001for the Texas flag to the Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. >> All right, nobody has signed up to speak. So discussion the 2526 budget. >> Okay, got Mr. Stoner here. here. Before we get started, I do kind of want to give recognition to uh TEA came out with a preliminary first report uh rating and we looks like we're going to be a superior rating again. Uh that will come out probably another couple weeks official ratings. So uh anyway, just want to say that our financial ratings uh should be superior in this year. So we'll we'll get that and then we'll have to actually have a hearing over it uh when it comes out. So anyway, just wanted to say that um and thank Jason for what he does. So thanks Jason. >>
002Uh just wanted to started get started with kind of giving you a rundown on what's going on in 2425 uh every month since January. Provided you with a kind of a running tally of where we look to to be at year end. Now we're at about a month away or August 28th will be our final budget amendment. Uh this month I actually put in it's this document here that was in your uh board packet. Uh I actually put in our actual revenues uh this month. So our budget is trending a little bit more than or a little bit better than what we adopted. Right now it's about $930,000 deficit. And that's not as great as maybe we thought it was going to be. But what we're kind of finding out through this process is that
003we've really done a pretty tight job of of narrowing down our expenditures pretty pretty nicely. But what we're finding is we're we're lacking a little bit on the revenue side. And one of the big portions of that is in our delinquent taxes. Uh I gave you a document at your at your station. I put it in the board packet uh yesterday or maybe this morning. We're about $2.1 million in delinquent tax collections for the district. Uh I had talked to uh Purdue and Brandon, a law firm to see what they can do for us. Uh Travis County is one of two counties in the state of Texas, uh it's Travis County and Harris County that don't allow a third party to uh collect taxes to link the taxes uh for an entity. Uh there's been
004some changes potentially in that. uh Logista tried to contract with Purdue Brandon 15 20 years ago and Travis County uh gave us a hard no at that point that they don't do that. They have their own department that does that and collects delinquent tax returns uh for for every entity in Travis County, but some new information has been brought to light and I think we're going to approach Travis County again to see if Purdue Brandon can do that for us at no cost to us for that. Uh, and like I said, there's about $2.1 million out there for us that we've that we've missed out on. The comparable district uh contracts with Purdue that's not obviously in Travis County and uh they collect about a 70 to 80% clip and what that would mean for
005us would be about an additional $170,000 a year in tax collection. So, uh, we're going we're in talks with Purdue to, uh, get a meeting set up with TCAD to see if we can move forward with that. But, uh, that's where we are with that. So, we're, like I said, we're pretty tight on our expenditure side, but now we're going to see what we can do on the revenue side to make sure that we capitalize on every penny that's supposed to be going to us. So, that's that. Uh, now on to 25 26. Uh I've given you quite a few iterations of of the preliminary budget already in terms of objects. This one uh not a whole lot of changes on this one. Uh this goes by object which means payroll, contracted services, supplies, fees
006and dues. I thought today would be a nice sort of visual or uh just clarity on on on your part to see how that falls in terms of functions because that's how a a budget is adopted via functions. So that document is up on the board there. Uh what you will see I try to make it legible for you pretty easily but uh those of you guys in the audience may not see that very well. But what you see is uh many of the expenditure functions like function 11 went up $600,000 and that can be largely attributed to the teacher raise that was mandated by the state. That's a pretty common theme throughout all the different functions. Some teachers like a librarian, they're covered in the uh the the teacher retention or a lotment that
007the the state has provided for us. So there's some raises in each one of those. Uh bottom line there, you can see function 91 is where recapture is. Recapture is considered an expenditure. Uh our recapture cost went down about $3.9 million. And NIS asked about that last week. So just a second. I wanted to give you a quick sort of breakdown on how recaptures uh funded or how we how we calculate that. When you set a budget, first thing that you want to look for is your values. Values drives your tax rate. And once you get your levy, first thing you calculate is your recapture because then what's left is is what goes to uh everything or everybody else. But the the big pieces of information there, our M expenditures are going to go down
008about $3 million. our INS side, the 599, the debt obligations, we've done a pretty solid job of of frontloading a lot of our debt obligation. So, that's actually going down uh next year from about 12 million to about 10 million. And our meeting on the 28th, we'll have another uh defeasence order to be able to pay off debt early. uh we saved the district about $1.7 million in 2425 with our defeasants and we'll be able to do something similar to that uh again in in in 2526 but that more of that information will come on the 28th. So getting to ESI's question uh last meeting about how did our recapture go down $4 million then so this is the slide that that kind of breaks this down. Uh line number one is all the pennies
009that's not ins pennies it's just the golden pennies and the compressed pennies. In 2425, we budgeted about $25.5 million in total golden pennies and compressed pennies. What we were entitled to in 2425 was $14 million. Next year, 2526 based on the values that we've gotten, we're going to collect about $23.2 million. That's because property values in Logista have have decreased about 6%. And then you add on the new homestead exemption and 65 plus exemption and BPP exemptions. So we're actually going to be collecting less next year, but our entitlement is going up. That $2 million increase in entitlement is is going to be funding teacher raises and security grant or security uh bolstering our security accounts. And so they they've given us $2 million extra to to spend. Three is an interesting number. Uh well
010first of all two that that that 14 million or that 16 million 2526 is a fluid number. Kids come in kids don't can kids enroll they transfer attendance rates in February and January sometimes are awful because flu and whatnot. So that number moves all year long. So what we do is we say this is what our enrollment is at 94% and we track that uh annual or all year long. So we're we're guessing that our entitlement in 2526 will be about $16 million. The current budget has about uh 1815 students uh 10 of which would be or 20 of which would be prek. So you you only get funded for half of the prek kids. So 1805 is what our calculated enrollment is, which means our ADA would be 1695 if 1805 times 94%. What
011we're seeing uh with early registration is that our enrollment could be potentially as high as 1861, but we don't know the no-shows yet. Uh so we budget on 1805. Preliminary information says 1861. we could see some fluctuation in our entitlement potentially be going up which would mean our recapture would would go down. So that's our last sort of wild card to play in the next couple weeks as we get those numbers in. Number three, uh that's it's called your local fund assignment, your LFA. That's a T2 value. I'm sure you've heard me say that before. That comes out from the controller. The number that's in front of us comes out from the county. the county and the comproller aren't allowed to talk to one another to to to set that number. So, we're using TCAD's
012number to come up with our LFA, but ultimately we're at the discretion of whatever the controller says and that doesn't come out until January. So, we're sort of just waiting around hope hopefully TCAD and comproller in agreement, but we've had some historical evidence that that that's not always the case. But right now, our LFA, our our local fund assignment is about 21.5 and you do some calculations there, uh you you I mean it's it's all right there. But if we collect 23 or $21.5 million, but you're entitled to 16 million, then it says you got about $5.5 million of excess. But what we're projecting is to only collect 20.5 of compressed pennies. 20.5 million of compressed pennies. Well, that means we can't meet our excess. So, you reduce that 5.5 to 4.5 and that's how
013you get your recapture. So, that calculation is the first thing that we determine when we're when we're setting the budget. And if you look them side by side, you can see how 8.5 budgeted turned into 4.5. Still worth noting that 20% of our tax collection is not for Logistd. Uh 20% is collected. We're the bad guy, but we don't do anything with that money except send it back to the state. Uh, and next week uh we'll send about $8 million back to the state next week, which again talks about the delinquent tax returns. Uh, we uh budgeted to collect about $22.5 million. We're willing to collect probably about $22 million because folks just haven't paid their taxes. Jason, how does how does the UNC you started off talking uncollected taxes? >> How does that if
014at all impact? >> It would impact your your uh short. >> Okay. >> The the short. So when they figure out how much you're shorted that that short is impacted. So >> So it flows through basically. >> Yes, it does flow through. But what is important to note is that in that delinquent tax return, if it's penalty and interest, that's not subject to recapture. If it's gold and pennies, it's not subject to recapture. And then your INS is not subject to recapture. So, we're walking away from money when when those delinquent tax returns don't come in. So, uh 20% this year is going to go back to the state of Texas uh and recapture. But the budget I'm actually I mean never great to adopt a deficit budget at all. But it's a tribute to
015to Tina and Darren and Susie all the work that we've done uh to get it under 2% which gives us a fighting chance to be balanced uh come end of 2526. It's it's pretty pretty solid at this point. The only thing I think that can happen knock on wood is that that recapture number goes down. Uh if we have 20 more kids, it's 20 times the basic allotment, about $6,100. You're talking about $120,000 in reduction or recapture if those kids ultimately show up. So that swings the budget from about 1.9% to about 1.5 1.6%. So again, more of a fighting chance for us to be balanced at the end of the end of the year, which makes the impact on negotiating a balanced budget in 26.7 a little bit more palatable. So that's the budget.
016>> Have you always have the explanation? >> No. >> Thank you for that. >> Yeah. Really, really help better understand where it went. >> Right. >> So, thank you for that. And then thank you for the simple calculations. The 4 - 5 - 2. >> Yeah. So that right the the old algebra teacher in mind. Uh but yeah, that's the that's the budget. Any more questions on that? >> Jason, I just have a question concerning the delinquent tax collection. So, we have 2 million outstanding >> and this law firm has had success in getting 60 to 70. How does that get down to 170 a year and that's 6070 is million2 million forward? >> Yes. So, he uh Sergio Garcia, which is the name of our golfer. Yeah. not the golfer uh was saying that
017he can increase our delinquent turn about $500,000 uh a year over year which would end up which would end up being about 170k or 500,000 over a 3year period which would be about 170k. >> You think you can reduce cuz the 2 million >> by a half million bucks? >> Yeah, I watched him present at Falls and he's impressive. we could have that luxury of being able to utilize that environment. It would be really nice. >> 90% of the school district in the state, they do this, but because of Travis and Harris County have issues. Many schools in Travis County are can do it, you know. So, that's why we're going to go back out and try to open that door up. Help us out a little bit. So, >> well, that is that is
018it. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Just stay up here. >> All right. So, u got that up for you. Uh but like I say, Jason's been working on it. We want to thank him again for all of his hard work. Uh and so basically, guys, we've got to propose the uh the tax rate. Uh we will if you guys approve the tax rate uh we will run it in the paper and then we'll come back on the 28th to approve the tax rate and the budget uh and all that information will be in the uh in the uh ad that will be running good Thursday this week something like that. next Thursday. >> So, uh it's got to run for it's got to be run 10 days >> no more no earlier than 10 days
019before that >> before the actual adoption of the proposed tax rate and budget. So, your August meetings sometimes are limited on when you can have them because of this. So, >> right to get them in the paper and so Jason I'll let you kind of talk. Uh you as a board hopefully remember that that the district doesn't have a whole lot of flexibility in what our tax rate is. Uh TEA sends out a template. The template uh uses TCAD's information and so all we do is we're just the vessel to enter TCAD's information into TEA's site and then it spits out the the MCR, the max compress rate. our max compressed rate is the lesser of 63.88 cents or what was last year. Uh if we were able to use what our values say, our
020tax rate would actually increase. But because it's the lesser of the two numbers, our tax rate does not change. Our tax rate would be 6169 plus the golden pennies that the community has previously approved. So the proposal would be 6969. And then our INS rate again community approved INS rate of 32 cents uh will pay our debt obligation and some defeasance and our tax rate will remain exactly the same. The bottom section is actually pretty guess it's bottom third which is com uh the comparison proposed levy with last year's levy talks about an average home price in Logista uh average go down about $300 per taxpayer. And what's interesting, and I find this extremely frustrating, but because the calculation says our no new revenue is 98 cents or whatever it is, the board has to
021adopt the the tax rate saying that it was an increase 3.2%. And the truth of it is is our tax rate is exactly the same as it was last year and our levy is less. So saying that it's an increase of 3.2 is just >> I will never understand that ever in a million years. very frustrating. >> Just use it to muddy the waters. >> Very frustrating. Makes makes the district for whatever reason look like we're taxing more than than we should. And the truth of it is is we're not >> exact same. >> We're not. It's the same exact tax rate. It's a smaller levy. We're actually our expenses are going about are going down about 10% year-over-year from 2014. We're required to put a ad in whatever paper no one reads. Should we
022put an ad right next to it that explains you just like I'm being serious and not cheating. Like I get that the laws are the laws but it's up to us to educate the constituents that the reality is to your point rates going down levies going down or sorry rates flat levy's going down. >> Right. We did something similar to that when we were trying to pass the bond for this high school. We started publicizing because when you do the the bond language, you know, you basically have to tell them it's increasing. You have to tell them you're increasing their tax rate even though we knew it was going to decrease most people's tax rates about the time, >> but I don't remember what the success rate was for. I'm not against it. >> Good
023point. I've never thought about that to be honest with you. I mean, >> there's no reason why we can't blast something out. I don't know how many people actually even read the paper for these notices anymore. I don't know that I've touched a paper. >> We could send an email out, but my guess is most people that care about this don't have kids in the district, right? So, they're not going to get that email. >> Sure. >> The gist of it is is that House Bill 2 changed the funding formulas from what it was 2425 to 2526. So those funding formulas are changing that are allowing us to keep more of that revenue by our entitlement increasing. Well, our levy is going down. We're able to keep more because the state says we can keep
024more, but then we have to say we're increasing the tax, you know, the the on top of the no new or the the no new revenue rate 3.2%. But ultimately what's I think most important is that your tax rate stays the same and your levy is actually going down $3 million or our levy is going down. >> Jason, does this take into account the vote in November for the increase in >> Yes, it does. 140,000 is already in there, which is what we were told to to do. >> I think it's a good idea we're going to look into. >> I don't see why not. There's nothing wrong with this. It'll be the paper that will determine I mean we can tell them where we want to see if they'll place it there. >> Where
025are we posting this? >> Hill Country News. >> Okay. >> It's about $4,000 less expensive than outrageous. >> It's pretty It's a good paper though. >> It got Marble Falls, Johnson City. >> Well, you'll probably get more readers in that than you would. >> You will. >> Is it cheaper than the seed department? >> Yeah. Last time we've checked it. And there's certain guidelines that the paper has to be published so many times a week. >> Yeah. >> For it to be elder for tax rate proposal. >> But all the preliminary budgets that you've seen today are based on the proposed tax rate that basically TEA is holding us to. Like I said, TEA released that on August 5th said our MCR was 6169. That's the proposal that uh sending you. So guys, it's our
026recommendation to propose a tax rate of uh M at a 6969 with an INS uh rate of 32 for a total of $11.69 uh dollars per uh per 100. >> So moved. >> Rich made the motion. >> A second. >> Journal seconded. Any additional comments, discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppos. Okay. Thanks, Jason. >> Thank you, Jason. Uh, call for November board election. >> Okay. So, we have uh three places that are up for uh for the November election. Uh those will be places uh 1, 2, and three. And like I said, the the election will be um in November. Uh at this time we uh we do have uh uh three people have uh signed up, one for each spot at this point and but we do
027need to still call for the election. If for some reason we don't have contested positions, we will cancel the election. I believe the last day to sign up is the 18th of August. And so uh we you know so right now we do have a candidate for each position or each place right now. So, we'll need to call for the election. I'll need a motion for that. >> Need a motion to call for the November election. >> I move that we call for the November election. >> I second. >> Greg made the motion. David seconded. Any comments, questions? All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> Uh 2526 student code of conduct. >> Okay. Got Dr. W. Want to thank her for working uh many hours to put that together. We did not
028get that from uh I guess from TASBY until last week and so putting that together uh takes a lot of time. You have to reference a lot of that to uh policy. So I'll let Susie uh give any highlights the details. >> Um I sent you two versions. The second version I went ahead and just highlighted some of the changes. I'll give sort of the big overview. So legislative years are fun for handbooks, right? Um student code of conduct does have some fairly significant changes. uh resulting from House Bill 6. So um you know bird's eye view um one of the bigger changes is the length of placements and the allowability for suspensions. So uh 2017 uh kids uh third grade and below it was you know prohibited to to suspend that's been that's been
029removed. Um it was also made at that time unallowable for students experiencing homelessness to be suspended. That's been removed. Um the time limit for placement ISS has been extended from 3 to 10 days. Um so that's fairly significant. Um we've also added a section for House Bill 1481. Um talking about uh the cell phone policy. Um uh there is now the allowance for parents to request a behavioral agreement for students placed in DAP to have their sentences uh reduced. you know, um, which is something that we have had in practice, but now it's something that all schools can should can have to do. Um, uh, there's also an allowance for parent request of an alternate assignment for OSS if a student does not have appropriate supervision at home. So, they a parent can request an
030alternate assignment for that. Um, there is an allowance now for a virtual expulsion program, uh, which is also new. Um it also moved title five felonies under under uh discretionary expulsion given certain certain circumstances. Um there is we did also add um information about adding unauthorized use of AI um as something for which a student can be uh can receive discipline. Um there's a reduction for firsttime offenses for vaping. So, if you remember in the 88th legislative session, um any vaping became a mandatory DAP placement. At this point, that's been moved to discretionary. However, for the first offense, if you if a student is not placed in DAP, they must receive a minimum of 10 days of ISS. Um, so not a significant change, you know, here, but in a larger district, they would have
031the option to remain an ISS on their campus versus going to, um, you know, an off-site DAP. So, um, >> that's on the campus administr. I'm sorry, that's strictly up to >> that's campus behavior coordinator. Yes, I would say I will say that that that allowance is there. Generally speaking, what we've discussed as a district is is staying the course. >> Okay. that because that's what I was curious about is that how much latitude were we actually >> it's so it's it's a discretionary placement but we can determine as a district that we are going to discretionarily place students for vapes um we've seen a massive reduction in that in in that in general at both campuses and so right now we're personally not seeing I think it was really done to alleviate some of
032the overcrowding in some of the larger districts right and their DAPs um and so for us we we're not experiencing that. It's been a generally positive impact on on that issue on the campuses and so we do have the allowance to to scale back on that but the discussion has been to stay the course. >> Thank you. >> That's all I have. I'm happy to answer questions. I know there's it's a lot of >> highlights a whole bunch. >> Very fun weekend reading, right? But yes, >> I do have a couple. So the the parental involvement, can you clarify that a little bit more? What does that mean? >> It makes it permissive for parents in a couple of instances to ask for um like a reduced sentence for DAP. So that has been something
033that we've generally allowed. Um not all schools allow that, right? So now because of House Bill 6, all schools will have the ability. So all parents across the state will have the opportunity to request like a an behavior agreement basically like for good behavior. Right? If I show up to DAP all of my days on time, wearing what I'm supposed to wear, doing my work, not getting into any trouble, I would have the opportunity to negotiate um a lesser sentence essentially. >> And we have allowed that in the past. >> We we have. Okay. >> Yes. So that's not necessarily new for us, but it is it is new for >> so is that correct? >> Correct. That's not anything new for us. >> And then former formal teacher removal. >> Yes. >> What was
034the policy before this? >> So we've had formal teacher removal. What this really does is um makes it a more prescriptive process for the return of the student and outlines more specifically the reasons for the uh for the teacher removal. So that that has existed. Um, it is a little bit better defined in the student code of conduct than in legislation. Um, but that's not anything new necessarily. >> The way I read it is it could be a oneoff instructor. >> Correct. >> You can get them out. >> It could Yes, it could look that way. Now, the return process does um uh initially prescribe the teacher's consent, but there is an allowance for a plan to be in place if the teacher doesn't consent. Because in some cases where you don't have another place
035to put that person, you know, that does occur like, you know, particularly in smaller districts, right, there's only one person who teaches this class, right? And so if that's it's either that or don't graduate, right? So it does allow for um a plan to be in place should the teacher not be in favor of the return. >> So I understand that there's a lot of overhead to go with who would be, where does it go, what do you do, and so on so forth. But do you believe our teachers are enabled and supported to do this? Say if they're being disruptive, you're out. >> I mean, I would say they are. We haven't seen it. >> Okay. >> Because I feel like this is a good disciplinary measure that could be executed. Texas law is
036saying this is what it is. So why not enable facilitate our teachers letting them know if you're having problems why not >> yeah I mean this is fairly new information at least on the the broadening this ability right um it had to be for it wasn't just for a one time offense that's really the big difference in the new legislation >> just viol >> right so it needed to be a fairly high level and ongoing issue you know like um uh and that's no longer the case. Um, this will definitely require having some additional conversations with teachers um to let them know. Um, >> okay. And then finally, the emergency expulsions. Can you explain that a little bit more? >> Just our ability to to conduct an emergency expulsion. >> Well, it was highlighted all
037in yellow and I thought that that was you. Of course, I'm offline. So, hold on. Give me a second. No worries. We can talk offline. That was just the last one. >> Yeah. I mean, I'm >> So, I didn't know if it was new policy or has it been there or is it >> I'm trying to get to >> what changed >> to emerald? >> Oh, just that the the part that's new is that it may be ordered based on a single incident. >> Single incident. So there's a couple of things that have just been that you needed to have persistent misbehavior for and now it's it's no longer required that you have persistent misbehavior. It can be one one event that is um high high enough level that the that the campus behavior coordinator
038can determine that an expulsion order is needed. >> Awesome. And again, there's now a virtual option. That's something as a district we'll have to investigate. Um, right now, as I understand it, JJ for us is not virtual, but my guess is that that allowance will will trickle down for Travis County. >> Yeah. >> Along those lines of that particular a disruptive kid that doesn't apply to any special education or 504 because the only time I've heard of disruptive behavior in the classroom has been a violent. So, we are always going to have to make sure that our federally protected plans are in place and if we have behavior intervention plans like these are going to be something that we're going to have to monitor for our students in receiving special services because uh there are
039requirements that a student who's out of placement for 10 days have a manifestation determination to determine is this behavior a manifestation of the student's disability. Right? That that hasn't changed. That's federal. And so that's something that you know we've had a discussion already like prelim preliminarily on the campuses is that you know that student's still out of placement in these settings right and so you know that that doesn't change the rules for special education students will still have to have those mandatory meetings to determine if it's a manifestation I suspect there will be more of them. >> That's the only time I've ever heard of disruptive disruptive behavior in the classroom to the level of a teacher wanting to >> correct. So if that student has a behavior intervention plan, that federally protected plan is
040is the first thing we're going to look at. >> Does placement in ISS result in expulsion or um temporary lack of participation in extracurricular activities? >> Yes. When they're in ISS, >> they're in ISS, they're they basically come to school and that's it. >> Depending Well, depending on the activity, but yes, they're not they're not participating in anything while they're in ISS. was depending on the I'm sorry there was a debate going on. I was because I thought that ISS was they got kicked out of their athletic well if they're in band um you know I don't know that I think they're the extracurricular part so they're not necessarily removed out of the class right so >> but they march in that Friday night >> if they're in ISS they don't >> they go to
041the class but not >> yeah I mean when they're back well if they're in ISS they're going to >> yeah but like the question is are they returned right and so in some cases they would be returned depending but some Some have, you know, their code of conduct for the particular activity does not allow >> benches or something. Usually it's a >> well yeah there's it's a good point. There's an athletic code and the band has their code and theater chair. >> Y >> on the um the behavior coordinator was like single was an addition. So >> is that adding workload to particular staff members or how are we dealing with that? >> For us we have one anyway now. Um, so in the past you were allowed to split that amongst usually it's an
042assistant principal if you have one, right? Um, in the past you were allowed to split that by alpha. Um, that's no longer allowed. So every school, if you're a giant 6A school that has eight assistant principles, one of them is going to have to be technically the um, behavior coordinator. They can still coordinate with other, you know, administrators, but somebody has to be the name on the website. >> So in our situation, it's per camp. We only have one at each of our campus campuses. >> We have one behavior. >> Yeah. So, it's the assistant principal. >> It's the assistant principal except for intermediate, which is the principal. Yeah. >> Yep. Okay. >> Um maybe a couple comments, but they're not questions. Um, everyone's working hard. I spent a lot of time on campus tonight.
043I think it's important that we remind our staff and faculty that it is absolutely unfair to expect our students to uphold the dress code that they're not will end up upholding. It has to be democratized and I think we need to make sure that nothing falls through the loops or falls through the cracks and that we are even more strict with our staff. It's not the hard dress code. Secondly, same thing with the cell phones. I know I brought this up earlier. If our kids are putting cell phones in a bag, our staff's not required to do the same, but let's make sure that they're not on it because it will cause a massive rift between >> inmates. We had that conversation. >> We had that conversation last week. >> Conversation is great. I just
044want to make sure it's really clear at least from my perspective. >> And then the last one, I know >> I think I heard it good over here. I don't agree with the statement. >> Our version of AI is kicking a can down the road. In fact, I'm in the private sector and the staff that can figure out how to utilize AI to accelerate their input and output and be more productive are the ones getting promoted and the ones that will have my job and I'll be working for in the future. So, I think we should think through a curriculum in the future that teaches our kids how to use AI to be productive in learning rather than making it a bad thing that we're just like like trying to find ways to tell them
045they can't use it. >> Well, and we talked about this. There are places where it certainly has a place. We don't want to isolate them from a technology that will be a part of their lives, right? Like we understand that this is part of their reality and making sure they understand when and how to use it. What we don't want is for students to not know how to write coherent on their own without >> and I don't want to have to debate here because we're not going to grade. So you have your opinion. I've read everything you gave back to me around the the student code of conduct and the grading thing. I think there's a lot of ambiguity still there and that ambiguity is going to fall on the side of the teacher who
046doesn't like what the kid did. In reality, I think nine times or six times out of ten that kid should be applauded for using technology to uh accomplish the task at hand. And I think we can disagree and I think we are disagreeing, right? >> Uh I think a curriculum of a school district that figures out how to teach our kids to use this technology are the ones that are going to get jobs because the ones that don't are going to be replaced by AI. And that's just my opinion. I think there's plenty of data that would suggest that's actually getting close to fact in some sectors. But I think it's it's here. >> It's here. >> And candly, our kids, I've watched it are figuring out how to circumvent the teachers ability to understand
047whether it was AI or not. So let's embrace it and include it in the curriculum rather than make it an aversive position. Okay. >> Oh, last point I think saying are we do the kids sign it? Like we have a new code of conduct. Do the kids have to sign it? Do the parents sign it? parent. So, it's in their registration paper and we'll send it out. And basically, the parents say, "I understand that I'm responsible for accessing the the student code of conduct in the student handbook and reading it and following it." >> Good. I think a highlighted version would be massively helpful because as a parent is to make sure that you read and understand. Yeah. Like here's the stuff that changed. Of >> course, I'm going to keep in the district for
04810 years. I read it. Of course, I get it. But you get a new version with a bunch of highlighted sections. I'm going to read the highlighted section. Okay. To understand and then you know understand. >> Yes. >> And we approve the code of conduct code of conduct is present. >> Second. >> Okay. >> Any additional comments or questions? >> All those in favor say I. I >> so hope. >> Okay. >> Let's be positive. >> Yeah. Uh this is a short update compared to what's over about to hit us in the next couple of months. Uh our administrative team has read through these. They're they're uh you know pretty much all uh TASBY. Well, they are TASBY approved. Sometimes I question you know why are they changing some things? They're they're just adding a
049word here and there. Uh but I'm sure there's a reason why. Uh the only I guess thing that we want to look at are board committees. Uh you know, not that we have a lot of committees. Uh we have developed a couple over the years. We've kind of followed this same process, but just wanted you to be aware. I've looked at I think it's a process that we could certainly use. Uh and that's BDB local. Um guy talks about you know how many members could be on the committee the process of uh uh appointing the committee uh the term of committee members and then responsibilities. So, um I think this is something we've pretty much done uh in the last couple of years when we've uh developed different committees. And so, it's my recommendation that
050we approve uh update 125 as presented unless you want to discuss DBD uh a little bit more in detail. >> Any comments or questions? >> I don't have any comments. >> I mean, have we really had any board committees? Most of our communities have been advisory committee members. >> Well, uh yeah, I mean I guess you could say advisory >> right like so they're definitely called out differently in the in the policies. >> One is board members only. >> Well, true. True. I guess well I guess it would be the strategic plan. That's the only one we had and that was how long ago? Four or five years ago. So you're right on the other one was including community community members. So, >> oh, just a difference between board committees and advisory, >> right? >>
051Okay. >> But that's the only one that I thought you might want to look at. >> Does anybody have any comments or questions? >> I don't need a motion to approve. >> I move that we approve the tent policy as presented. >> Greg made the motion. >> I'll second. >> Richard seconded. Any additional comments or questions? All those in favor say I. I >> opposed. No. 4 facility. >> Okay. So, uh this is something we approve every year. Um we uh 4 organizations go to all school districts in the state to to to ask for this. Uh basically it's just asking that uh any child that may participate in a local 4 that um that if they are attending some type of livestock show or something that it be counted just like a school related
052activity uh an SR and so they would be excused just like if they were gone on an a judging or a uh showing contest or athletics or whatever the case may be. Um, and so like to get that approved and then they've also got uh all the names that possibly could be a part of the 4 or are who those kids could be with. And so like I say, this is approved each year. And guys, I don't know if we've we if we've had anyone the last few years that have been a part of the 4 miss to be I haven't I'm not aware of any, but just in case that we do have some kids that are in 4, I'd like to get this approved. job. >> Can I ask an off the record
053question about 4. When did that start? What age group? >> Somebody in my office is wanting to enroll their child and I honestly I was in 4 and I was probably >> I was I'm just going to look >> probably six, seven, eight years old, something like that. >> Okay, I'll let her know. I honestly had no idea. Fourth grade. Fourth grade junior. So nine. Oh, >> that's awesome. Okay, I'll let her do it. All right, started. Uh just looking for >> I'll move to approve. >> Gerald made the motion. >> Second. >> ESI seconded. >> Any additional questions or comments? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> Motion carry 70. No. >> Okay. >> The IQS contract. >> Okay. Uh this will be our uh a third amendment uh with
054with IQS. Uh want to uh say they are uh if you've been out in the high school or been on campus, you can see uh what our floors are looking like. Probably the best uh our floors have looked in in a number of years. They look good last year, but I think they really topped themselves this year. Uh IQS has done us a good job. Not that they, you know, we had had some hiccups here and there. Uh, but I will say that uh we do get personal service. Uh, the the the owners uh David and and then his um vice president Edward are probably on our campus at least two three times a month if not more. Uh they do check in with us. If I'm not here, they'll check in with one of
055the the other uh administrators just to check. They check with the principles every time they come in. I've been very pleased with uh with their responsiveness and and their work. uh matter uh and so I just would like to uh recommend for u another year with IQS uh the contract does talk uh state uh it will increase by 2 and a.5% and uh Jason was going to give a what is it quarter a raise for their workers u and so I would like to recommend IQs for uh the third amendment of this contract >> do we go out for any other bid It's a 5 year contract. >> Yes, we did three four years uh years ago and we had uh air west and I >> think so did one more >> that that was
056my big stickler thing was going out. >> So this is a continuation for that five years. >> Isn't this a five year that started in 22 correct? >> Yes. So we're just looking at it continuation but yes that is at the end of that 5 years. I think the last time we went out we had hardly >> that was the bus. >> We only had air mark. >> Did you not go out for this? >> We did. >> Yeah, we did. >> Yeah, I think there was a third one that wasn't very >> We had a hard time getting people to want to come out here and stuff cuz I was the same way kind of a stickler about >> and the transportation is even less. >> But uh we went out for Gold Star.
057We went back out. We had gold star and basically limousine service that had buses. It wasn't I mean it was pretty long. >> I still suggest we do it. I actually thought every 3 years was better every 5 years but I mean it's >> a process. >> I have a I I have a question my ignorance. But >> do do they clean up those stands after football games? >> They do come out. Uh it's kind of between them and and our maintenance staff. They'll the maintenance staff takes the the big garbage cans cuz takes trucks and things. They come up and clean the press box and but it's not till Monday. So, >> but do they do the bleachers? >> Our bleachers part of that. >> Our maintenance does the bleachers. So, >> okay. >>
058But they do clean the concession stand bathrooms and and all that. So, and do clean the press box. They do help pick up I would say that. Okay. >> Yeah, I think they do help. I just was wondering I can't remember if that I read that original contract. I don't remember if that was even a part of it was for them to do that. I don't believe so. >> I I guess my point is on this is that I don't know. I mean, of course, after windtorms and stuff, if they don't get clean till Monday, I mean, our campus is completely literally just trash. >> Well, it goes back to David Scott's old thing about police area. area students students to think about. >> No, I couldn't agree more. I I I do think that
059we should probably put some emphasis on that. >> Yeah. >> And I have suggestions that I'd like to take offline about that. >> Okay. >> So, the um the contract in the packet is the same approved. >> This is just the amendment to extend, right? >> It's not the full contract. And I I don't want to cause a problem or it's not. I I read the criminal history clause and I don't love it. So somebody that's a has a felony offense of the victim was under 18 31 years ago be allowed to be a custodian here. I think that time out is forever. >> I think it is too. But ours doesn't even go back that far. a regular standard criminal history background check look for sexual predators and stuff. Even the standard doesn't go
060back. >> But we have the ability to make a change here. >> No. >> And I think and I and it's it's it's not confusing. It's referencing CJ. So I I try to look at that which is also kind of referencing. It's not necessarily a circular reference but it's not super clear. Um, and those convictions are um specific to only when the victim was under 18 or an active suit. >> Okay, I can I can hear that. >> Uh, the contract states that the the conviction is only pertinent if it was uh related to a victim under 18 or that was enrolled in a public school. So, whatever. An 18-year-old private school student, fair game. Uh, a 21-year-old university student, fair game. I just think um when we have an opportunity to be really explicit
061about keeping any potential problems off this campus, we should jump at the opportunity. We have an opportunity for this class. >> Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. >> Okay. So what? >> There is no room just zero restricted and convicted strike sexual crime to be on our campus as an employee >> certainly a contract my >> So you you y'all are wanting any conviction? >> No, I this might need to be worshiped. I don't know if you want to do it here. I just think >> obviously not every crime is created equal, right? One of the sexual nature I think is egregious for sure. >> Um, one that involves I mean the fact that we put this 18-year-old public school delineation I think just opens up a little too many doors for >> I don't disagree.
062I agree with you. >> Continuing exposure, right? So someone that's comes in just a because they're covering for somebody and gets a one-time shot to come cover for the regular isn't subject to this because they don't have to continue. I mean, it just seems like there's >> protection. We've done the research on some other problems we've had, right? Become familiar with this. Predators look for these little >> openings. We should both ever sing. >> They're registered sex offenders. It will pick them up regardless of how long. I get your point. But it's homicide, kidnapping, assault, sexual assault, offenses against children, elderly, and disabled, family offenses, and offenses against the person. That's title five. That's said referred to all title five. I tell Kevin, call me. We'll talk. Okay. And then, uh, like I say, you
063know, David, the owner, I I know he'll certainly work with us. Uh, like I say, he's been on the board. Uh, so he had certainly understand kind of where we're coming from. So, >> yeah, cuz it kind of contradicts itself because it says felony offense under title 5 and that says children. Yeah. >> Specifically, it doesn't start saying under 18 or over 18 or it, you know, sexual abuse of any kind. It doesn't have a age or limitation on it >> or children legally denoted under 18. >> Yes. But I know I'm saying that it says sexual assault of any any kind, right, >> in another the title five. >> All right. Can I'll reach out to you later. >> Well, to more to that point, I guess it's important for us to look at
064that CJA legal and our local policy and what it says about other contractors. Do we have anything about >> Yeah. So, I mean I I read this differently. So um I mean the the legal policy says that if they would not be able to if it would prevent a person from being employed under education code that it should it should they may not permit a person providing services to to provide them for us either and they have to be fingerprinted too. Right. >> So, um and that they anybody with any kind of conviction, um u they have to give advanced notice to us if they have any felony convictions at all, even if it's not a disqualifying one. So, um but I mean it certainly bears, you know, >> I would argue with our attorney.
065>> Yeah. I mean, the simple might be to really make it clear and just reference CJA and don't put any other stipulation in the contract. Just reference the legal and make sure the legal is up to date. >> Okay. Yeah. All right. I'll give Dave know and then we'll we'll get it out. >> Okay. >> So, what do you want to do with that? >> Um, can't we get approved it pending language review or language revision? >> Approve it pending. >> Pending language review. >> Yeah, I mean, we can do that. >> I need a motion. I'll make the motion to approve um the IQS contract pending legal revision. >> Greg made the motion. >> Pardon me. Language revision. I don't say legal revision. >> Second language. >> Kevin second. >> Okay. >> Language revision
066of number 12, criminal history. >> Okay. That was Kevin. >> Kevin second. Any additional comments, concerns, questions? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> Okay. >> Uh, PCAT. >> Okay. Uh, Mr. Ster, if you want to provide a little update on that. >> Sure. >> Wow. You've been mainstage. >> Yeah. Uh, last year, well, let's go back to 2019 2020, our uh, property casualty contribution was $77,000. Uh last year in 2425 our contribution was $537,000. Uh the reason for the increases that have been so significant is that underwriters were not finding any margins to make any money uh in in property and casualty business since the rates have increased so much over the course of the last four or five years. More underwriters are falling back into the business which
067is making it more competitive. Therefore, this year is the first year since I've been doing this that there's been zero uh impact to our budget from one year to the next in property and capital insurance uh actually went down about 6% uh but because we have buses coming online in the next few months and because the intermediate uh renovation will be concluded in a week, there'll be some additional property coming on. So, uh, we're going to keep the budget the same and then have the cushion to to fulfill, uh, some of these new additions as they come online in school year 256. There's also some language uh that's still being interpreted regarding uh exposure to school districts uh when there's a employee that has some deviant behavior happening and they're not quite sure how that's
068going to be covered yet, but been assured by Walker from Shurika that that exposure would not uh increase our budget any more than than what it is. So, it's actually pretty great news cuz I was anticipating it to be >> another 10% based on buyers and forests, >> but what we're seeing is that margins are becoming more profitable for underriders to get in regardless of natural occurrences. >> So, uh it would be budget neutral for school year 2526. >> And I kind of gave that definition house 4623 in your board notes. I didn't hear anything. Sorry. >> I said uh kind of related to that uh what Jason was talking about the liability uh for public schools or uh you know any type of misconduct by our by our teachers or whatever. And that's referenced
069in House Bill 4623 in your board notes. >> But overall that's pretty pretty great news. >> Yeah. up 50 60 $70,000 a year for the last two or three years and to see that went down 6% is great. >> It is nice. >> Does our insurance provide for or do how do we monitor cell phone usage in district vehicles? How do we moni how do we me will our will we get any is there any consideration given for some way being able to identify if I mean in the event that there is an accident obviously I'm sure there's investigation as I have a brother that's got a large fleet his company's got a large fleet they have a system that tracks distracted driving cell phone usage all that and then the fact is is they
070had to put a policy in place that basically They said, "Okay, here points go bases. First offense, this if you get so many, it's actually cuz these guys are in vehicles all day long, they could either be terminated, >> which coaches driving buses, too." >> Well, I mean, I understand that, but the thing is is that we all I mean, we see it every day, but somebody's driving, it's just like, oh, I'm checking a text message while I'm driving or something like that. >> I mean, that exposes us to huge liability. But is there any what is our policy as far as do we have a specific policy that addresses that for people that are driving district vehicles? >> I don't know the specificity for that. I can double check or >> Yeah. I don't
071think we have a specific policy. There's like two, right? There's the gold star probably has a policy for buses. >> Yeah. >> I'm actually more interested in >> the Suburban. >> Oh, yeah. Suburbans are buses for for coaches driving. >> Yeah. >> As a I mean, I just think it's something that we got to take seriously. >> Not a bad added service in our policy. >> I just think that's something if we don't have one, I think that we should revisit it from the standpoint is is that hey, I'm the driver. >> Yeah, >> there's a bag there. Your your phone goes. I mean, realistically, you think about it, we just need to do what we can to protect our kids and protect our staff, too. Yeah, >> our discussion with staff at least during
072orientation is that they are any immunity that they would have as a professional is gone if they're acting with gross negligence. And so something like that would would likely fall under gross negligence. You are being negligent of living your duties of driving safely. So they that is something that we at least clarify with staff is that any immunity that you enjoy as a professional does not does not stand up to gross negligence. >> Okay. But I just I just thought I would look at it because especially motors that one. >> Okay. I mean, so Dave, I love that you brought it up. >> Is this an administrative question or a board question? It's a policy. [Music] >> Like I run around telling everybody we got three jobs. Hire, fire, manage the superintendent, set the tax
073rate, prove the budget, approve the budget, sorry, and set policy. >> Right. >> So I guess the question is is that is there a policy in place? And if not then what do we need to do to set the direction overall as >> we don't have a leg we don't have a local policy we do have a legal policy that's that's written that's statue based right so that's for anybody's interested is DGC >> okay >> that's that talks about immunity but that specifies that immunity for in from individual liability and then again that that's that statute uh specifically related to no waiver in the instance of gross negligence But y'all talking more specific? >> I think we need to have a specific policy that addresses vehicle staff members in district vehicles because they transport kids.
074We have we have special ed people that drive >> district vehicles to pick up students, >> right? So, I think that we need to specifically I would I think we need to have a policy that specifically addresses what we're what our what our staff is doing in specifically with cell phone usage. >> And I mean, gross negligence obviously is then, but if you get into gross negligence, then we're way beyond >> we're way beyond what I what I'm trying to prevent. So, and with our insurance rates the way they are, that's all we need is to ding up a couple of Suburbans or a bus or something because somebody wasn't paying attention. So, >> can you make recommendation? >> Can we visit dispense? >> Regular board meeting. >> I can bring back some regular board
075meeting or >> regular board meeting. Not one. Uh, and I just wonder is it do we need to think about a cell phone policy >> or just particular to driving, right? like let's just get through the first couple weeks of school >> and you know take that information over here from students on the ground and scout on the ground and come back. I think it's a really good point. Then we do some pre-work with that might look like. >> Okay. >> So we're still approving the the the PC. Well, I'll move the motion that we approve the PCA rental as presented. >> Craig made the motion. >> I'll second. >> David seconded. Any additional comments, questions? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed seven. >> Okay. Next, we'll need to >> appraisal
076system and appraisal calendar. >> We need to approve the appraisal system uh or appraisers and then appraisal calendar. I'll let uh Miss Plus talk about that and uh I will say we don't have any additional new appraisers, but I'll let her talk about the calendar. >> Yes. Um we do not have the additional appraisers. This looks exactly like it did last year in terms of who is appraising with the exception of taking David Hills and Tanker off. Um so all of our appraisers have been through our appraisal system uh which was revamped last year for a full year. Um, as a reminder, last year we shifted to an appraisal system that is still local, but that is heavily based on the test rubric um and the test structure, but staying local allows us some flexibility
077with the dates. Um we align our dates um less aligned to the specific structure of tests and a little bit more based on our academic calendar to allow our appraisers and our teachers time to complete the appraisal process and uh conferences required. So um that really is all I have to say about the appraisal system. We do need to approve our appraisal system yearly um because it is local. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer those. >> Need a motion to approve. >> I'll move to approve. >> Cheryl made the motion. >> I'll second. >> Richley seconded. >> Any comments or questions? All those in favor say I. >> I. I. opposed 60. >> Before you move on, Mr. I was gonna say under because I just talked to him the other day.
078Mr. Le, um I would like to add that um I wanted to give you an update on our TIA um expansion application has been approved for the 2526 school year. We will be um recommending um teachers for designations in October for the previous school year. We will not find out whether we pass data validation until the this spring um and would inform the teachers prior to the end of the school year at which time they would start receiving um increased um a lotments I mean increased salary for their designations about this time next year. Um our expansion application is based on map growth testing um the additional uh tested areas in K through 12. >> Awesome. So I assume you're talking about teacher incentive provider. So we went to SLI, one of the districts came
079and communicated a blanket type of anyone can join and do it and try to get as much money as we can. But my understanding is if you do that, there's a high risk of not getting approved. And if you if one doesn't get approved, >> no one gets approved. Right. >> It's all or nothing. So you're either able to do it or not. So if you don't pass data validation or Yeah. then >> So we're being very strategical with regards to >> we started small. >> Yes. We started with what we felt we could get approved and it did. Um and so the data validation piece is is sort of the the big hurdle at this point. And so passing data data validation um will be a really good um milestone in this process. But
080yes, I mean, so you run the risk of if you start really broadly and you don't pass data validation, then you've wasted not wasted, but you know, you're it's a very it's a three-year process to put into place. So, you try very hard not to mess up any of those years cuz you're push the whole thing back. So, um, we feel pretty confident. Um, >> so what does the what does the phase look like now? The small group first, right? >> Bigger, get bigger. >> Yeah. So the first is just the grade levels that have a a growth measure on STAR um in English and math. So fairly small number um and so our expansion application is for anything that is tested math NWA um in EL or mathematics. So it's basically K12 in English
081and K 10 or 11 >> algebra 2. >> K algebra 2. So for me it would have been 11th grade probably but we got for some of them it might be 8th grade. >> Okay. >> Yeah there there are some abilities to even go further than that but you really want to look at vendor based vendor based assessments tend to have more validity. So if you're dealing with measures that don't that don't have that that high internal validity, you run the risk of not passing data validation. And I'll say we were strategic in not uh having the first year of MAP growth roll out last year so that our teachers and our students um could feel more comfortable with the assessment so that as we roll into this year we've worked out all of the
082kinks and the bugs and we feel strongly that we can use this as um a growth measure that we start with. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Well, we'll move on to uh Miss Pos's going to provide a little update on uh teaching and learning and so we got a uh one here. So, um I'll go ahead. >> I will go ahead. Teachers are running on fumes right now and so am I uh because this is busy time for all of us. So, if you'll excuse the brain fog and the sun blaring in our eyes, um we have had a really great start to the school year. Um, we had new employee orientation in here a week and a half ago. It seems like ages at this point because so much has happened in this short time
083frame, but um, we had actually 3 days of human employee orientation. Day one was mostly led by Dr. Loftton um, introductions, HR guidelines, policies. On day two, I spent the morning with all of our new staff um, helping them access our district curriculum. Um and in the afternoon we had appraisal training and on day three they spent their day on campuses with their mentors also digging into their resources and curriculum. I wanted to just point out that we welcomed about 43 new staff last week and a half ago. Um that what what was eye opening to me was I asked them to form a line based on years of experience across this room. So those 43 individuals were from 0 to 38 years of experience. Pretty awesome. The midpoint was 18 years. And so we
084have amazing new staff coming to us with lots of experience. What I'd add to that is a lot of people in the zero end. They were our educational aids, right? So, if you're looking solely at our teaching staff, the years of experience, the the midpoint or the average uh years of experience is is quite um impressive. So, kudos to our principles for recruiting amazing staff this year. Even our our year 1 and two and and newbies um very strong uh coming to us with at least maybe sub experience or experience in school. So, super excited about that. Last week, uh, we had, uh, Monday was campus welcome. August 5th was convocation. If you're interested, high school in the spirit stick. Uh, August 6th, >> I should have. Should have won that. >> I gave elementary
085the opportunity to get a point. >> I will tell you though, elementary did bring it. They did. They got the They definitely had the noise award. We um we love bringing everyone back, getting them excited. Um and it was a great day. A great day. Um but lots to plan. The day after Wednesday campus rotations, every campus um employee ran through the four uh the four sessions, safety updates with Mr. Webb and Dr. Locked in uh and legislative updates to keep everyone informed of new legislation, safety rules, all of the things that we talk about for consistency purposes. They are all there together learning as a campus. Uh they moved on to me in their rotations to uh dig into curriculum and instruction expectations for the year. And for us the the big word for
086the year is consistency. That is what we are wanting to see um instructionally whether it be utilization of the resources we have or consistency with classroom instructional practices in the classroom. That led to uh another focus on consistency and that would be the learning environment. We brought in a region 13 trainer who has been with us multiple times to talk about setting up that space conducive to learning and being consistent in your expectations for student behaviors. And then we our wonderful technology um team uh provided teachers with training on um Canva. Yes, Canva. Canvas. Sorry. Canva uh and Canvas to Can uh two technological resources that our um teachers have the ability to use. Canvas is our high school LMS, but that S on it always uh messes with my brain fog. Sorry about that.
087Um, so that was one full day. They were troopers. A lot of it is sitting, but it's also a good reminder to our teachers going back to school to make learning more interactive, if at all, when and if possible. Um, August 7th though, they had lots of choice. Uh, 25 of our administrators or teachers presented optional sessions for staff to attend. heard great feedback about the variety and uh the opportunities to learn from peers. Along with that, we had five sessions for Mr. Underwood to elicit some uh feedback from our staff and about 100 staff members um chose to attend one of those five sessions. I attended one. I thought he did a good job uh of providing some opportunities for staff to provide quality feedback. I do want to interject here and make sure
088that I point out that if anybody has questions that they bring to you or Susie or you wanting information or wanting to give further input on the superintendent search, it needs to be directed to me and CC to Kevin cuz we need to communicate that to Matt. It doesn't need to go through central admin. >> Okay. >> Part the number one job we do is hiring. >> I actually had a few questions and I directed them. And one of the administrators did reach out to me directly and it and Matt does have plans to do something separate with the administrators, but it would have not muddied a bunch of, you know, I guess there was an anonymous complaint about something and all of that stuff is not going to happen here. >> Exactly. That's why
089like when and that has been my um >> my response to everyone like this is not a process that we control. Uh, the superintendent is hired by the board. Your best point of contact is the board president. So, thank you for I wanted to make sure I said it in open session. It takes the pressure off of y'all cuz it's not y'all's pressure to have on. It's not in y'all's wheelhouse. >> I have enough. >> I'm sure we'll get that message out. >> Okay, great. Thank you. All right. >> I'm sorry. Um and then this past week um or ending last week, teachers have had instructional planning time. They've had two work days and um two days directed by state uh the campus for staff development. It might not be whole days. They break it
090down to maybe a half work day, half day PD. Um but that is just an update of kind of how the beginning of the year has has uh been been mapped out for our staff and what we've been doing. Okay, I think she has I did want to give a quick brief overview of kind of what we do to support and strengthen our core instruction. I think that's been um a question that has been asked. It's like do our teachers have the resources they need in order to teach and just focusing on the core here because it it's kind of the easiest entry point. Um wanted to point out that as we've talked about in the past two years ago we implemented TE's resource system as that foundational level of um a resource for our
091teachers for uh mapping out the curriculum. There's a document that shows you in this this slide deck that I won't go through but like what it all encompasses and it is quite um deep in its reach. Um along with that a layer over that which aligns is text guide and then comes in the kind of adopted textbooks which which are mostly digital today. Uh those are kind of like top down like they should start our core teachers have all of that to start with. Um and then campus by campus sometimes there's an ask for a supplementary resource and we do work with campuses to um look at teacher needs or wants to uh build the the the the lessons and the and the um instructional uh day the way they they see fit as uh
092professionals. Then at the bottom, teachers also often like to pull an article resource here and there and we are not so prescriptive in our approach that we don't allow for that as well. And that's like I said a breakdown of that blue band at the bottom really kind of tells you each and every resource available to teachers to ensure that we have a guaranteed and viable curriculum and the planning resources they need to understand the TEICS and deliver instruction. And that's just again the uh text guide adopted materials. We do go over this uh when we submit our our um certification takes certification. Thanks you. I was thinking validation T certification in May. Every year we check off what our instructional resources are for each of the content areas. So this is no surprise. This
093is what is on that list. But just as a reminder for K through 12, we do have adopted instructional materials that teachers are trained in and have access to. Um that's ELA, math. Um and then on the next two slides are science and social studies. Uh and all of these do cover the core curriculum. Uh our advanced courses do vary a little bit because with on-ramps there are different resources and AP courses do have um other expectations as well. But I wanted to assure you going into the school year that not only are our teachers well prepared from, uh, the PD standpoint getting ready to launch, but also they are given and provided with support and the materials to make this work happen. So, um, if you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. >>
094There's a there's a ton on slide six. I'm sure it's answered in there. So, I'm going to ask probably have a redundant question. Every teacher, yes or no, whether they're in their first year of teaching or their 20th, has a curriculum that they can leverage. It's really the flexibility is whether they want to go slightly diversion from that because of their expertise and experience. But for a teacher to say, "I didn't have a curriculum would be a false statement based on what we equip our teachers today." >> I would say I would have a have a hard time believing that. >> Okay, great. Um we do have a number of elective courses that have changed hands over the years which um sometimes are more difficult to approach because because of the nature of electives. Um
095that would be the only area where I would say I I still don't even believe that right I I I am very confident in the core >> and I am confident in our electives >> like a popular one like Spanish one >> Spanish one we have we have an adopted textbook um it is online um teacher editions as well student editions to go with them. We do. >> I have no doubt. As was just confirmed, so I didn't misspe. >> Roughly, do we know what percentage of our teachers aren't certified going into the year? >> It's actually pretty fluid. Um, because we had two that passed their certification exams this week actually. So, they were certified in something else, not the grade level that they're in. So, I would have to get back to you
096to tell you something accurate. But >> I think I think maybe the takeaway for me is that legally required email that goes out is really scary as a parent. >> An uncertified teacher would refer to that. Okay. >> I think educating what a district innovation means, what certification actually means. They're not teaching sixth grade when they're certified to teach second. I think supplementing even has to be a separate email that immediately files. You just got a legally required notice. Let me explain that to you so you're not freaking out. >> Yeah, it is pretty scary. >> That is I assume the bill did not pass with regards to non-certified teachers not being able to teach. >> It did actually. So that's a part of House Bill 2. It's not it it provides us with a
097timeline um by which we must reduce starting next year the number of teachers operating under the DOI. So it it is a part of the the very large House Bill 2 bill. There is now a requirement for school districts to reduce that number um below certain thresholds beginning with 2627. And then do you envision in the future there's not going to be any uncertified teachers teaching? >> They can pass all the bills they want. It's not going to happen. You can't. >> So like there's always been a federal requirement that we provide. I mean so this notification has existed as long as I've been in education. Let's put it that way. So like improperly certified teacher letters have been a thing. It will still happen. I think doing so with the allowance of a DOI
098is likely to be further restricted. Right. So, but there will be instances where we have school district teaching permits. That's been the law since the '9s, right? So, I think school district teaching permits will come back into play if DOI if that specific exemption goes away. And that's always allowed you to hire um you know basically for you as a school district to make the determination of credentials for anyone that's non-core um CTE or in certain cases anything but special education prek um and but those those are submitted to the commissioner of education for approval and so I think we're probably moving back towards that. >> Okay. I'll say this, one of the sessions that Susie actually gave was uh to her pair professionals about growing her own, you know, pair professionals that are within
099the district, getting them to get into uh pathways to certification >> for certification reasons. >> It was awesome. The number of people that were there was really eye opening and wonderful. Some >> are like really close. >> I've already had three that have met with me like they were they were super pumped about this plan to get, you know, become a certified teacher. And so that's been some of our really strong uh new to profession teachers have come from. They know what they're getting into, right? Educational aids. They've seen it all. So right here, so that's half the battle, right? So um so I do think, you know, as a district, us investing in, you know, looking looking for ways to help grow our own teachers, um you know, is really going to be worth
100it. one, you know what they are because they've already worked there already. >> So, yeah, but I mean to have 20 people in a room who are who say, "I want to be a teacher." I mean, that was part of my day. I haven't had anything that fun in a while. That's great. >> That's awesome. Yeah. >> All right. Any other questions? >> Yep. >> So, we're sorry. to t point crazy towns this week and last. >> We consistently have a board meeting the week school starts. >> No, we talked about >> No, but but it there there's there's a little bit to this madness because of the budget timelines. We are Could we maybe move it off today? Yes, maybe. But because of the 10day rule and trying to set the budget there, we
101we are kind of handcuffed within a few days and we can certainly look at it because believe me, getting ready for communication and and uh but I encourage you to consider a one agenda item lunch forum is for to handle some of these little like moment times that we have to do, >> right? Because I didn't get to go to the back to teacher school night. >> Yeah. my youngest, sixth grade, last time I'm ever going to do it. See if I'd enjoy, right? Um, pardon me. I just it would I know most of us don't have kids in the district anymore, but hopefully that will change as we start to cycle in what, but then the tax. Yeah. I mean, if y'all I mean, we'll Well, yeah, we would uh the new bill, you
102know, new new law coming out in September, we have we'll have to post the agenda three full days in advance of the day of the meeting. So, >> the 72 hours business days as well, >> business days, >> right? So, it'll have to be posted on a Tuesday for a Monday meeting. To your point, if y'all want to have some lunch meetings, >> that's the new thing, too, though. You can't have You have to have meetings at night time when it's accessible accessible for public to the public. >> That's right. >> Cuz no one has to look at >> I'm just saying that's what I was surpris I mean it didn't affect us at the time because we don't we don't do that. >> The only one we have is the U canvasing >> canvasing
103the elections we always >> and I don't know if that's included in that or not. >> I don't know. I didn't read the fine print but yeah >> what are you trying to optimize? Like I understand >> he doesn't want to have a board meeting on the same week of back to school. What? Meet the teacher night. >> It's always busy for teachers, busy for parents, busy for >> what kid what grade your kids, man. But you probably >> I did. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Uh so we had to choose between being a board member and a parent. >> Teachers had to work probably or you probably had to work 70 hours last week this week. Darren, me too. Tina or excuse me, I just >> if we have the flexibility, let's start. >>
104I think you should put that on your agenda for next year. President, Mr. >> Mr. President. >> Well, and and know this, Kevin, and I think a lot of these will say, just remember, and and I appreciate you being here, but you're a parent first. Remember that, >> you know. So, but anyway, >> moving right along. >> All right. I approve I move that we approve the consent agenda. >> Greg made the motion. >> Kevin seconded. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. Opposed. 7. >> Okay. Uh just got a couple things here. Uh intermediate remodel update. Uh guys, we're getting close. Uh I will say I have been very impressed not only with core uh who did the remodel inside the uh the intermediate building, but also Schultz uh moving and demolition.
105They have really stepped up. So uh update on the modular building. Uh that's the most pressing uh right now. Uh it was uh substantially completed on August the 8th. Uh electricity was connected last Thursday afternoon after multiple issues with PEC. Uh but we did get it turned on Thursday afternoon. A lot of teachers worked up here this weekend. I know the coaches uh Thursday afternoon I believe it was or maybe Friday afternoon. Uh Coach Philips got all the coaches went to the intermediate and helped all the intermediate teachers move in. and the band. That's awesome. >> And the band directors and actually high school teachers win as well. The site work mostly complete. The fire hydrant has been relocated. Uh the asphalt work is underway. They have got the ribbon curved poured. They were uh
106getting the foundation ready for the asphalt probably to lay hopefully tomorrow if not the next day. Uh the teachers did move in on the 9th. uh dataccom started installing network cabling and and cabinets uh this morning. Uh they will work until they get finished. Uh interactive cords were being installed. Fire alarm work being finalized this week. Uh just got get that inspected. Uh here's are some pictures um uh between the the south end of the intermediate and the new modular. Uh as you can see, you had multiple contractors working. We had uh uh Meteor actually moving desk into the modular while we were actually building the uh the awning uh to connect the two buildings. You can see the hallway of the modular building with eight four classrooms on on each side with bathrooms. You
107can see the bathrooms there in the top right picture and then the bottom left picture is a classroom. Uh they're actually a lot bigger than the intermediate classrooms. Uh so uh very excited for that. Like I say, teachers are in, they're setting up. Uh, you know, we still got a few things to get done, but we will be able to start school on Thursday. Uh, very impressive since we lost about seven or eight days work days because of the flood around 4th of July. I will say Schultz uh they worked or just about around the clock to try to get these uh these things in and so I have a a big appreciation for what what they have done. Uh the intermediate intermediate school renovation uh came in a little bit sooner. Um we're complete
108uh punch list items are are underway. We've already uh corrected a lot of these. They they actually came back out today to finalize what few items are left to uh correct. Uh the furniture has been installed in both buildings. Interactive ores uh interactive orders are being installed today. Like I said earlier, uh these teachers actually got to move in the week before. Uh I typed this on Friday and so they were actually in the week before. Of course, they have meet the teacher on August the 12th which will be ready for from 4 to 6. And here are some of the uh improvements. Uh you can see the entryway here. We got a new paint job uh top to bottom. Uh new ceiling tiles, new floor. You can see the middle uh picture. That is
109the uh lower gym that was in really sad shape. Uh you see those louvers up there? All those were cracked or knocked out. Got those replaced. Everything's been painted. Uh you can kind of see the color scheme. Uh and of course in the right picture, just another picture of the hallway. And then uh this is the uh the boys bathroom on the bottom right. So uh it's really turned out well. I I can say I think Tina and Jason and Susie will say that uh intermediate teachers are really really excited >> about getting something new and looking better. Uh and and guys, I got to give, you know, to get all this done in about 60 something days was uh pretty pretty remarkable. Core did a really good job staying on top of their uh
110their their guys and uh and so we're going to get there. Still some clean up to do. We still got to lay the uh the asphalt for the uh the fire lane. Uh that should happen this week. Uh we're going to you know put fix the fence and um and so Schulz will be uh completing all that and so we will be able to have school uh on Thursday. So very excited to be able to report that cuz two or three weeks ago I was a little hippy. We're going to buy TCO in the gym. >> We will get uh right now we have a uh >> TCO and we'll get the CO here in the next day or so. >> Okay. I'd like to I'd love to tour. >> Yeah. Y'all call. >> Yeah.
111Be interested to see how it looks too. >> Comments on it. We always do. >> Yeah. Questions. >> That back awning is awesome. Like now that it's in like it's >> Yeah. >> Uh go between the middle school and the Yeah. just between the the building and the modular. It's gi you right there. >> Yeah. Now that it's I have a picture if you want to see it. Like it's covered now and it's like you could rent it for space revenue generation. >> Are you insured to sink hole in the elementary? >> That has been fixed temporarily. Uh there is a crack in the asphalt. Uh Weaver and Jacobs is trying to get their contractor out to come look at it and see what that looks like. But we had back filled it with sand,
112packed it, and it's full of concrete right now knowing that, you know, we'll probably have to come back and redo it until they can come in maybe at Thanksgiving to they'll have to tear a chunk out, >> but it should be solid for the traffic. >> What's that? >> It should be solid. >> Oh, yeah. Solid and won't have any problems. Uh, so we have a the dirt is washing under a certain part of the drive in the beside the elementary. >> Uhhuh. >> And so >> um it's in between the new playground um by on Travis Lane. It it just washed out and there's a hole there and so we've got that patched. And so that's one thing. The other thing I was going to tell you about the intermediate school, it's not all
113perfect. Uh we we do have two rooms that we have had to uh move uh their pullout rooms or special rooms where they have four, five, six kids. We've had to move those. We've got a leak in that southwest corner of Intermediate. We feel like it happened during the July flood. Uh and so water got in uh the sheetrock, which is kind of a a fire resistant rock. Uh piece of it actually fell onto the uh drop down ceiling and made it kind of uh bow a little bit. And so we caught that uh early last week and started looking at it. And just to be safe, we're uh we're going to go in and refurbish that. We've got WCR roofing company. I thought they were going to be here today, but they're going to
114be out in the morning to assess the roof, fix the leaks, find the leaks, fix it, and they're going to re uh reassess what the the roof line looks like underneath. So, we may have to take out some insulation uh and then put back some new firewall up at the top. So, can that be paid with INS dollars just due to the fact that it's part of possibly the bond rather than dipping into M& with it? >> Oh, we won't. We will not pay any construction money. >> Okay. >> Uh we you guys were allocated 2022 money to complete the renovation >> bond. Is that what you asked for? >> Yeah. I mean just wanted to see if it was going to be able to come out of that rather than coming out. >> Yeah.
115Out of construction. >> All right. So, uh, so we'll know more tomorrow, but, uh, Miss Sullivan's already moved those two classrooms into another area. And so, uh, we'll get, um, some clarification what needs to be done. And then I'll just say, we're going to look at, uh, pricing what re-roofing that uh, that building will be. Uh, we feel like there may be some some bond money that we could uh, could use. uh WC did price it as an alternate uh in the 20 month. Yeah, 20 month. And so they've got the measurements and all. So they're going to come back and give it give us a quote, see what that looks like. So that will be the only roof that has not that do not have any roof on it in the district. So So
116I but I'll bring that more information to you on that. So but uh very excited for the inter intermediate uh teachers. I know they were uh been out there several times in the last couple of days and they are all smiles, you know, they they really are. So, uh look look forward to providing that for for our students. Uh let's see. Also, uh we have closed on the land uh the 17 acres across the street that was done back uh late July. So, wanted to let you know that. Also, most of you know, I know I sent a text to you guys, uh, Mattress Mac had a uh, giveaway on Saturday and I think they gave almost 250 mattresses away and uh, it was a a busy time. Uh, I want to thank the city
117and the police for for helping out with that. uh Lieutenant Franco was kind of the contact there and uh that was a good thing for our community and uh and hopefully you know it helped and I think there's a lot of mattresses left and I think uh heard a little bit that uh when the hope center does the uh uh their big day of helping the community that there will be a lot of those mattresses being able to be given out during that time. >> Yeah. So anyway, that's my report. I'll answer any questions that you may have. >> We move that sign out to close the land. >> I'm sorry. We move the egg bar. >> No. >> Yes. >> We we we haven't yet. It's still there. >> I'm just like >> Yes.
118Let's remove it. >> I think it's >> Well, I would think so because personally I think I think it may go on the other side. >> Yeah. got cuz now we got I will say that piece of property is I I drove up on it again and just started looking uh you know it is a very nice piece of property now we're going to have you know a lot of acres continuous acres online what's that thing being built across the high school we don't own that land that's the storage unit >> okay yeah but uh but yeah we'll have you know 27 seven continuous acres for future building whenever that may be. So I think that sets us for the next number of decades for future building. So So I'm excited about that. >> Awesome.
119Do >> I have this on my hand? Uh don't have any close session. >> What?