001like to welcome everybody out to our board meeting for Lake Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees. It is January 19th, 2026. All members are present and we do have a quorum established. Uh right now I ask everybody if you would please join me and and the board in a moment of silence. >> Thank you very much. Uh we'll have Molly Avalino, our chief of staff, will lead us in our pledges of allegiance. See if she can keep up with Carlo Landram. I've heard it's keeping up with the board president. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God,
002one and indivisible. All right, thank you. And we'll move on to our student staff reports and recognitions. The first of which is the Lake Dallas ISD Christmas card art contest. We're going to hear from Taylor Poston, our communications director or excuse me, director of communications. Does that does that change things when I get it out of order? No. Okay. All righty. Thank you guys. Uh, I'm going to be joined up here by one of our Lake Dallas Middle School students, Miss Jonah Evans. Jonah, if you'll come stand up here with me. All right. So, back in November, we started our district's Christmas card contest. This is the second year that we've held this contest, and it's open to all of the students in our district, and they're encouraged to submit their original artwork to be
003featured on the cover of our Christmas card. Um that Christmas card is then sent to supporters of our district and business partners within our community. And this year we had over 70 entries that were submitted and they were voted on by various leaders throughout the district. The second and third place winners were featured on the back of the card and those pieces were submitted by Angelique Velas, seventh grader at LDMS and Samantha Galvas, a sixth grader at Lake Dallas Middle School. But Miss Jonah won first place and so her artwork was featured on the cover of the card that went out this year. And so Jonah, we just wanted to thank you for that and recognize you for that contribution. We actually have here a framed copy of your original artwork and the card as
004well to commemorate this experience for you. So we just are very proud of Jonah and wanted to recognize her for that. [applause] That is awesome. All right, our next our next item is the parent and family community supports our board recognition month and also I guess we're going to hear from Taylor. Hi. >> Hi. Yes, you guys get to hear from me just a couple of times tonight. So, schoolboard recognition month is led by the Texas Association of School Boards to honor the local trustees who serve as champions for public education across our state. This year's theme was our future is public, which highlights the vital role that public schools play as the foundation of a strong community, preparing students to learn, lead, and thrive. At Lake Dallas ISD, our board of trustees works in
005partnership with families, educators, and community members to set the vision for our schools, advocate for students, and ensure a strong foundation for success. So, we want to thank our trustees for their leadership, dedication, and commitment to putting Falcons first and strengthening the future of our community. Tonight I'm joined by a few different student organizations and campus representatives who would like to bestow you guys with some little tokens of their appreciation for your continued dedication and support. So joining us representing Lake Dallas High School athletics is Lola Espazito, Madison Adaway, and Olivia Snow. Ladies, if you'd like to come up and join us from our Lake Dallas Art Club. We have senior Kylie Sammons here to present you guys with some original artwork that they've created just for you guys. Where are you? Thank you, Kylie.
006Each of our elementary campuses also created some special artwork for you guys. Our students at Corinth Elementary actually made that banner that's hanging behind you to thank you for helping them soar high. And then we have representatives from each of our elementary schools here to present you guys with a few little gifts as well. That'll be CJ Austin, first grader from Lake Dallas Elementary, Mason Hackne, fourth grader from Shady Shores Elementary, and Noah Gomez, a third grader from Corinth Elementary. Next up, we have Miss Katie Huff and Miss Hannah Champ representing the Lake Dallas High School Highsteppers. From the Lake Dallas Falcon Band, we have Esther Kitamura and Presley Sloan. Okay. And last but not least, we are joined um by two members from some other organizations in our district. The Lake Cities Education Foundation
007and the High School PTSA. Uh so Jerry Blazewitz and Carlos Ortiz are representing those organizations and they um the PTSA has made a donation in honor of the board to the Lake City's Education Foundation and that scholarship will be presented to one of our graduating seniors later this year. [applause] >> Thank you guys. All right. And we appreciate all the goods, like all the all the stuff. All right. Our next item is our outstanding school board finalist for the 2026 HB Excellence in Education Award. Megan, how appropriate that this award ended up coming around in schoolboard appreciation month. >> I think that's perfectly fitting. Yes. So, each year the HB Excellence and Education Awards program awards cash prizes to outstanding public school professionals to thank them for their dedication and commitment. Since the program's inception
008in 2002, they've awarded almost $15 million in funding to public schools, teachers, counselors, and principles in Texas. And I am very excited to share that the Lake Dallas ISD Board of Trustees has been named one of the five finalists out of,200 school districts in the state of Texas. The judging panel is actually visiting our school district tomorrow, January 20th, and will interview the board as well as parents, teachers, students, and community members. The winners will be announced at the HB Excellence and Education Awards ceremony on Sunday, May 3rd, and the winning school board will receive a prize of up to $25,000 in form of donation to the school district. So, very exciting stuff happening, and we're very proud of our school board members. So when I call your name, if you'll please come down and
009accept your certificate of accomplishment for this recognition. Mr. Lance Stacy, [applause] Mrs. Ginger Collier. >> Absolutely. >> Mr. Mark Tucker. Mr. Greg Bartley, >> Mr. Aaron Applebee, [applause] Mr. Scott Baird, [applause] and Mr. Bruce Smith. All right. So, now we're going to post you guys for a picture real quick. All right. Our next item is our January teachers and employees of the month, Dr. Brown. >> Thank you, sir. Uh those employees and teachers were recognized a few weeks ago at our uh monthly employee of the month breakfast and their video will be playing during close session. >> Very nice. Uh our next item are introductions. Most of us know this guy, but uh we're gonna introduce our new athletic director, head football coach, [laughter] >> come join your fan club of [laughter] >> He's going
010to give you a big check, too. >> Dr. Brown, President Stacy, board of trustees. It is my pleasure to introduce our new athletic director and head football coach, Jeremy Mails. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Nice to meet you, everybody. >> Coach Males brings more than two decades of experience in public public education and athletics with a strong foundation in leadership, program development, and student centered coaching. He holds a bachelor's degree from Mid America Nazarene University and a master's degree in education administration from Lamar University, reflecting both instructional and academic preparation. Administrative preparation, my apologies. A significant portion of his career has been spent at Lake Dallas High School, where he served in multiple leadership roles within the football program over many years. In addition to his public school experience, Coach Males has also served
011in athletic leadership roles both domestically and internationally, including head coaching experience at the highest level of Italian professional football. These experiences have broadened his perspective on leadership, teamwork, and program development while reinforcing his commitment to discipline and excellence. We are confident that coach Mills will be a strong asset to our school district and our K12 athletic programs. Welcome back to Lake Dallas. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. Don't get sh. All right. Our next item is executive session. The open session of the meeting will adjourn. The board of trustees will re will reconvene an executive session pursuant to one or more of the sections of the Texas Open Meetings Act of Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code. The board of trustees will reconvene an open session to take any final action, decision, or vote on
012a matter deliberated in executive session and it is 5:47. That's all. Okay. Okay, it is 6:59. We are back in regular session. Our next item is public comment to which we have nobody signed up. Correct, Melissa? All right. So, we'll move on to our next item, which is a public hearing. Uh, priority one, 2024 2025 Texas academic performance report or taper. We're going to hear from Oh, wow. You moved over there fast. Dr. O. Sullivan, how you doing? >> I'm doing well. How are you doing? >> I'm sufficient. Thank you. So, good evening, President Stacy and Dr. Brown and members of the school board. Happy schoolboard appreciation month. Um, we are here tonight for our public hearing to present our taper report. That's the Texas academic performance report for the 2425 school year. Um we
013do this every year and upon presenting of this report in this public hearing the taper will be posted to our district website so the community can also see the report. So tonight we are going to um look at all the district information um related within the taper related to staff student profiles um star data college career military readiness attendance and graduation rate. Again, we're keeping in mind that college, career, military readiness, attendance, and graduation will be pulled from the 2324 graduating class that is um reported out in our 25 accountability. So, a little bit of district information. Looking at our enrollment in Lake Dallas for the 24-25 school year, we had 3,711 students and that was early childhood and preK through 12th grade. Employment, our staff included 536 personnel with 268 of those being teachers.
014And when we look at class size, this is also a part of our taper. our class size averages. Um, K through fifth grade averages 17 to 21 per for per per class. And we also keep in mind that preK through 4 that ratio is 1 to 22. And for the maximum that's set for up to fourth grade and then 6th through 12th grade is averaging 19 to 23 per class. But we understand a PE class may have 35 students while a very uh specialized class may have 10 or 12. So it varies but those are the averages. So looking at our staff by experience um it's very interesting um if we start at the bottom of the slide looking at beginning teachers. So brand new first year teachers 3% of our teachers fall in to
015that category and then one to five years we have 24% of our teachers. We are about four to 5% lower than the state in beginning teachers. And so we can see that most of our teachers fall in that six to 30 years. and we are much higher than the state um in the region with that retention and level of experience with with our teachers. So, moving on in from staff to student demographics, um we look at who are the students we're serving and there are minimal changes year-over-year from the 23 24 to the 2425 um school year. Um most areas fluctuate, not even 1%. Um, if we look all the way down at our economically disadvantaged student population, it has changed by about 1 and a half% year-over-year. Um, our special education actually is up
016about 3%. For this 2425 school year over the previous year and then our ESL bilingual student group um about a percent, not quite a percent higher. and all the other demographics stayed just about the same year-over-year. So, moving on to STAR and performance, we're going to start out with all subjects and all grade levels of STAR and EOCC um that are tested. Um, when we look at this, we we consider the fact that Lake Dallas um administered 5,730 STAR tests um in the 2425 school year. And those included reading and math for grades three through eight, social studies grade 8, science grades five and eight, and end of course star assessments for English one, two, algebra, biology, and US history. So when we look at all grade levels um for the 2425 and the 23
01724 school year um we can see that Lake Dallas is staying um right above the region and the state. So on this slide we notice that the state um and the region are both indicated as well year-over-year. And then um our district is the green. So just slightly higher year-over-year in all grades and subjects. If we look at the English language arts and reading from 24 to 25, um very similar again the state and region actually stayed stagnant at that 76 and um we had a slight increase uh from a 78 to a 79. Now, if we dig in a little bit more and we start looking at reading language arts for third, fourth, and fifth grade, again, comparing to the state and the region, we can see that we met or exceeded the state
018and the region in each of these grade levels. Um, and there's actually an increase in each of these grade levels for our district year-over-year from the previous year. Looking at sixth to 8th grade reading, uh we notice that we can see that sixth grade um sixth and eth are just below the region and the state. While seventh grade, it's interesting. They are three and four% higher than the region and state, but they also increased 3% from the previous year. So there was a growth in seventh grade. moving to the high school for our English one and English two. Um we can see that um English one is well above the region and the state at 79% um and as well as English 2 um at 79 versus the 72 and 73. Now, when we look
019at math, we can see it has stayed pretty flat across math for the state, the region, and the district. Looking at that year-over-year, again, this is a 24 and a 25 view. um with a slight increase for Lake Dallas over this past year while the state and the region stayed at that 72 level. When we dig in a little bit and we look at grades three through five, we see an increase um in um grades three o over the slightly higher rather for grades three. And then we note if we look over at grade five and we see that 69 over grade five, that cohort group as fourth graders were at a 61. So that group as a cohort grew from a 61 to a 69 year-over-year, which is tremendous growth. And then looking at
020sixth through 8th grade math um we can see sixth grade is um just below that um state and region. And then when we look in this um seventh grade, that middle section, we had um about 280 seventh graders at the time and 20% were accelerated, meaning they were in the eighth grade um curriculum, following the eighth grade curriculum, and they took the eighth grade star test. So 20% of the seventh graders are not included in that seventh grade data. They are counted in the eighth grade data. Um so that is um one of the reasons why that stays a little bit lower as it does across the state and the region. When we look over to 8th grade, it is at 83% and that's actually almost a 10% growth year-over-year from the previous 8th grade.
021Um from the 24 year they were at 74%. Looking at the um algebra scores um from 24 to 25 um we notice um 79 in 24 and a 78 for Lake Dallas in 2025. And we also noticed there was a few points down for the region and the state overall in algebra but staying pretty pretty um similar year-over-year. STAR science and social studies. So fifth grade takes science and eighth grade takes science and social studies. And what we can see is it's um pretty much in alignment with our neighboring districts and with the state. I do want to point out on the fifth grade science when we see that 63 in 2024 that was a 49. So this was our first year with the new science curriculum. Last year the 2425 school year was the
022first year with the new science curriculum. and um and so seeing that alignment and that rigor and standardsbased. So um we saw that 14% increase for our fifth graders. Oh sorry skipped. Okay. Then when we look at the high school for our end of course star for biology and for US history we can see that um although those uh scores stay very high across the state um we are slightly higher with 94 in biology and a 97 in US history. Now looking at our college career and military readiness and graduation and attendance. Again noting that those are lagging indicators from the 24 graduates at 78.3 um that increased 30% from the previous year. So our 24 graduates um had the 78.3 and the year before it was 48. If we pick apart um just slightly
023the career college and uh the college career military readiness and we look at just the college readiness actually that TSI the Texas success initiative that's an assessment or the college prep that actually increased to 66% of our students graduated with the college readiness um that is um over the 39% the year before. So almost a 30% increase in the college readiness alone. Um and then dual credit increased by 5%. And then when we look at the career readiness, 20% earned an IBC and that was an increase from the 23 graduates of 6%. um attendance 94.1 and graduation 99.7 again um above the state and and the region in both of those. some takeaways that we continue to exceed the region in the state in the all subjects all grade levels um as well as all
024um grade levels for math and for um EL as well as for graduation. Some areas of focus that that we noted as we go through this taper um in math and reading some focus areas in both of those um areas um the high quality instructional materials. So, we've had a year with the science that was included. This year, the 2526 school year, we have our new math curriculum in place. And so, we are tracking and monitoring the progress and the assessments and the instructional um delivery of of that curriculum as well. Ongoing support and training for the teachers and administrators, it started last spring um and so it continued through the summer. is continuing this year um on a regular basis. We have coaching in the classroom. We have feedback. We have help in their
025professional learning communities, assistance um with teachers one-on-one. We've conducted curriculum walks um looking at how that is campus to campus, classroom to classroom looking at that assessment um and that instructional delivery also the the progress monitoring of student mastery of the standards. So, we do that through not just um STAR, our MAP testing, but also through their in-class assessments, their unit assessments. Um and then also partnership with the parents continually u increasing the communication with parents that we depend on them and partner with them for math and for reading and for help as was our Falcon um family engagement night that we had focused on math um and bring them into that um help as well. and then continued focus on CCMR. Um we had a 50% increase um and we are looking at an
026additional 15% increase um for 20 26 >> questions. Thank you Dr. Oil. Do you have any questions or comments regarding this? And if not, we appreciate it. Right. That's right. Okay. All right. We'll close the public hearing at 7:15. Nope. Oh, that's right. Is there anybody from the audience that would like to speak? Fully knowing. Anyone here? >> [laughter] >> All right, we'll close the public hearing. It is 7:15. We'll move on to our next item, which is um an information item, priority for strategic plan and Lake Dallas ISD police department update. We're going to hear from Chief Springer from Lake Dallas ISD PD. Good evening. me off. There we go. That was not That was a cheap trick. Okay. So, we're going to go over pri priority four, the strategic plan. Um that strategic
027plan. Is this on too? There we go. The strategic plan covers three different areas. We're going to focus on 4.3, the safe schools environment. and go over uh with some of the things we've done. Uh the armed law enforcement requirement on each campus is fulfilled with the Lake Dallas police officer on every campus. Uh we have had no findings on the intruder detection audits. This shows Lake Dallas High School and Shady Shores. They actually did uh Lake Dallas Elementary on Friday uh with no findings as well. So, we got three out of the five campuses so far with no findings on the intruder detection audit. Um, we're compliant with all the state requirements on the safety and security u requirements, House Bill 33, all the other uh laws that they've passed over the last few
028years. Uh, we are having our three-year audit that is done um in compliance with the Texas School Safety Center. That's going to happen in February. And then we're actually having our district vulnerability assessment which is done by the office of school safety at TEA uh which is a holistic look at everything that we do very in-depth uh audit that's going to happen at the end of April. Uh so we'll have we'll get a lot more uh information coming back to us uh pretty soon. Uh we've met all of our required meetings with the safety and uh security committee. Uh notice has been posted. All of our staff has been trained in the standard response protocol and our new uh strategics uh crisis alert. Uh every time a new employee or sub is hired, they have
029to go through the safety training. They watch a video on the strategics, the silent uh panic button, and how that works. and uh making sure that they know how to use it. Um we're fixing to have a widespread or I guess a district update or upgrade on that. They're coming in and going to be replacing all of our uh crisis alert buttons because these are having some battery issues and so they're they've redone the badges to make them last a little bit longer so we're not having to replace so many so quickly. And so far, all of our fall drills were completed on each campus. A lot of campuses had some uh drills scheduled, but they've had to postpone them. So, they're they're be starting all the spring drills coming up soon. Uh talking about
030the police department, this is from 20 all of 2025, so January 1 to December 31st, we've had 117 calls for service. Uh some of these are selfinitiated by the officers. Some of these have been calls that have come in, activity that's taken place. Uh we've had 55 offense or incident reports uh completed. Uh some of those were criminal offenses. Some of those were just documenting uh an incident in an information report. Uh one of our big things we hosted was tall cops stop uh at the community breakfast and was followed by the staff training. uh he really honed in on THC vapes, uh fentanyl, those types of things, and making sure our not only our community members, but also our staff knew exactly what was out there, what's going on, what to look for, all
031those kind of things. And it was uh well received by our staff. I was in there when they was doing the staff training and they were fully engaged. The staff was asking questions, so it went really, really well. Uh we have joined the Denton County Crimestoppers. Uh it is just to supplement. We already have the see something say something anonymous reporting and that's our primary uh area. But if we do get reports into Denton County Crimestoppers now those reports will come directly to us rather than one of the municipal police departments if it involves our school district. We have done joint emergency response trainings with m uh with all three uh police departments in the city. Uh the alert training that's required for every law enforcement officer, we did that as a joint uh training
032with all the other officers so we can really get ingrained and work together and know each other and all those kind of things. So we're all talking on the same uh same page whenever if anything ever happens. and we've given a a number of tours to local, state, and federal officers of our building. Uh so they've been coming up uh meeting with our officers on the campus, taking a tour, making sure that they understand what the building looks like. Uh they get maps of our buildings, so if they ever have to respond, they have those maps available to them. Uh but just getting them in the building and getting them familiar with the hallways and all that kind of stuff is is very important. And so we've seen a a significant increase in the number
033of officers that are that are stopping by. DPS stops by regularly. Uh sheriff's department has started coming by pretty regularly. And the local officers, they're they're in and out of our buildings all the time. So, some of the things that we've been doing that we're pretty proud about, uh, we've had the opportunity to testify, uh, before the, uh, Texas Senate and House committees related to safety and security of schools. Uh, it's very helpful to get the word directly to our elected officials that are making the decisions in Austin. So, uh, I've had the opportunity to do that a few times. Um we regularly attend staff and student advisory committee meetings. Uh that feedback that we get from there really helps seeing how the students uh view the safety and security of the campuses uh and
034information from the staff. We've participated in uh Falcon Family Fair, Falcon Family Night, passed out stickers, got to visit with families, get to talk with the kids, and we've been really busy in community events, which I think is very, very important, especially being a new department, getting out there, being seen, getting to talk to people that we may not always get to see uh since we're not out on patrol. Uh those are just a few of the things um that we've done. uh Toys for Tots reached out and invited us to do their uh participate with their parade that started in Lewisville. We went to the Children's Hospital in Plano and then came back in a parade and it raises money and gifts and all that kind of stuff so they can provide those to
035the uh less fortunate. Uh participated in several coffee and breakfast with the cops. uh thankful that Lake Dallas PD, Current PD, and uh Hickory Creek PD reach out often uh and invite us to those events uh so that way we can be all working together. Done a few safety and security presentations at state and national conferences and those will continue. So, some of the things that we're starting moving forward, we're having monthly meetings with all the Lake City's ISD or Lake City's uh police chiefs. Uh we're meeting next Monday. Uh just for us to have better collaboration, more communication. Uh those types of things. Uh we want to do a lot of things together that's going to benefit our district and we can help benefit the community as well. We're looking at educational opportunities to
036use in the classrooms. all the way down to like character development type stuff in the elementary schools to um drug and alcohol awareness and things of that nature in the in the upper schools. And we're expanding our partnerships with the federal and state law enforcement agencies. We've been invited by the FBI to attend some of their uh meetings and stuff like that. So, we're make sure that we're connected and get any kind of vital information that's coming uh as quickly as possible. So with that, I'll entertain any questions. >> Thanks, Chief. You have any questions, comments from the board? >> No. We appreciate all the work you do. >> Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Turn the mic off on him. >> Okay. Our next item is the consent agenda. The cons consent agenda. Those
037are routine items that can be handled in one motion. And vote. Do I have any questions or comments regarding the consent agenda? If not, I'll entertain a motion. >> Motion to approve by Mr. Smith. Do I have a second? >> Second by Miss Collier. Is there any further questions or comments? If not, all those in favor of approval, please indicate. And that passes unanimous. Thank you. We'll move on to our action items. First of which is consideration approval of 2024 2025 annual comprehensive financial report and Han RC fo hi how's it going [laughter] >> good evening President Stacy Dr. Brown Board of Trustees. Tonight, we'll be presenting our 2425 annual comprehensive financial report. The district is required to fi to file our audit with the Texas Education Agency annually. The report must be audited by
038an independent auditor and we must comply with rules set forth in the Financial Accountability System resource guide. The audit must be presented and approved by the board annually. The report is due to TEA 150 days after the end of our fiscal year and our fiscal year runs September 1st to a August 31st. And we also submit our report to Asbo and GFOA for further review. Tonight we have Scott Scarboro with Henkins Eastep Deon Ton SE and Scarboro to present the audit to you. Scott. Good evening everyone. Dr. Browns, it's nice to see you. Members of the board, it's pleasure to meet you tonight. Uh I am with uh Henkins and Eastip and we are located not too far away as you probably know uh in Denton. That's our headquarters, but we also have offices in
039McKenna and Houston and Boston. And so we're a medium-sized firm, about 60 people, been working in this space, working with school districts in Texas since, I think, 1968. So we love this work. Uh we're a traditional office that also does tax work, but this is this is the work that we enjoy. This is the work I enjoy so very much. We work with about 51 school districts in North Texas and really honored to uh to continue to to work with with Lake Dallas. You hire us really to perform three services for you. One is to conduct the annual audit of your annual financial report. Second thing that you engage us to do is to perform what's called a grant compliance audit or a single audit. Uh which is a required audit of all of your
040grant your major program grant expenditures. So we perform that audit as well. Then the third thing you engage us to do is to help to prepare the uh what what 160 page or so annual financial report that you submit to TEA and to the federal government through a federal clearing house system each year. So what I'd like to do tonight is just a couple of things. One is to give you an overview of that audit process and results. Uh, two, what I'd like to do is to talk a little bit about next steps to get your your reports filed on time. And then, of course, I'd be happy to answer any questions either during the presentation or at the end of the presentation, but I will leave time if you have any questions when I'm
041done. Let me talk a little bit about the process. The audit process actually begins before the end of your fiscal year. So, we'll come out typically for two or three working days prior to year end to try to do as much of the grant compliance work as we can because after fiscal year end things get very busy all across the state and uh to the extent that we can get ahead of the curve prior to fiscal year end. That puts us that much ahead of the game when it comes to the afterear end work. But a majority of the of the hard work is done after fiscal year end. We check with your CFO and say, "Are you ready?" She says, "Yes." And we come with a team this year with about five or six
042people. Maddie Wilson is with me tonight, one of the members of that team. And then we'll work on site kind of finishing our detail transactional testing and um the testing of your balance sheet and income statements uh for about usually about another week. And then we head back to the office. We'll take all the data that we've collected and it usually takes about another two weeks of work to finalize that work and to prepare the report. You're one of the few school districts that we work with. I would say probably only about 5% of school districts in the state go over and above what's the minimally required which is called an annual financial report. You're one of the few that actually prepares something called an an act for an annual comprehensive financial report that you
043submit to various rewarding uh agencies that provide you the excellence in financial reporting award that you do. But only about 5% of the school districts in Texas actually do that. So typical reports maybe 80 pages your reports in you know 160 page category. So it takes quite some time working with you and your team to to put that report together. And then of course it culminates in tonight we present the results uh to you. Then once you've approved it we'll submit it to the TEA and to the federal clearing house. It's kind of the next steps. Uh I have good news to report tonight after our work. The report that you have in hand uh is has a clean audit report. uh in uh in our world we call that an unmodified report. Um therefore
044that report concludes that your financial statements are materially correct. I do want to compliment your your financial uh staff. I would say based on the report that we do on the 50 or so school districts that we work with, the the number of proposed journal entries that we will have at the end of the audit on average exceeds 30. This uh Ann and her team, it was less than half of that. So, this was a super clean audit uh compared to what we're typically accustomed to. So, I want to kind of applaud uh Dr. Brown and your CFO Anne Hon and her team and and it's really been a delight uh to work with with such a a dedicated staff. Uh if I can get you to maybe turn to the table of contents at
045the beginning of the report, I just want to comment on a few things in the report that I don't think will come as a surprise to you at all. If you look at page one, you'll see that that clean audit report that I'm referred to is really on page 23. uh you can read that uh at your convenience. Uh all school districts are required to prepare two levels of financial reports. One level is financial reporting for all the different funds that you have. General fund, debt service fund, capital projects fund, special revenue funds, custodial funds. You'll see throughout this report all information pertaining to all of this those different fund categories and fund types. Then you're also required to pull it all together, combine all those funds together and report what is called governmentwide financial
046statements which are uh on page 35 and 36. The 35 is your your consolidated or combined financial report. That'll include all of your capital assets, all of your long-term liabilities, and all of the funds except for your your student activity accounts are included in those governmentwide financial statements. The consolidated income statements on page 36. So, that's again all funds combined. Uh the rating agencies like to see it presented in that way because those financial statements most resemble a kind of a for-profit entity so that they can look and kind of analyze the trends of your your schools and other schools to get a sense of of just what kind of risk financial risk is out there when they assess a bond rating. Um however schools really operate on a fund basis. So, the one the
047fund the financial statements you're going to be most familiar with are those that that uh would start on page 42. That would be your fund level income statements. And then 38 would be your fund level balance sheet. So, I would encourage us to turn quickly to page 42. And this is going to be your fund level income statements for the year. And I think you're going to see that the year-end results are very consistent with what you expected, what you budgeted for. So if we look on page 42, let's look at your main operating fund, the general fund. uh [snorts] you began the year uh adopting a budget that included uh a budgeted deficit for the year and and in fact the general fund if you look at the very bottom had a an actual
048budgeted deficit of 64,440 as as expected as budgeted. If you look at one column over this is your debt service fund. These are the monies that you accumulate for the repayment of your bonded indebtedness. You'll see that uh after all the payment of principal and interest, the balance in that fund went up by 173,916. If you move over another column, you'll see the capital projects fund. And so when you issue debt and you did a bond issue during this financial reporting period, if I remember correctly, it was in the $38 million re, but that was a that was a refunding with but with previous bond uh proceeds during the fiscal year, you had capital expenditures of 26,029702. So the spending of that bond of those bond proceeds took the fund balance of the capital projects
049fund from 39,77,000 down to 14,566711. Then the fourth column are all the other funds combined that the district has typically grant funds funded by the federal government funded by the state government. Also in that first column would be all of your campus activity funds, uh, scholarship funds, all the other funds other than general fund, debt service fund, capital projects funds are included in that fourth in that fourth column. And then you can see in total the you started the year with a million4 in all of the other what we call minor funds and then at the end of the year the ending fund balance collectively was 1,60,000. So again I suspect that these numbers are essentially what you would have predicted during the year given what the budget that you adopted at at the beginning
050of the year. There are uh certain required communications that I as your independent outside auditor uh are required by governmental auditing standards to to cover briefly. One is to let you know that there were no disagreements with management. We're required to tell you that. Uh, another thing that we are required to tell you is that your financial statements do include estimates. So, for example, the governmentwide financial statements would include an estimate of your net pension liability and and retirey health care liability for the plans that are administered by the teacher retirement system. uh actuaries are employed by TRS each year and they try to estimate what those future outli uh outlays to your retired uh employees are going to be. Those estimates change from year to year based on demographics based on things like projected
051health care costs and mortality rates. So the actuary works with TRS and those numbers change pretty pretty significantly from year to year and the accounting for those changes in estimates are actually put on the balance sheet and then kind of amvertised over time. down, they have a smoothing effect of those changes in estimates so that your governmentwide financial statements, not your fund financials that we just went over, but your governmentwide financial statements include all of those estimates and those deferred amounts that are being advertised over time. A lot of it's one reason why a lot of school boards don't pay attention a lot to those governmentwide financials because so much of those numbers are outside feel like they're outside of their control with TRS managing those large large dollars. We also had something that was
052kind of unique this year in that there was an industrywide accounting change. So the rule making body called the Gatsby governmental accounting standards board came out with a new pronouncement this year that changed the accounting for acrudeed compensated absences. This is the paid time off that your employees are allowed to carry forward for days that that they they did not use during the school year. In the past, the accounting rules for that were such that we only estimated the liability for what you would ultimately write a check for. The new accounting rules, like them or not, I'm not a big fan of them, and I like a lot of people in the industry, that liability is now estimated for not only what you would pay, but for the days that they will ultimately use before
053they retire. So the amount of that liability went from a relatively small amount to a pretty significant amount. Now fortunately that change in accounting and the effect of that change is recorded at the governmentwide level not the fund level. But that was a huge change. It added like uh somewhere between four and five million dollar of estimated liability for the amount of carry forward days that your employee could take off in the future or get paid for. So all that was new. All 1100 school districts had to had to include that in their governmentwide financial statements this year. So that was so that was new and that's a fairly significant estimate because how do we know you know how many are going to be actually taken? How do we know what how many people are
054going to basically forfeit carry forward days and they retire? So over time we'll get a better sense of what that estimate is and that estimate will get uh refined over time. Uh [sighs] lastly I just want to again kind of thank um Ann and her team for the for the support during the audit. uh we we were able to stay on schedule this year. And in fact, while normally we would have to have all of these reports filed by the end of January, the state actually extended the due date until the end of February this year because they're putting in a new uh reporting system that won't be ready for uploads until the end of January. So, we have a 30-day grace period. So, we're done way ahead of schedule this year. So, that's an
055overview of the process and kind of and the results of our audit. Did I Are there any questions that I might particular questions that I might be able to answer? >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Scarboro. Do we have any questions or comments from the board regarding the comprehens comprehensive financial report? >> No. Looks like you answered them all the first time. >> All right. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> All right. If there's not any questions or comments, I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Uh Mr. Was that Mr. Mr. Tucker? I couldn't tell who that was. Motion by Mr. Tucker to approve. Is there a second? Second by Mr. Bartley. Is there any further discussion? If not, all those in favor of approval, please indicate. And that is unanimous. All right, get
056that out of the way and we'll move on to our next item, which is consideration approval of the 2026 2027 academic calendar. Chief operations officer John Modica front and center. Yes, [snorts] >> sir. Good evening, Dr. Brown. Good evening, board. Yes. Tonight, we are bringing you a calendar option we'd like you to consider and approve. First, I'm [clears throat] going to talk you walk you through the process and design and selection process and then just how we came to the option three that we're bringing to you tonight. So, in November, we had a calendar design committee meet. Uh it's composed of primarily um many of the members of our DEIC district education improvement committee. um teachers, pair professionals, coaches, um community members, parents, all those stakeholders that should be involved in the calendar design process.
057And from there, they're truly designing three separate calendars that meet the state requirements as well as our Lake Dallas guidelines. In December, uh we took those three options to the DEIC. Um this committee, the DEIC, they don't revise it, they don't edit it. They're just saying those three calendars meet the state and Lake Dallas guidelines. And so those three were approved. Those were the ones that we sent out to stakeholders in January. Miss Poston put that out through social media as well as parent square. And the results came back with option three. Uh resentment overwhelming 47% said option three. We excited because had just under 700 people vote on this calendar. And so I think it represents our stakeholders, our staff. Well, um just some highlights. You do have option three there in your board
058packet. So just some few highlights from option three that I'd like to cover and of course I'll open up for questions. Um with [clears throat] this academic year, teachers would come back and start on August 4th. Students first day of school will be August 12th. We built in five professional development days there to begin the school year. There's also going to be one day in there for a teacher work day in this [clears throat] calendar. You notice we haven't marked that yet because we learned in the past that we like to get input from the curricular instruction team campus admin because even last year we we moved one of those work days to accommodate for meet the teacher night. So want to gain that input before [clears throat] placing on the calendar. You also may
059notice that there were at least marked on the bottom there adsy days or additional school additional days school year. So these are days outside the traditional instructional calendar but primarily or traditionally these are like summer school right so there's just extension option for academic uh support for students or u like I said summer school [snorts] this [clears throat] year TA has actually given districts the opportunity to receive partial funding for these adsy days um a luxury we didn't have in the past so um as we look forward to adding these and again these will most of these will be fall into June um for our summer school days. There's going to be 20 there. We are also looking at possibly adding one adsy day each Saturday of the month. Um but again, these would be
060Saturdays just like summer school that would be voluntary for staff. Um and they would be compensated for their time. But it just gives our students more opportunity um to extend their learning, to accelerate their learning. It just gives them more opportunities like that just as summer school does. There are two designated half days at the end of each semester. one, two overall, one at the end of each semester. Um, it supports the final exam schedule at high schools and middle school and as well as grading for all subject areas at the end of the nine weeks in the semester. Uh, in February, we will we will know more because we'll know our UIL district. And so from there, we'll build a football schedule, but we there are plenty of instructional minutes built in this calendar
061to where we can add if needed um a half day in the fall or two for if we have to travel to a long away game for football. Um and just [clears throat] like last year, this would be to the needs of the transportation department um to ensure we can get the majority of our student body home on those days and then safely travel our Friday night students to their participating games. um across the metroplex in a timely manner. There's just if [clears throat] we're traveling two hours to Paris, per se, it's just not possible to bus our kids home and then at five o'clock start busing all our Friday night light kids across the metroplex. So, if needed, we have that those built in and we'll add those later once we know our schedule
062and which district we're part of. In this option three calendar, there's two bad weather days built in. One in March, one in April. Um [clears throat] spring break, you'll notice, is the third week of March. This is aligned to NCTC schedule. Um, and the committee traditionally we go with NCTC because our dual credit students. So, we have just under 100 dual credit students. So, that allows those students and their families to actually get a spring break. If we were staggered, then they wouldn't get one. And then finally, the last day of school for students is May 26. And the last day for staff will be May 27th. And I'm happy to take any questions on the selection process or design process and calendar itself. >> So any questions or comments for Mr. Mod? All right.
063Thanks, sir. If not, uh any discussion? All right, I'll entertain a motion. >> Move to approve. Motion to approve Mr. Bear. Do I have a second? Second by Miss Collier. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? If not, all those in favor of approval, please indicate. And that passes unanimous. Thank you. Move on to our next item, which is consideration approval of floor installation services for Lake Dallas Elementary and Shady Shores Elementary. Mr. Monica, >> back again. >> Yes, sir. >> So, these are some of the projects that we talked about almost a year ago now, believe it or not. Uh, one of those being flooring. We're needed some flooring at uh, just to upgrade our schools, give them a better look, and honestly, it makes uh, easier to maintain and more efficient to operate.
064And so, primarily right now, we're looking at flooring installation at Lake Dallas Elementary and Shady Zors Elementary. Because this was such a large project and a large price tag, um, it was in our due diligence to actually put it out to bid and get the best quality vendor as well as the best price for our stakeholders. So, we did put that out as an RFP, request for purchase. Um, a contractor primarily looking to install flooring in the those two elementaryaries I mentioned. Um, it's really all flooring throughout the entire building. So, it's a lot of square feet. Um, and we're looking at adding the LVT, the luxury vinyl tie like like you see at the middle school and the newest sections of the high school. That's what we're looking to add in these spots. As
065far as the selection criteria and evaluation, we had a committee meet and we are [clears throat] grading all the vendors and contractors on these four qualifications. So, purpose, price, qualifications, represent or reputation and references and then of course the extent of their goods and services meet the needs of the district and what we're looking for. Uh we had three bid in on the on this purchase opportunity and Vector Concepts had the highest score 304. And so this is the contractor that we put before the board as a consideration to um install these floors. We're looking at doing this primarily over the summer. That's the hope. Um we also did this early in the process because there's a long lead time on this much material. Any questions on this? >> Have any questions or comments from
066the board? >> Okay, Miss Collier. Is this the you said the whole school like in the classrooms as well? Cafeteria. >> Okay. We're even doing the walk-off carpets as you enter the building. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? >> Was there a reason given for the massive discrepancy in pricing? >> You talking about the between the bids? I'm not sure. There there was one that was fairly high. >> The other two are comparable. That third one, not sure. We had never heard of that company before, but >> Okay. Any other questions? >> Rather large. Made it a little easier. >> All right. >> If there's no further questions, I'll entertain a motion. >> Motion to approve by Mr. Applebee. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Second by Mr. Smith. Is there any
067further discussion? If not, all those in favor of approval, please indicate. And that passes unanimous. Thank you. And once again, we'll hear from Mr. Modica regarding consideration approval of TASBY policy update 126. >> Why would you not want to end your night on policy? >> Sounds [snorts] great. So [clears throat] yes, um you all well know that update 126 was a large update. This is coming off the heels of the legislative 89th legislative session. So that's what we're here to talk about tonight. Um those local policy updates. Obviously, we're not going to talk about the legal policies. Those are state law and uh we as a school district must follow those and those are now worked into our policy manual. Uh there were well over a 100 bills passed in the 89th legislation uh pertaining
068to education that impact our local policy. Um so currently before you tonight, you have the summary, you have the the update. [clears throat] We do not have any currently we don't have any revisions or any changes that we recommend to one 126 update. Um, we're asking you to consider improve that tonight as a board. [clears throat] I would like to point out a few things and then actually talk through just some of those highlights that we feel like may come up or have already come up through the school year. Um, these laws, as you well know, these actually took effect September 1st, 2025. Uh, we as a school district have been in client compliance with these laws since August to start the school year. So, no questions there. Um there was a delay in the
069release of this update just because of the large quantity of laws um and TASBY team having to draw up all these policies for all the districts they represent. Um some of the ones we want to bring to your attention tonight. So CSA local other known as the the bathroom law. So [clears throat] this is a new law that any multi-stall or multi-use restroom or locker room must be labeled boys or girls. you have to assign a gender to the room. Every restroom and locker room in the district currently has signs outside outside of those spaces accordingly. Uh there are specific types of restrooms that fall outside these parame parameters. Some would be in our special education classrooms um that are used by both genders uh as well as maybe our early childhood or prek, right?
070That would be a bathroom within the classroom that both genders can use. Again, those are permissible by this law. They actually [clears throat] even fall outside of that because most of those are going to be single use anyway. But just so you're aware, FNG local, this is our grievance or complaint process. Uh with the new legislative update, the timeline for this process was extended for stakeholders uh pretty greatly. So previously a stakeholder that wanted to submit a complaint, they had to do so within 15 days of the incident or the complaint happening. Uh now with this new law, they have up to 60 days. >> [clears throat] >> So large jump there. And it correspondingly the level twos and level threes also were extended from 10 days each. Those are now uh 20 days each
071to finish that level two and level three process. So just again another update to that that of course we will work into our practices and procedures that we already have. Uh there are other policy changes that just want to bring to your attention quickly that really that affect our dayto-day. And these of course you're also well aware of because we've been putting these to practice all year. Um just quickly be legal and local. Uh these address the timelines and requirements for a district to follow terms of posting board agendas. So primarily in this building and department heads um and some of our personnel at the campuses. We've really had to adjust our timelines and making sure that we're getting agenda items and artifacts to Miss McCertie on time so that we can post those in
072a timely manner according to the law policy. EFB, which establishes a school library committee. So, um, you've seen that a couple times, Dr. Oullivan being up here previously, last semester, talking about the protocols for that committee and the things they'll be doing. I think they're actually meeting again this semester. And then finally, SB12, other known as the parent rights bill. Um this impacted several of our local policies, but in short uh we as a district must seek parent and guard guardian approval before any student um goes through school related services or student programming options for their child. So again, we as a district have put this practice in place. We built in practices, protocols, and community st or communication standards so that we're ensuring to be in compliant with this update. But those are the
073ones that have really I guess we've gotten the most questions on over the year and the ones that have impacted our day-to-day the most. But I am happy to take any questions you have on update 126. I think the summary is 94 pages. So I'm sure you've had a grand time reading through the entire update. Yeah, riveting. [laughter] >> Is there any questions or comments from the board? >> If not, I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve by Mr. Smith. Do I have a second? >> Second by Mr. Tucker. Is there any further discussion? If not, all those in favor of approval, please indicate. And that passes unanimous. [clears throat] All right, I'll move on to our next item, which is consideration and possible action regarding approval of a finding in accordance with Texas
074Education Code section 21.2. 2110 C2 and 19 Texas Administrative Code 249.14J that good cause that exists for Cameron Hogan term contract teacher to abandon his employment contract position and attempt to resign from Lake Dallas ISD. Miss Abalino. Hi. >> Good evening. Hello again. Just wanted to uh make sure that the board did not have any questions regarding agenda item 10E. >> Any questions or comments from the board? If not, I'll entertain a motion. >> Recommend that the board issue a finding in accordance with Texas Education Code section 21.210C2 21C2 and 19 Texas Administrative Code section [snorts] 249.14J that good cause did not exist for term contract teacher Cameron Hogan's abandonment of his employment contract abandonment of his position and attempt to resign from Lake Dallas ISD. >> Motion to approve as stated from Miss Collier.
075Do I have a second? >> Second by Mr. Bair. Is there any discussion? >> If not, all those in favor of approval, please indicate. And that passes unanimous. Thank you. Don't go anywhere. Uh our next one is consideration and possible action regarding a notification to the state board state board for educator certification of excuse [clears throat] me certification of term contract teacher Cameron Hogan concerning abandonment of his employment contract and seeking sanctions for abandonment of his position. Miss Aalino. >> Does the board have any questions regarding agenda item 10F? [snorts] Any questions from the board? If not, I'll entertain a motion. >> I move that the board send information required by 19 Texas Administrative Code 249.14J to the state board for educator certification and to Mr. Hogan seeking sanctions for abandonment of his employment contract.
076>> I have a motion to approve by Mr. Applebee as stated. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Second by Mr. Bar. Is there any discussion? If not, all those in favor of approval indicate and that passes unanimous. Thank you. Move on to our calendar announcements and information and upcoming meetings. Dr. Brown, it's all you. >> Yes, sir. You have uh two pages worth of opportunities to uh participate in some exciting things around the school district. Um just a reminder, we are starting our uh spring workshop schedule on February [snorts] 2nd. >> All right. Thank you very much. Uh the executive or will now move into executive session. The open session of the meeting will adjourn. The board of trustees will reconvene in executive session pursuant to one or more of the sections
077of the Texas Open Meetings Act chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code. The board of trustees will reconvene in open session to take any final action decision or vote on a matter deliberated in executive session. This is regarding uh personnel matters and legal matters and it is uh 7:59 We on. All right. It is 8:34. We are back in open session. have one action item and that is consideration approval of personnel items including the superintendent's evaluation and contract. I have any uh discussion regarding this item? >> If not, I'll entertain a motion. >> I have a motion to approve as stated by Mr. Applebee. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Second by Mr. Smith. I'm sorry. I had a piece of candy in my mouth. I made me think about it.
078I have a second by Mr. Smith. Is there any further discussion? If not, all those in favor of approval, please indicate. That passes unanimous. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Like having Dr. Brown here. We're going to keep her around a little while longer. >> It is 8:35 and we are adjourned.