uh December 2025, we were at 43.1%. Now, I do have an updated figure for you. Uh we got it up to 45% as of the end of January. So, that's just the most recent uh information that we received from the tax office. We do work directly with Miss Alanise and the tax office um to make sure that that last 3% is collected. So, again, it's typically 2 to 3%. So, even though that 2 to 3% may be small to Miss Alanise in the tax office, it's Jason and I's world, so we don't take it

039lightly. Um, are there any questions? Anything else you wanted me to go further in into detail with? >> I just want to make a comment. Um, your firm has worked with our district um, I think the entire time of my board service, if I'm correct, Jason, don't you think so? Okay. and um y'all have always done an excellent job for us. Um I've talked to patrons that have had dealings with you because they were in um delinquent tax and y'all are always professional with them and so we appreciate that cuz you're right, they're still, >> you know, maybe they had a hard year or whatever the issue was, but they're still in our community. So, we appreciate your hard work and I know it's a lot of research and time behind every single one of

040those numbers. So, anyway, we appreciate you guys. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Anything else? >> I'll I'll ditto that. Um, we've I've heard great things as well from different people um not throughout the years, but uh in in recent years, but I think it's also important to know that the district and the administration has the best interest of the district um >> in mind. And so complaints and some kills and you know we want to make sure that our vendors are living up to the expectations of our administration and I think we we've kind of took advant we know that now this year. So keep up the good work. Appreciate it. >> Yes sir. And I just want to conclude by thanking uh the board Dr. Jackson uh for the opportunity to represent you guys.

041We we do enjoy the line of work that we are in. That's why we're at the prize patrols and that sort of thing because we do appreciate Leaport. Thank you guys. >> So So just one thing. You work with Miss Mcdal. >> Yes sir. But I'm the superintendent. I appreciate that y'all communicate with me. >> Yes, sir. >> Is that fair? >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> I'll say this too. We appreciate I've been on board five or six years now and this is the first time y'all comment. So, I appreciate the update. Um because it's hear all these things about collection stuff. That's cool to kind of put the the numbers in front of us. So, we appreciate you guys and the work you're doing. So, >> absolutely. >> Uh again, board, if you

042have no more questions, again, we thank you guys and we'll move on to the next topic. Thank you. Um, sorry. Uh, secondary schedule initiative. Yes, sir. Let me introduce this. Thank you, Mr. Board President Board and board president Martin. A few weeks ago on January 19th, a team of that consisted of high school principal, counselors, a teacher, central administration from Leaport ISD traveled to Laredo, Texas to visit United ISD. United ISD is a high-erforming school district that has operated under a master schedule that we call the 5x5 plan which allows high school students numerous opportunities for success throughout their high school career. We spent an entire day and a half actually hearing from United High School's principal, counselors, and other school leaders about how their 5x5 plan could be implemented in our district should that

043be a future decision. Let me be very clear. No decisions have been made about the schedule discussed tonight. We are still in the research, learning, and investigation phase. Tonight, I've asked Dr. Kate Griffin to come and give you an update on our visit and answer any first impression questions you might have about the 5x5 plan. Dr. Griffin, >> thank Dr. Jackson, Mr. Martin, board member, thank you for giving me the opportunity to kind of speak to you guys about an idea that we're definitely researching, but something we're very excited about. Um, and so I wanted to share with you kind of the issues that we're facing and kind of how we think that this targets those issues. Um, and then what kind of research we still have to do in order to see if this

044is a recommendation we would like to bring to you guys. Uh, so the most important tool that I have in order to make sure that the opportunities that our kids have at the high school is the master schedule. We currently run a very traditional seven period schedule, the same schedule that high schools been running for 50 years. Um, and it's the most important thing we have to make sure we're meeting every child's needs. We promote equity and access and improve student outcomes. So, you can tell a lot by a high school by how they set up their master schedule. Where do they put classes? How much time do they afford to different things? And it's basically what we spend all summer long, making sure that we promote as many opportunities as we can for the

045kids that we have. Um, we want to make sure that we are providing opportunities that hold a balance between what kids love to do, but what they also need. There's only so many periods in the day. Some of you have had high school students that have come through and you've probably gotten those phone calls where you've gotten from one of the administrators that said, "Look, I know you really want to take this class and this class, but they're during the same time. You're going to have to pick." That happens every year. We make those phone calls every year because the kids have seven periods in order to make the schedule that they need. Um, but with the new changes that they have to CCMR and the everchanging um system that TEA put into place, we

046see our kids getting more and more narrow. what they're able to take in order to accomplish the goals that they have, but still have time to take the things that interest them and those things that keep them in school, the things that that they're excited about. Um, and it's becoming more and more challenging year in and year out as more requirements get added on um and different um things happen to different pathways that we have. Um, so as we're dealing with those constantly raised cut scores on what it takes in order to to get a kid graduated and have all the things that they need, we just find that really getting squeezed. So what's the need? Um, time is the most important lever that we have. It controls everything that happens at the high school.

047Um, and currently our student success depend on 28 to get 26. They have 28 possible credits while they're in high school. seven periods, 4 years, 28 times to get 26 credits. Well, if you are wanting to do something that is outside of the scope of your graduation path, you only have two opportunities to do that. Um, and then if you, you know, aren't successful in a year, that puts you even further behind. So now we're trying to play catch-up. And there's not a lot of time in the schedule for us to play catch-up with you because again, you only have 28 opportunities to get 26 credits. Um, and so it really starts squeezing the opportunities that our kids have, especially if they happen to fall behind. If you're not aware, the the grade level that

048has the most kids in it across the country without fail, is the ninth grade year because it is the hardest transition that a student is ever going to go through in their entire career. So, the number of ninth graders we have is drastically higher than every other grade. And it's that way at every high school. Um, and so we have to make sure that we embed our intervention time within the school day. That's 45minute periods. So a kid comes in, we get them situated, we take attendance, we do our warm-up, we we're already down to 40 minutes. And so being able to give that good tier one instruction within that time, but still have time within that period to provide embedded intervention, that time again just gets more and more constrained. Uh, CCMR is not

049optional. It it is not an optional part of what we do at the high school. Um and and it shouldn't be. We should be trying to get kids college and career ready. That is a part of our job, but we have to build that into the schedule for them to get their math, their science, their social studies, but also get those CCMR opportunities. Uh and just make sure that we have equity of resources and opportunities. Uh again, there's only so many periods in the day. There's only so many staff members that we have. And so, we make the schedule as broad as we can, but also still work within the confines of making sure that kids get everything that they need. And it's very difficult. and it gets more difficult every year. So, um you

050know, so we we were made aware of this idea because Galina Park ISD is actually moving to this program next year. Um and we found out that uh Deer Park was actually going to go uh to look at Larredo as well. So, we ended up teaming up with them and went down all together to go look at it. Um there's a lot of districts in this area that are looking at this program as a way to kind of work through those needs that I was talking about. So, how the program actually works is that is a 5x5 accelerated block schedule. How it's different than a regular block schedule is in a regular block schedule, you go to your Aday classes this day and you go to different classes the next day. In this particular schedule,

051you only have five classes for an entire semester, but you go to each class Monday through Friday about 80 to 90 minutes a day depending on the schedule. So instead of taking seven year-long classes, you take five classes in the fall and five classes in the spring for a total of 10 credits. So now we're going from 28 to get 26 to 40 to get 26. Which means that you're going to have a lot more opportunity in the schedule for students to take not only the things that they need, but also things that they want. And then if they do fall behind, opportunities for them to get caught back up. So um each class, like I said, meets for a longer intervention block or instructional block. um core instruction, intervention, and acceleration can all happen

052within that 90 minutes. We're no longer pressed for that time within that one period in order to provide the instruction and the intervention and the acceleration that we need. So, um it provides a lot of flexibility as far as when the students take things. Um right now it's very very structured. um they're going to take this class, this class, and this class as a freshman, and then they'll take this class, this class, and this class as a sophomore. Uh this provides a lot more flexibility to kind of determine when you take a class. You could not take a social studies class until the spring. Uh you could um put in extra classes like you could have an entire SAT prep class that a kid takes as a class with a teacher for a grade working

053to get them ready for the SAT test. Um because you have so much room in their schedule to do those types of innovative things. And that's really what I think is the the most interesting thing to me about schedule is the just the amount of opportunities that it provides us and the flexibility it provides not only us but most importantly for the students I mean uh United ISD in particular talking about them their graduating class year was over 900 kids of their 900 kids 90% of them completed a CTE pathway that is an unbelievably high number for a high school that means almost every single senior was able to complete an entire core sequence of CTE courses. Um, that's incredible when you consider all the other things that they're in. Uh, cuz it's a full

054comprehensive high school. There's over over 3,500 kids at that school. So, it's not like it's just some little, you know, farm school doesn't have near the opportunities that we have. It's a very large school that has all kinds of opportunities. So, like I said before, pretty much the the the biggest benefits that we've come through um are definitely the uh increased credit opportunities for kids and different things like that. Um, and students have options. You know, if you really want to take that AP calculus class and you want to take AP seminar, we have room in the schedule for you to do that. You may not get it in the fall semester, but you can definitely get it in the spring semester. So, being able to fit those kinds of things in and giving kids

055opportunities is an amazing thing. Um, and then also just the students have less classes. Instead of having seven classes of seven things of homework and seven things of deadlines and seven things of test, there's only five. Uh, and so kids are able to focus, have deeper learning in one subject at a time as opposed to seven subjects at a time. Um, and just that flexibility we have to meet student needs. So, as a if a kid is not successful in a class, there's room in that schedule instead of us putting them in a credit recovery class where they're trying to recover multiple credits within a semester, we can put them right back into that class with a teacher getting all the instruction that they need for an entire another semester and it not take them

056off track for graduation. So, it really provides a lot of flexibility and opportunity for our students. So just kind of the next steps. Uh we have created a guiding coalition uh within the district and we're also going to be creating a student advisory council just to kind of talk through I mean I'm not interested in being first on this. I'm interested in doing it right and making sure that we spend the time researching it to make sure that this proposal that we bring to you we can firmly believe and say with conviction that this is the best thing for Leaport High School and the community. So, we are going to continue to uh look into this, research, learn with other districts. Like I said, I know that Crosby ISD is looking to move to this

057next year. Like I said, your park is looking to move to it in two years. So, we plan on working with these different communities to kind of see what does that program that they're running there, how does it work here? Uh and so, you know, our our school is very different than United High School. And so, we got to see, you know, is that system going to work here just because it works there? And so we're going to work, spend the time, do that, and then come back to you with a recommendation, uh, and just kind of see where that takes us. Um, the possible target that we're looking at is not next school year. Uh, definitely at least the school year after that. U, but, uh, that, uh, concludes my remarks. Uh, any questions?

058>> I went with Dr. Jackson and Dr. Griffin and the delegation that went to United, which we learned is a far ways away. Dr. Jackson and I wrote back together. Um, >> and you drive too fast. I have good insurance. >> But it it was worth noting United ISTD has been doing this for over 30 years and so have some of their surrounding districts and it it does work really well for them. So I'm interested to see how it works in Galina Park and you could tell that when we went and they were presenting to us they said where have y'all been? You know we've been doing this for 30 years. They they were shocked that we were learning about it. So, uh, I think it's going to be a great great initiative just based

059on what I heard from United and I hope that they can send their delegation down here to a presentation to all of our local boards. Thanks. >> Yes. >> Um, I do have questions. Sorry. So, what would >> kind of touch on a little bit, but like could you walk me through what a schedule would look like? Because again, I when I heard this initially, I thought about us doing the orange and white scheduling when we were in school >> learning from junior. I mean, we did it all of our years where alternate days. So what would it look like with our um especially our core classes or language arts and >> so I mean just just like a typical freshman uh they would take English one, algebra 1, uh they would take biology one

060and then they would have one other or two other classes. So they could be in athletics and or they could be in a CT class and they could take the social studies class in the spring. Um, and so, uh, either way, uh, and so one of the great things about this system is that, um, since they are taking the entire they they're taking basically all of English one in the fall. Um, they actually take the STAR test in December. >> Um, and then if they were not successful, we could put them into another English one class then next spring where they're still getting instruction and they take the test again uh, in April. So, they're having two chances to take the test in one year as opposed to just one. Um I I will tell

061you that they're the the United scores are extremely impressive um for what they're doing. Um and they have a lot of great things built into place. So we're really excited to learn from them. We really appreciate the opportunity to go down there. >> And do they stay on grade level? Like so if they if they are successful in the in that semester, are they able to take English too in the spring? they could, but but they they they hold it to the fall because they want to give their kids opportunities to take the test twice if they need to and to get that extra intervention in the spring semester uh for the star tested subjects. But in the other subjects, yes, like you could take biology in the fall and you could take chemistry in

062the spring uh instead of waiting till your sophomore year. Um they have an a very robust um dual enrollment program uh that they're a because they can fit it into the schedule. Right now we can only offer dual enrollment classes the first two periods of the day and the last two periods of the day. That's it. That's one time we can make it work. They have to enrollment all day long. Uh because you basically are moving it to more of a college schedule. >> What's their studenttoteer ratio with that many kids? >> I'm just thinking of things being repetitively taught all the time so that the the student has an option, >> right? So I mean they're they're a pretty typical ratio. I mean depending on the class. I mean that they do some of

063the things that we do as far as like if it's a pre class versus if it's a STAR class, things like that that try to keep the numbers down for different subjects, but I mean it's pretty typical to have anywhere from 20 to 30 depending on what the what the classes >> depend on the topic. Okay. >> Hypothetically someone >> they could. However, >> they have it in a policy. >> Yeah. But they they have it in a policy and there there there are certain classes they hold back. If you just don't allow kids to take English four, then they can't graduate. And so they so some classes they hold back but then also the other thing that they do and that this is something that you know is something to think about. Um they

064actually have much higher graduation requirements. Um in in our system it is 26 to to graduate on the highest plan. Their highest plan in policy is 30 credits. So their students are actually earning four more credits than than the students here because they can. And so I mean it's great to be able to have a higher standard and and make sure that they meet it. And their actual lowest standard is 26. And I asked a lot about that same question that had but there are policies follow this schedule as well. So let's just say we did this in a year or two. You have to kind of go and look at some policies to ensure we don't want all of our kids graduating know after 2 years. We just don't want to do that. I

065don't think any school wants to do that. And so the way that they were able to do that is they created policies in place to sure that kids are doing it plus your 30 credits for graduation sake. >> And and that they also have the ability that they um stu a senior in particular that if they had all their credits and the other requirements they need for graduation that they could have up to three periods off out of the five. And so they have a lot of kids that go to work. They have a lot of kids that uh do a lot more dual enrollment classes, things like that. So they come for the two periods of the day, then they go to the junior college and finish up for the rest afternoon. And so

066there's just a lot of different things you can do in order to keep everyone engaged. I'm also thinking like CTE classes, you know, it gives somebody an opportunity to maybe take accounting. I don't even know if we offer all this, but like if they take accounting one and two is all they can fit in right now. maybe in this scheduling option they maybe could fit in accounting three and four if that's what they see as their >> and I'll tell you one of the other huge benefits is that you know of the 90% that all were CTE completers 60% of that also had more than one IBC in two different fields so right now our kids out you can choose one thing you can be in culinary or you can be in health science you

067definitely can't be in both and you and you can't change your mind here you can finish one and start a new one or you could just say I really would like to take a welding class. I don't want to be a welder, but I want to take intro to welding to see what it's like. We have no room in our schedule for something like that. If you're going to go into welding, you're going to finish welding. Uh and and your ability to change that is is not really possible. And >> I know some of the teachers I've talked to are excited about the fact that they would have longer than >> Yes. You know, they barely have 40 minutes really when you get down to it cuz the classes are what 42 minutes. >> About

06845 minutes. Yeah. >> 45. So by the time you take RO and do all the things and you you're really compressed for time and depending on what you teach, you can't get a science lab in hardly in 40 minutes, you know, in in CTE it would be even more difficult. So >> absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Yeah, I appreciate that. I just love the fact that you outside the box you guys are coming up with these ideas and researching them and it seems like a no-brainer. I'm excited to see future holds. So thank you guys for for being here. If the districts around us are going to do this, in order for us to be competitive, we really need to >> Well, we want to measure 10 times. I'm just saying it's a

069>> but but it's something strongly we need to >> but they have heard me kind of say let's let's take our time so that you know but I'm glad to hear that the board is uh certainly uh warming up to this concept. >> That's perfect. My goal is always and they they get tired of hearing me say this but my team we don't want to be the district that's JCL right Johnny come lately we want to be on the cutting edge of some of this I think this is one of those things that's cutting edge and I think even if we did it a year from now that's we're still ahead of >> oh absolutely >> you know there's 146 districts in this state there's probably five or six districts right now >> right >>

070so we are really on the cutting edge something transform years. >> That's crazy. >> No, I'm just say 30 years. >> Yeah, there were also a 97. >> Thank you, Dr. Bo. >> I'll turn now to item D, TXRL literacy update. >> The door. >> Yes, sir. >> Good evening, President Martin. board of trustees. Dr. Jackson, thank you for the opportunity to share an update about the TXRL, the Texas RES Texas leads grant. We're very proud of this work. Um, we have been working, as you know, just we were one of 16 districts in the state of Texas to receive this this $250,000 grant, and we've been working diligently um across all seven campuses uh to implement this work and to really move, as you know, from balanced literacy to a more science-based u approach

071to structured literacy. So, we're supporting that in all K through three campuses um across the seven. And so, recently, I want to share with you that our TXRL team visited Goose Creek ISD, our neighbor, and then also visited Castlebury ISD. If you don't know where that is, it's in Fort Worth. Um, and so we visited those two and really just learned and collaborated with some great teams there. But what I want to share with you is on January 22nd, you may know this, Miss Crutcher was there um at at Leaport Elementary and we hosted the Texas Reads Texas leads showcase visit and that was a fantastic opportunity to just show what our district is doing and show districts across Texas who came um as well as some of the university partners who prepare students for

072student teaching and things. So, they wanted to see what the things were that we were doing in the classroom. and of course the CA group who's one of our our sponsors who we work with on a regular basis to to support this work. So just wanted to take an opportunity to show you a video um that was prepared so you can get a um sneak peek into that there. Over the past year, our district has been engaged in some very important work in partnership with the Texas Reads Texas Leads initiative focused on strengthening our early literacy instruction through a shift to structured literacy from balanced literacy practices. The shift is grounded in the research um and it's aligned to how students learn to read. In January, we had the wonderful opportunity to open our doors

073at Leaport Elementary to a Texas Reads, Texas Leads showcase. This showcase um brought districts and educators from across the state to our district to see the great progress we are making in this shift. and they are they were there to learn from our journey to engage in meaningful conversations about implementation the challenges that are that are that we're facing um challenges they could anticipate facing as they make the shifts and just watching and seeing and talking about the growth that we're seeing as a result of this change. Most importantly, it allowed our teachers and leaders to shine a positive light on the incredible work happening daily in our classrooms and on our campuses. This work would not be possible without strong partnerships. Um, we are really grateful for the grant support that fuels this effort

074funded through the Moody Foundation, the Charles But Foundation, and the CA group. It's really helped us strengthen our instructional practices and ultimately improving the outcomes for our students. So, we are really honored and grateful to have been a part of this TXRL grant opportunity. teaching literacy and teaching children to read and doing this work in the right way and supporting our teachers along the way is setting our students up for real success. This isn't just about a grant or a new approach or trying to implement something new. It really truly is about ensuring that the way we provide literacy instruction allows every child to leave our classrooms with the skills that they need to thrive with with a strong literacy foundation. Heat. I just want to say a special thank you to first um uh

075principal per um Karen Lawley and her team for hosting the the showcase. Our teachers did an outstanding job and Julie Spears who also heads up that work at Leaport Elementary. And of course Meredith Haladier um she is our district literacy specialist and she is overseeing this grant and doing fantastic work for us. Also want to thank Sam and his team. They did diligent work coming out and videoing and just really capturing all those special moments. So anyway, that's just exciting. I don't know if y'all have any questions about that, Grant. Okay. Yes, sir. You're welcome. I'm here again. Um if that's okay. >> I will turn to House Bill 3 board goals presentation. >> Yes, sir. All right. I appreciate the opportunity again um to all of you to be able to speak to you

076about our House Bill 3 board goals. This will look very familiar. We talked about this in the fall and just wanted to provide you with some updates and some additional recommendations um that we have as as we move through these House Bill 3 board goals. Um this is based on the 60 by30 work in Texas. So by 2030, the state has a requirement that at least 60% of Texans ages 25 to 34 will have a certificate or a degree. And you think about 25 to 34, but we're talking about what happens prior to. We were just talking about early literacy work and then we're talking about Kade was talking about um career and college readiness. And so we want to think about where those students will be as young adults. And so what Texas looks

077at when they think about 60% of our Texans in that age group think about that. Sorry about that. Um is that it really is the future of our economy, our our economic growth and stability in the state. So just looking at our education process. So just in response to this um questions about readiness in K through 12, we're supporting bold actions from higher education, but also this is what led us to these board goals and initiatives of making sure that we're aligned to college and career readiness to be able to achieve this goal. So just a quick overview, um what is required by House Bill 3 is that all school boards in the state must adopt detailed plans to achieve these goals. And there's three areas. Um, early literacy, early math proficiency, and then college

078and career and military readiness. They must be specific and quantifiable. And these annual targets are every 5 years there's a deadline and we have to look at where we are and then set additional deadlines and targets. U each goal um should have one or more progress measures and we certainly do that. Um just a couple of things I want to tell you about is that we have to with you also regularly just review and progress look at our progress that we have reported and so we're going to do that here uh briefly just to revisit some of the things you can tell that this expired in 2025 but we looked at goals from 2021 till then but there have been quite a few changes since then. So I want to just kind of go over

079this first goal in early literacy and just thinking about what it was at that at that stand. So we said 53% of students in 2019 would be proficient. And when we look at proficient when you're thinking about the star results sometimes we talk about approaches meets and masters. So proficiency is at least at meets. Um so um that that is a goal we want to make sure because as we're looking at that we want to make sure students are prepared for as we said the college and career military readiness. um and so to to 65% in 2025. I just wanted to make that very clear um of where that is um just so we understood where that goal was. Um so if we think about our early literacy and where we are and think about

080these timelines as we know um lots of things have taken place here. First of all the star test changed um we we went from star to star 2.0 know and that's whenever the rigorous standards we they up the um expectations for the assessment there was more focus on proficiency and also we had the star test come in remember there was a time when fourth grade and only eighth grade and the um end of course did writing well then every ELA test included writing so there were some some um changes uh to to our testing and as we know during this time between 2019 and 2021 it was very difficult to monitor because they didn't state accountability come out due to CO. So there were some things that caused um a lot of districts to just

081really look back and and analyze like where are we um and so as we as I want to just tell you we clearly you can see we're not really where we need we want to or need to be. Um many districts almost the entire state of Texas took a step back um during this time frame and so um we want to think about where we are with our progress. So, some of the things we've put in place to make sure that we are um going to be on track and that we're looking towards our future goals is I would we were sharing with you the TXRL um the literacy initiative and that partnership that we have with the Moody Foundation and moving our our literature and our um instruction to a structure-based literacy. And so

082that's one of the things that we're doing um so and looking towards how students will perform on STAR test and beyond. The second goal um that again just revisiting this quickly is our early U mathematics proficiency. And the same as I was telling you, you can you you're seeing the data here. Um we're not where we want to be. Um as you can see, our target was 65% um and it was 52%. And so again, that's at the meets expectations. We had many more students hit approaches, but that's at the meets. Um and so we do recognize that early mathematics is certainly a focus. So a couple of things we're looking at to for progress measures as well as to um increase our mathematics achievement. We had the strong foundations um information where we created

083a mathematics framework and we really worked on um moving to the research-based instructional strategies um where students were doing conceptual work they were doing productive struggle and really making sure we were being very structured with our mathematics um instruction. Uh we've also recently I want to make sure you know that we were also recently awarded a grant from TEA and it's called the lasso grant and it it it moved from Strong Foundations we call it now the Lyft Lif and so that is a tremendous grant that's going to help us to have a partnership and to implement our new math curriculum that we will be coming again to you to to talk about for this highquality instructional material um for for our students. and we're just we know this is the right work to increase

084our mathematics um instruction. Okay. Um the third goal just to revisit this one from 2021 to 2025 was our CCMR goal. And as you can tell we were we're very proud um that our students um achieved we did indeed go from the actual percentage of 48% in 2021 to 2025 at 78% of our students. So, we exceeded that target and so we are very excited about that, but we're not ever going to stop and be complacent. So, we want to think about what we need to do to continue pushing that. As Kade said, we have the schools that we visit that that are really achieving great things, and we want to look at how we can we can always get better for our students. Um, okay. And I'm going to go ahead and now move

085to just these updates for 2026 to 2030. Um, as you know, we're going to have additional changes to our assessment. Um, our STAR assessment will will move um, not next year, but the following year to a beginning, middle, and end of year assessment. So, that's going to be very different for us. So, we're keeping that in mind. As well as we're looking at some interim and long range targets for the state and the federal government that we're required to hit for different um, accountability just all students, but also for all of our student groups and looking at how that that is. And I I know this probably won't surprise you, but there are different targets for different groups and also there's different targets for different schools depending on um yes where they fit in. So

086we certainly are keeping all of that in mind when we're setting these goals. Again, we have to look at that 60 by30 that's required by the state. And so we know that also something I wanted to address with you is our CCMR. As we said, it changed before and now it's going to change again. Um, you've probably heard many of you college bridge is like a curriculum that was set up and and it was standardized to be we felt like that was going to have people to be college ready, our students to be college ready. Well, we're no longer allowed to use that is what we're hearing. And so the TSI um the the Texas success initiative is going to be an assessment and and Dr. Griffin addressed that um that our students are going

087to be um required to that's going to be one of the first requirements. So, um, and then there will be some other things, but really though we know we exceeded that progress, we're going to keep looking at setting some new goals for that. Um, just you could take a look as we I I went over those former goals, but what's going to be recommended is that and we really wanted to put this clause at the very beginning of it all at minimum because we're always looking to achieve higher, but at minimum um the new uh literacy goal will be the percent of third grade students who score meets or above on star reading will increase from 56% which was what we did in 2025 to 70% or higher by 2030. As far as early um

088math goals, you you see the former and then at minimum for the recommended, we would like the percent of third grade students that score meets or above on MATA Star math to increase from 52% to 70%. Very similar goals. Again, that's that proficiency level um that we're looking at. And then 26 2030 CCMR outcome goal would be at minimum the percentage of graduates that meet the criteria for CCMR as measured by our accountability system and we thought that was very important to say um we'll increase from 78% to 93%. And we feel like yes that is that seems like a very high goal but we do believe we we're going to continue to work on it. I want to remind you all I I need to say this to you. Our CCMR is called a

089trailing indicator. And so what happened in 2025 will impact us in 2026 accountability. So we really always have to remember that partition. >> So for the CCMR we did. >> Yeah. I think there were some changes. K. Do you want to >> So I I'll tell you that that that um that 78 is not correct. >> Okay. >> It was an 87. >> Okay. Okay. actually went up to >> Well, that helps. Okay. I'm so glad you want to come up here just real quick. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> So, that the number was what was was actually an 87 in 2025, not a not a 78. >> Okay. >> Thanks, Kate. >> Absolutely. >> That's helpful. Thank you for coming up here. >> Yes, please. >> So, >> Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you

090for that. I'm glad you asked that question. Um, as far as progress measures, these are instruments that we will use to measure progress. And you, as we know, we we can't just measure progress at the end. We need to be measuring it all along so that we can make shifts and changes as needed um with our teachers and and just really leading that. So here in kindergarten, they they have been using this, but it's called Circle K or Circle Progress Measure Monitoring. And so they use a system that's very comprehensive for math and um RLA. And so they'll continue using that. um to track that proficiency. And we do have a new instrument for first and second grade. We used to use eye station and eye station became a mirror. And this is um a

091system that really helps students. They talk into a microphone a lot. It it you can listen to the students reading. And so it's got some components that are in real time helping us to make some instructional decisions. And that is new for us this year for early mathematics to progress um to measure and and just really see how our students are doing. Same things uh for circle K progress for the kindergarten. And then for grades one and two, we're going to be using the MAP test. Many districts use this. Um it's a standardized um nationwide test and it measures our students. So students who took it that are in their that are in their age group that took it at the same time. So we can measure our students throughout the nation. >> Yes, that

092that is correct. We have been using it. >> Yes. And we'll continue to use that. As far as our college career military readiness progress measures, um just noting these percentages for meets and masters grade level performance on these these instruments. So grades six, seven, and eight will be star reading and math. And then in 9th grade, we'll have the um end of course exam as we have um the algebra 1 and English one. And then in grades 10 through 12, we'll have a variety of tests for RLA and math which as we're very familiar with these, the SAT, the ACT. You may not be as familiar with the TSIA. Um but that is a readiness indicator as well. And then in 10th through 12th grade, we will have the industrybased certifications, the IBC's um and

093then their CTE course sequence that um Dr. Griffin mentioned. And those are the ways we we will progress monitor our CCMR data. >> That is all I have for you. Is are do you have questions about House Bill 3? Can I have a R? This is a really random question, but it talks about House Bill 3 requires boards to adopt these uh these detailed plans and to help achieve our goals. uh which obviously very important but like I've always wondered what if we over feed okay what happens do they we have special recognition or conversely if we if we don't hit our goals what from the state's perspective what happens >> that's a great question no unfortunately not I think they just allow us to celebrate and um set higher goals >> celebrate ourselves when

094we do we're living with a toddler so we're in the consequence and praising like phase like everything has to be like if you do good you're going to get this if you like >> I now. >> Yeah. And and the as far as like the consequence, it's it's that we would need to um continue to put some plans in place for additional progress monitoring, additional intervention strategies on our own, which we absolutely do um when needed. And so we just continue to do that. Um >> and the other part of that about President Martin is um Angie alluded to it earlier. I've been doing this for a while now. It's a moving target. So before 5 years are up, they will already have given us some more things that we need to do. And so

095I don't think they allow anything to sit long enough for us to see how how we really punch it through. And so it's it's continuous improvement cycle is really what it is right. >> That's what we used to call it long time ago. But it's just trying to continually improve, >> which I just have to praise y'all in general. I I think that even without requirements like this, I know that y'all are looking for constantly looking for ways to improve our student outcomes in general. We don't need them to tell us that, but >> they need to tell us that. So, >> I I do I do appreciate all the hard work that goes into trying to find the things that fit our students needs. >> Yes. >> And then moving with that target and

096trying to just adjust >> for them, >> right? >> Not just because they tell us to. >> That's that's Thank you. Yes. Absolutely. >> Okay. Thank you all so much for You're welcome. All right, guys. We'll go to item eight, consent agenda. A, determine to approve any consent agenda items. B, approve board meeting minutes. Uh, one, regular board meeting minutes, January 13, 2026. C, receive principal reports. One, Early Childhood Center. Two, Behore Elementary. Three, College Park Elementary. Four, Heritage Elementary. Five, Jenny Reed Elementary. Six, Leaport Elementary. Seven, Leo A. Rudo Elementary. Eight, Lommax Elementary. Nine, James H. Baker Sixth Grade Campus. 10, Leaport Junior High. 11, Lomax Junior High. 12, Leaport High School. 13, Violet DeWalt High School. D, receive financial reports for December 2025. E, receive human resources report. F, receive quarterly investment report.

097G, approve annual financial audit engagement letter for year ending June 30th, 2026. H, approve budget amendment. I approve proposal and purchase of property insurance coverage. J approve purchase of special education contracted services. K adopt a resolution number 2026-02 to compensate employees for missed workday due to wintertorm weather. And l consider and take possible action on statutory resolution relating to Senate Bill 11. Vice President, will you please read back the items as read? actually. We had some uh questions on the kind of legal legality of the wording. Uh do you guys want to pull that? Are you okay with leaving the consent? >> Okay. So, Mr. Vice President >> A B C D E F G H I J K L. All right. board. I see a motion for consent items A through L as read.

098>> We have a motion by Trusty Hanks and a second by Trusty Thompson. Uh please vote. All right, unanimous approval. Thank you guys. We'll move now to item nine, action on close session items. We have none. Uh item 10, close comments closing comments of the board of trustees and superintendent. Uh, a attendance at recent district and community events. B, announcement of upcoming district and community events, or C, outstanding performance. Uh, district staff and students, I believe, uh, Trusty Shope, it's your turn tonight. Go first. >> Well, uh, the musical has always been birthday date night for, uh, me and my wife and, uh, it was a week earlier this time and I spent a lot more money taking her to Disney World on her actual birthday. But, uh, the musical was fabulous. Uh, Tevia, I

099texted her. It was was dude was he was on spot. He was he was good. Just enjoyed it. Uh thoroughly. Um can't say anything better about it. Everybody else is going to say their bit about it too, but it was musical was great. That's all I have to say. >> You're right, Russell. Yeah, musical is fantastic. And again, I just sing it praises because of the collaboration and the diversity that's included in that representation is just amazing. Um, and it's it's really fun to watch people that have never seen it before experience it for the first time. Um, because it's different than most High School Musicals for sure, but what a a wonderful tradition. Um, I'm really fascinated by the the 5x5 and our reports heard tonight. I feel like there's a lot of good

100coming and uh continues to see things kind of flourish. So, kudos to everybody involved in that. Uh, spring sports have have uh kicked off. They're everywhere and anywhere. Basketball, softball, baseball, tennis. Um, we've got some very, very talented young people representing community. So, get out and support them. >> Um, so I did get to attend um the um expo at at LP and everybody did a fantastic job. That was such a blessing to be able to go and see witness that. Um I wish that everybody could be in the classrooms with their students and and see um just how well not only how well they're implementing things, but how well the students h are following through and and and doing knowing what to do on it. So it's it's really awesome to see that and

101I know it's going to do a a tremendous um tremendous good for all of them. Um, I also wanted to say, uh, thank you for allowing us tonight for the education foundation to come in and present the grants to the teachers, um, for their many grants. Um, it's a it's a blessing to be able to do that. Um, and, uh, this time of year, hopefully, it's a little pickme up for some of them, but the students are the ones who get to benefit from that. Um, we're going to hopefully see a lot of of great things that they can put in place before testing and, um, everything else. So, um, again, thank you for sharing that time with us today. Um, I know it takes a long time to do that many, but 43 grants,

102that's pretty awesome. So, um, and and just again the student sports, we have a lot of lot of different things going on. Um, right now, soccer, track and field, baseball starting up, um, softball, I saw I saw swim. Is it I mean, I'm just seeing all the things come across and I'm just trying to keep track. I'm like, okay, this calendar is getting full fast. So, um going to try to make it to as much as possible, but know my heart's there. So, everybody just um enjoy your rest rest of your week. >> And of course, the musical was wonderful. I want to say a huge thank you on behalf of Rodney and Tim who work up in the booth for um listening to them and implementing their ideas because while we haven't got all

103the lights up yet, the sound was remarkable this year. Having the big monitors in the lobby was wonderful um for the people that had crying babies or whatever. And the last night we had about six or eight people that we could not sell tickets to. we were simply out of room and so they sat on the nice new benches and watched the video. So that was that was really really nice. And we've been talking about spring sports, but we have not mentioned our bass fishing team. They are out. They they competed this past weekend and while they didn't win, you know, fishing, they call it fishing and not catching for a reason, but um they uh they they caught, but you know, it's one of these things where they they finished right in the middle,

104so they were competitive. And I just think it's so neat that we have that opportunity for our kids >> to be able to do something like that cuz um >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I think that's and it's such a great hobby. It's um it's >> lifelong. >> Yeah, it's a lifelong hobby and it's it's something, you know, great that these kids can do and take with them for the rest of their life. So, I thought that was really neat to see down >> because, you know, I'm getting old and forgetful sometimes. No one laugh. Um I want to congratulate our decathlon team that is going to state. Um just to watch the growth in that over the last I would say five or 6 years has been remarkable and having volunteered as a judge for

105that one time. Those kids really are learning life skills that are going to help them for the rest of their life. So there's lots of spring activities going on for anybody that wants to uh participate or see anything. There's an interest for all of us. I want to give kudos to the early childhood center years ago when the board had this dream of having this as uh something that would help our teachers um something that would help our families in our communities. And there were some masterminds behind this. one of them who is sitting in the room right now and I just want to say when I look at these numbers on these reports I'm sure your principles thinks we don't look at these things but we do um when I look at these and

106I see you know the number of our staff members that are utilizing that it just does my heart so proud that the board had a vision back then that would you know add something to our staff members' lives and in fact those children as they are being prepared for when they become a bulldog themselves. Um, I'm looking forward to the spelling bee tomorrow because I was a spelling bee winner when I was a kid. So, I want to come see how much more difficult it is now. I'm sure it's harder. Um, and I want to say kudos to the Jenny Reed kids who performed tonight cuz that was awesome. >> That was great. >> I mean, you can't start off wrong when you sing deep in the heart of Texas at your meeting, right? You

107know it's going to be good >> with ukulele. Yeah, with the ukulele. That was awesome. That's all I have. >> I've got nothing. >> Nothing. >> Great job, everybody. Y'all said everything, >> man. I I want to say so I just found this a bit a little while ago. It says, "Hopefully everyone has forgotten their New Year's resolutions now because there's a chocolate pie for you in the refrigerator." So, you're welcome board. Uh last month I kind of pitched a joking joking fit about how we didn't get any pies from nutrition department. So nutrition team uh again I I didn't mean to guilt you into it but I also am not going to not take the pie. So thank you for that. We really do appreciate it. Ralph and your team seriously if you guys

108don't eat chocolate pie Mason or whoever I will take that pie so it won't go to waste. >> Um and of course get Ditto. Uh the the musical is something that my family has gone through. I'm 44, I think. I've gone since I was eight or nine, maybe before that. So, it certainly didn't disappoint. Uh, I'm just excited. We hear a lot of positive things. Dr. Jackson is is gotten some special accolades and he's out there promoting the district, um, and doing some really great things. There's a positive buzz, as we said before, around Leaport. So, I'm really excited about that. Um, uh, we got a lot of things going on. I sat through a meeting today, uh, and I want to put this speak it into existence. So, our the Chamber of Commerce gets

109to put on the, uh, the Sil Beach Festival. This is our 70th anniversary. Uh the school district is one of our presenting sponsors. Uh they we do a lot of stuff with the district. Uh one of the things we're most proud of is that we able to in addition to the the scholarship pageant that Melissa and her sister helped uh run for us. Uh we do outstanding students and so we've been doing that where we invite these kids to come up on the stage the day of in front of their their peers and their family. I've convinced my board we want to go we we mean a lot with uh CT Dr. Baker. Um there's a lot of opportunity to kind of pour back into CT. So we would like we're going to go find

110some sponsors for different programs. We're going to figure out what those may be. Maybe robotics or welding or whatever it is and hope some larger donations and we're going to honor these plants or the people that probably will help help with this uh in front of Silven Beach. But our goal is to really help get some of our corporate partners, our members and Leaport Chamber to be able to pour back even more into our CTE. So we're excited for that. >> Dr. Jackson with Jackson. >> Thank you all for everything.