001The board of trustees of the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District is called to order at 6:30 p.m. This is the regular monthly board meeting being held on June 17th, 2025. We have a quorum with all members present. Please join me in a moment of silence to observe as you feel appropriate. Okay, please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance and pledge to the Texas flag led by Satie Fader, a soontobe seventh grader at Layman Junior High School. 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. Now honor the Texas flag. I Texas flag of the pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you, Satie. Good
002job. [Music] Okay. Um, our next item is introductions or recognitions. Are there any recognitions? Recognitions. Yes, ma'am. Madam President, we have a few recognitions. I'll have Miss Cohen to come to the podium. Good evening, Madame President, trustees, Dr. Nven, and the Lamar CISD community and those who have joined us in person or virtually tonight. School may be out for the summer, but exciting things are still happening across our district. Our Lamar CSD students keep bringing home awards and our district leaders are doing some great things preparing Lamar SSD for the new year and beyond. Kicking off our recognitions this evening is a major announcement. And you know what? I think I may need some help. Let me see. Is my help on the way to help me with this next announcement? I'm going to call
003forward a special surprise guest to present this first recognition. We're honored tonight to have Dr. Rodney Watson, executive director of Region 4, here with us along with several members of the region 4 team. And at this time, I want to hand the podium over to Dr. Rodney Watson. [Applause] I'm very happy. So for the folks at home who wonder like what's the fuss about, Dr. Watson, would you like to come to the mic for a moment? So this is truly um this is truly a remarkable recognition for you, uh Dr. Nven. Um just a little bit of background, we have over 90 superintendents in region 4 and this is not an award that your district can apply for for you. This is not an award in terms of your administrative staff, but this is an
004award that board members across the region and across the state um that they apply for their superintendent to acknowledge all the contribution and the work that you've done. And so you are the 2025 region 4 superintendent of the year. We'll be back a little later to really go over some accolades. [Applause] So, we're going to um come back and go over some accolades, but we want you to know that you definitely represent region 4 in your community. Well, um we look forward to you going on to the state competition where you'll be competing against um all 20 regions and we want you to represent region uh four and bring home the award for your district and our region. Congratulations, [Applause] We were keeping it. have more. So ready. How you doing? Come get it. [Applause]
005Hey, hey, You still Yeah. Yeah. All right, trustees. Moving on to a student recognition. Mathcon is a two-part North American math competition that our high schools participate in each year. After an initial first round of competition that takes place online, Mathcon selects finalists to compete face- tof face in the finals, which took place this year on May 10th in Chicago. Only students performing in the top 2% internationally are invited to the Mathcon finals. And this year, more than 31,000 students took part in the first round of the competition. While only 645 students were selected to compete in the finals, six were from Lamarc ISD, representing George Ranch High School, Randall High School, and Terry High School. We're excited tonight to celebrate our very own 2025 Mathcon finalists from George Ranch High School, Sophia Quayar, Ethan
006Davis, Connor George, and Anderson Trey Witten. From Randall High School, Amaya Adams. And from Terry High School, Olivia Via Rial. [Applause] While they take their photo, we want to take a moment to recognize the parents and family members of these students. If you are here this evening, please stand. Yay. We had some Yeah. This level of mathematical achievement begins with early math exposure in a child's life, often before they even start school. And through your encouragement, support, and continued exposure to math throughout your children's lives, you've played an incredible role in helping them reach this moment. Every ladies and gentlemen, one last time, please join me in applauding the parents and families and students and our Mathcon finalists. Madame President, that's all the recognitions we have at this time. We've got introductions next. Thank you.
007All right. Good evening, Dr. Nims, Madam President Hansel, and board of trustees. Tonight, I'm proud to introduce three new principles for the 2526 school year here in LCISD. First, we will begin with the new principal of Adolf Elementary, Mr. Chad Davis. Chad Davis was born and raised in Missouri City, Texas. He's a proud graduate of the University of North Texas, which a bachelor's degree in business and Lamar University, where he received his master's degree in education administration. Mr. Davis is also one of our very own as he's a proud Richmond resident, and he recently served in Shelton ISD as an elementary campus principal. Chad has a total of 17 years of experience in education serving as a classroom teacher, an assistant principal, an associate principal, and a campus principal. Attending with Mr. Davis tonight is
008his wife Jasmine and his two sons Graham and Grayson who also [Applause] I also wanted to be known that Graham and Grayson also recently completed the school year at Adolf Elementary as well this year. So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the new principal of Adolf Elementary, Mr. Chad Davis. Next, we have the new principal of Frost Elementary, Miss Kimberly Ellis. Miss Kimberly Ellis was born and raised in Corpus Christie, Texas. She is a proud graduate of Texas&M University Corpus Christi where she received both her bachelor of science and master's degree in education administration. Miss Ellis comes to us from Corpus Christie ISD where she recently served as an elementary campus principal. Kimley has a total of 10 years of experience in the field of education serving as special education teacher, campus assistant principal, and campus
009principal. Although they are not able to attend tonight, watching live virtually are her two sons, Khalil and Taj. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the new principal of Frost Elementary, Miss Kimberly Ellis. And finally, we have the new principal of Travis Elementary, Mrs. Chenné Young Baker. Mrs. Young Baker was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She's a proud graduate of the University of Houston with a bachelor's degree in journalism and psychology. She has also earned a master's degree in school psychology from Our Lady of the Lake University. Mrs. Young Baker comes to us from Fort Bistd where she recently served as an elementary campus principal. Chana also has a total of 19 years of experience in education serving as a classroom teacher, a licensed specialist in school psychology, a MTSS coordinator, also known as multi-tered
010system of supports coordinator, an assistant principal, and a campus principal. Attending with Mrs. Young Baker tonight is her husband, Andrew Baker. [Applause] Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the new principal of Travis Elementary, Mrs. Sh Young Baker. [Applause] Madame President, next we will have introductions of our LCISTD police officers. Thank you, sir. Good evening, Dr. Nven, board of trustees. Madam President, I am delighted today to introduce you to our new police officers, our new additions to the Lamarcis Police Department that are set to take uh in our campuses next school year, take their positions. First and foremost, I have Officer Latricia Bankston, a recent graduate of the Houston Community College Police Academy. Latricia treasures time spent with her family, traveling to new places, and cooking. Her journey started in sixth grade when she joined the Bay
011City Police Explorer program, sparking a lifelong passion to become a police officer. Officer Latricia Bankston. [Applause] Officer Cecilia Dori is a bilingual professional who has dedicated herself to law enforcement and community mentorship. recently serving with the city of Katy police department. From working with patrol and evidence management to supporting her peers in teaching RAD courses to the community, her heart is in this to inspire and guiding the next generation toward success. Officer Cecilia Darvis Shorty. [Applause] Next is Officer Antonio Feliciano, a proud graduate of Wharton County Junior Police Academy in 2022. He loves golfing, traveling, and watching movies. But his greatest joy is spending time with his family, his wife Callie, their children Aiden, Alina, and Amara, and of course his mother Maida. He recently served with the city of Richmond, and he's joined us
012here for the following school year. Officer Antonio Philiso [Applause] Officer Felipe Gutierrez Jr., a former United States Navy service member who found his calling in law enforcement after serving with the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Filipe takes pride in serving his community and is a graduate of the University of Houston Downtown Police Academy and is looking forward to serving the community of Lamar CISD. He recently comes to us from the University of Houston Police Department. [Applause] Officer Ronald Douglas Han is a proud veteran of the Texas Army National Guard. He comes to Lamar CISD Police Department with over 12 years of dedicated service at the Harris County Sheriff's Office. His greatest joy comes from spending time with his family, his wife of nine years, and their two daughters, Ruth and Kennedy. He is passionate about staying
013active and cherishing every moment with his loved ones and looking forward to contributing to the success of Lamarcisd. Officer Ronald Douglas Han. [Applause] Next is Officer Gayen Hernandez. He is a recent graduate of the Houston Community College Police Academy. His lifelong passion has been sports, of course, his family, and helping others. He stays energized by attending his families and children's extracurricular activities, prioritiz prioritizing fitness, and hopes to he can continue to assist our community by building a strong future with our Lamar CISD students and staff. Officer Gayen Hernandez. [Applause] [Music] Officer Michael Sierra, a proud United States Marine Corps veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Officer Sierra has devoted over 18 years of law enforce law enforcement as a peace officer. He has been married for over 25 years. He enjoys salsa dancing, relaxing
014with close friends, and cheering on his two college age children as they pursue their dreams. Welcome, Officer Michael Sierra. [Applause] And last and certainly not least, Officer D. Williams. Re who moved from Atlanta, Georgia to Texas in 2016. She comes from a family whose heart is dedicating to serving their community. She found it natural to pursue a career in law enforcement and is looking forward to protecting and serving the students of staff of Lamarcy ISD. Officer D. Williams. [Applause] Madame President, that concludes our introduction and presentations for this evening. Thank you. Yes. She's putting the cookies in the back. We'll wait for her. Maybe not. Go ahead. Just go ahead. Okay. Um it's time for board member reports um to our new trustees. This is just a couple minutes where you can share what you've
015been up to the past month since your last board meeting. Um please keep your comments brief. Would anybody like to go first? We don't have Kay anymore to volunteer. Anybody want to go? I'll go. Uh, I just wanted to give a shout out to the incredible green track staff for bringing the energy and getting everyone pumped up for the opening coming up in August. Your hard work and enthusiasm set the tone for amazing start. So, I just wanted to say thank you for leading the way. Anybody else? No. Um, well, I just want to say a huge congratulations to Dr. Nans for this amazing, exciting award. I kind of want to tell a funny story though. So, the trustees traveled to Austin this or San Antonio this past week for a conference and I got
016a phone call from Miss Cole Hamilton that said, "Uh, can you keep a secret?" And I was like, "Oh gosh, I don't know what." She told me that Dr. Nans won and I was so excited. But then later that night he uh we were in the hotel lobby and he just I I kind of was like, "Are you okay?" And he had had his interview that morning or the morning before and he was like, "Oh, I'm just just I haven't heard. I'm kind of stressing." And so I had to keep it a secret. I did I did tell a few other trustees cuz couldn't keep my mouth shut. Um but anyways, we are just immensely proud of you. We are blessed to have you as the superintendent of this district. So, congratulations. Um, is there
017a superintendent report? Yes. It won't it'll be quick because y'all know I'm a cry baby. Um, but I do want to uh give a shout out to uh the board uh for nominating me because as I said earlier though, they didn't have to do that and u um it means an awful lot to a superintendent when your board has uh shows that voter confidence in you. And so to the school board, I I I appreciate it. I appreciate it. And it was really nice to see my beautiful bride of 25 years come in the room. So I almost cried, but I made it. I made it. So uh but I do want to say that uh this award is it's a team award. Uh I appreciate the board and I appreciate my team. I appreciate
018the teachers and the students for letting me be the face of the success that they that they are uh experiencing. And uh no superintendent can do this alone and you know that. And all I do is sit back and and watch the team work and talk to the board members and uh they help us govern the district. And so uh it is a tremendous honor and tremendous blessing. And so to my team, man, y'all y'all are y'all y'all are special. Um I have the best team in the world. Y'all are special. And this is a an award that I that belongs to you, belongs to you, belongs to the teachers, belongs to the students, and definitely belongs to my trustees. So, I appreciate it. Okay, Miss Johnson, are there any public comments? Okay. At this
019time, we will open the public hearing to discuss the budget and proposed tax rate for the 2025 2026 school year at 6:52 p.m. We will first have a presentation. Miss Low. Good evening, board of trustees and Dr. Nian. This evening, I will open the public hearing for the Lamarcisd budgets. Uh this evening, there are a couple um major things that we're looking at. First of all, the three budgets that require official adoption by the board of trustees. uh those for the general fund, the debt service fund and the child nutrition fund. Lamarcisd typically adopts the budget at the functional level. Card Lamarcisd typically um adopts the budget at the functional category level. Uh that means that uh the TEA has a uniform uh set of account codes that we use. Uh all all districts in
020the state of Texas use that same uniform coding system. And uh the function tells the public what the items that we're buying or paying for are uh what function they serve within the district. We'll also talk about um proposed tax rates for the 2025 tax year. There will be uh even though we have not adopted this budget yet, I'm already going to tell you that we will be amending the budget. Uh this is because uh the as you all know the legislative session just ended. And so there are some provisions that we will need to include in this budget before our fiscal year starts on September 1st. Uh the legislative session ended on June 2nd and it will take um a little bit of time to understand all of the interpretations and all of the
021various um changes that they're making to uh the rules and regs that we have to follow. Uh accuracy for us is of utmost importance. So we want to take our time and make sure we do everything just right. uh amendments to the adopted budget will be necessary and we are attempting to mitigate the financial impact of the mandates while we are ensuring that the intent of the lawmakers uh is being met. The estimates and projections that I'm presenting tonight are based on current law, which means the uh funding estimates are based on 2425 fiscal year rules and regulations, especially with respect to state funding. The recent legislative action regarding state funding will be discussed more in a separate presentation later in the meeting. There is an exception. There are some provisions regarding salary adjustments uh
022and pass through funds that uh I will be covering in this uh presentation because there are a lot of behind the scenes work and things that have to be uh put in place so that we can carry out those rules and regs and um do those salary adjustments. Uh I'm really speaking in reference to the teacher uh retention supplements and the support staff retention aotment. Starting with the general fund uh a snapshot of where we are. We are presenting an excess revenue budget of about $545,000. Uh that is made up of a revenue total of $57.8 8 million and an expenditure total of about $57.3 million. The $57.8 million in revenue are made up of three different sources of revenue, local, state, and federal. We are um expecting to collect $215.5 million in local revenues.
023The largest of those revenues are our property taxes. um in the state category, $290.7 million. Uh the bulk of that coming from the state funding formula and then a small amount of federally sourced revenues reported in the general fund of about 1.6 million. As I said, the most um largest uh portion of our local revenues comes from property taxes. We have received a certified estimate of value from our chief appraiser at the Fort Ben Central Appraisal District. We received that on April 17th. We will receive certified values in July, which is what we will finalize our tax rate based on. Right now, we are uh using a taxable value for our estimated levy of 29.4 billion. And again, that is a certified estimate at this time. and it is a 4.81% increase in value over
024the 2024 tax year values. As you can see by the next bullet, we do um or have experienced increases in value over the past few years. Uh last year in 2024, we had a 12.28% growth in values, 9% the year before, almost 24% in 22, and 10% in 2021. As you'll see, it varies from year to year, but on average, um, you know, we're somewhere between, uh, nine and 15% most likely. Um, with respect to the M rate that we're using in these estimates, we're using a 6537 uh, cent rate. the maximum compressed rate which is part of the funding formula. Uh the the um portion of the 65 cents related to the MCR is is 60 cents. We do have 5 cents of enrichment pennies. Those were levied uh by the board in prior
025years. Uh 4 cents were adopted between 2008 and 2012. And then there was one penny adopted in 2020 pursuant to the House Bill three in the 2019 session. Uh for state aid, our estimate of enrollment is 48,951 students and we are using a um 94 and a half% attendance rate. So our refined average daily attendance being used for our formula is 45,48 students. Some prorations have been calculated into the estimate as there are caps on some of the funding at the state level. Here's a snapshot of uh the revenue side of the budget. Um it went a little bit more detail than I went through earlier. 207 million is relate related to property taxes of the $215.5 million. Um, as you see in the middle of the page, uh, state revenues of $290.7 million, uh,
026247.4 million of that is the foundation school program revenue. uh of the one one,575,000 in state and sorry in federal revenues uh a million250,000 has to do with uh our charge revenue which is related to Medicaid programs. So you'll see 42% of the total budget comes from local sources and 57% comes from state sources. Here you'll see a comparison of the 2425 adopted budget and the 2526 proposed budget. Uh total revenues for the current fiscal year were budgeted at 473.8 million whereas we're at 57.8 million for 26. expenditures total $57.3 million for the budget under consideration whereas last year $473.3 million. We're in a very similar um bottom line impact this year as we were when we adopted the budget last year. Um the largest category of expenditures is salaries and benefits of course because
027we are a people oriented business. Uh so $432.5 million of the 57.3 million is related to salaries and benefits. Uh 41.5 million has to do with contracted services and within that total uh you would find utilities and things like that as well. Supplies and materials uh total $23.4 million. Um, moving on to the some of the behind the-scenes stuff. Uh, we do use zerobased budgeting techniques and that means that everyone starts at zero and has to justify their expenditure budgets so that funds aren't just rolled over from year to year. And as I said, over 85% of our budget is salaries and benefits. Our board budget committee made salary increases a top priority and um previously adopted salary increases um include a starting teacher salary of $65,700. Teachers and other staff that are paid on
028the teacher salary schedule uh will receive a flat raise of $2,000 and all other staff will receive 3% of mid midpoint and that's before any of the legislative action. There was no increase in health plan premiums for staff. Any increases will be absorbed by the district. Now moving on to House Bill two and current legislation. Uh House Bill two provided for salary increases for specified staff um staff members. So there were two notable uh actions. The teacher retention allotment and we're referring to that as the TRA and the support staff retention aotment. So first of all the TRA applies to classroom teachers with three or more or five or more years of experience. And since we're a district with more than 5,000 students, um our teachers will receive $2500 if they have three to four
029years of experience and 5,000 if they have five or more years of experience. Uh we will amend the budget as I mentioned on the revenue side and the expenditure side for this uh before September 1st. So, uh, as you, as you're hearing, we are passing the funds that we are getting from the state on to our teachers. This is a comparison. I know there's a lot of numbers there. It's um, but this is a comparison of our 2425 or current year teacher salary schedule. Uh, and then so you'll see that on the second column from the left. The um next column to your right shows the flat $2,000 raise that was approved on May 5th of this year by the board of trustees. So um that's where we stand currently. And then in the far
030right column, you'll see what each step um teacher will earn um after the TRA is included in our budget. And you'll see that there is a blue highlight in steps 0, one, and two. And that's only because those were not included in the provisions in this part of the law. Can I ask a question? Yes. So like so for instance on line seven it says 67 so a teacher who made 67,02425 would then make 74 the next year. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. Um, so that because they moved from step seven at 67,000 to step eight at 69 with their 2,000. Um, and then the additional 5,000 would put them at the 74,000. So that's how you walk through. And then the other aotment is the support staff allotment. uh we will be generating about
031$2 million is our estimate um for that and that's the amount that we're going to distribute. Uh it's earned at 45 thou $45 per student. Um the amounts that will be awarded in salary uh adjustments will vary according to eligibility criteria and this applies to nonadministrative staff or non-administration. Uh we are going to focus on campus-based employees first. Um there are three options that we're going to ask the board to consider tonight and uh the 2526 budget will be amended for these as well before the September 1st um fiscal year begins. So, a little background here uh to define what non-administrative staff uh includes, it would be those teachers where I pointed out the the blue um shading on the previous table. Uh those are steps 0, one, and two. And then counselors, librarians, nurses,
032and all of uh the other staff that were paid according to the teacher salary schedule that are not classroom teachers. Um, it also includes teachers assistants, custodial staff, food service staff, bus drivers, administrative assistants, and other support staff. What it does not include are superintendent or other administrator service as a CEO, CEO, um, assistant superintendent or equivalent principles or assistant principles or employees in a centralized supervisory role. So these are the three options um that we've considered. Uh so in option one, teachers that are on the 0, one, and two steps next year uh would receive $2,000. And we uh have estimated $375 teachers in that group. So that would be worth $750,000. And then all other teachers that are currently paid on the teacher salary schedule, um we feel like there's about 325 of
033them, they would receive $1,500. So the total of that is $487,500. The total of that plan is a little over $1.2 million. That is less than the 2 million that I quoted. Um so the difference there also is to be um will generate um an expenditure that the district has to pay for payroll withholding costs and so some of those funds could be used for that. Um but there is another aotment that I will talk about in a few minutes that is really designated for that. Uh so anyway option excuse me option one is 1.2 2 million. Option two is 1.475 million. Uh the teachers on steps 01 and two would receive $2,000. All others on the teacher salary schedule would receive Thank you. One uh $1,500 and all other non-administrative staff would get $125.
034And that's um there are 1,900 of those. So you'll see there that's 1.4 475 million. Option three would be uh teachers on steps 0, one, and two would receive a th00and. All others on teacher salary schedule would receive 500. And then all other non-administrative staff would u and that are eligible would receive $825. And so that would there's 1900 of those. So that's 1 uh568 million. So, that's a little over 2.1 million. Uh, any questions about that or discussion, Miss Lug? Are we going to We're going to select one of these as a body tonight. Is that correct? Yes, we we would like for you to Yes. Could you And when it says all others on TSS, could you give us some examples like is that that's PAR professionals? That's So sorry. Okay. Um so
035of on this on this list uh that would include um others that are on the teacher salary schedule include the teachers that are on steps 01 and two uh counselors, librarians uh and nurses. And then there are some other categories as well. Uh speech therapists um diagnosticians uh some of those categories. So would paras fall into that at all? Uh paras are actually on a paygrade table. No what the question is on what the question is is for the non-administrative staff like who all is included in that and so uh the state gave us two different categories. They gave us teachers and then teachers on on the pay scale teacher pay scale and then go back please. Yeah. Um and so then what we decided to do was uh the teachers that were not eligible
036zero one and two separate them and then others that are on the teacher pay scale would be the counselors, librarians, nurses and then the non-administrative we selected we created a third category non-administrative would be teacher assistants, custodial staff, food service, bus drivers, administrative staff and other support. So we divided that $2 million up between all three groups. And so uh that's what you see on the table. Uh so the teachers 01 and two would be the first. Everybody else on the on the teacher pay scale will be number two. And then the third one includes all of our auxiliary staff for our bus drivers and everyone else. So everybody can get additional teacher teacher assistance. Um option number three though that what the c the verbiage up there that says all uh all other non-administration.
037Yes. That would include the teacher aids. Yes. That would include go back to the list Gio please. That would include everyone teacher assistants and below teacher assistance, custodial staff, food service, bus driver, admin administrative assistance. So is a pair professional considered a teacher assistant? Yes. So they would be they are included. It's it's kind of the words are synonymous. So the question was are paras and teacher assistants kind of the same? So, our instructional paras, teacher assistants, uh, aids, they're all kind of considered the same, uh, class. So, I I'll offer up to the other board members. Uh, Zack, Jackie, and I talking with Dr. Nven about this recently, and we I think we came to three of us came to an agreement that we liked number three, option number three. And so, that was
038kind of where we were Oops. where we landed. And the reason that the three of us met is we make up the board budget committee. So that just for that clarification as well. Okay. Is everyone understanding what they're seeing? Okay. So in option one, we left out paras non non-admin people. Um we didn't love the idea of doing that even though it saves you money. Um, option two, when you when you work it out from like what a $125 would be as far as a a raise on the paycheck, it was very very minimal, almost, you know, pointless in my opinion. Um, so yeah, option three seemed like the the best. Do we want to explain why we chose to give the tier three more than tier 2? Yes. So the the uh the thought
039was first off make sure that uh we take care of our teachers, the people that are in the classroom every single day dealing directly with students that we show them and make sure they know that they are sincerely appreciated. Uh but also we know everyone else on the teacher pay scale, they support thers and so we want to make sure we can get get something. But also category three, our non-admin staff, we know uh that's kind of the lifeblood of our school system. you know, those are our our aids, our bus drivers, our cafeteria, our child nutrition workers. And so, we want to make sure that we had enough dollars set aside to show them sincere appreciation for what they do for our school system. And so, and also the the the caveat is, you
040know, we want to keep our best teachers in the classroom as much as possible. And so we just want to try to do something that shows them that, but also showing our non-administrative staff uh category three that we appreciate everything that they do for our school system and for our children, for our staff because they they actually they're the ones that make it go. And so we can't have um we can't have a great learning environment with our custodial staff. You know, we have to have our bus drivers to get our students to school and then when they get to school, we have to feed them. And so we want to make sure that we take care of them as well. Yes. And the $1,000 it basically creates since the 0ero to one two teachers
041aren't getting the big bump. This creates like an additional step. And so now instead of starting at 654, they'll start at 664. Is that the right number? I think. So they'll start $1,000 even more than what we've already 6 667 667. So, and that is a that is a great starting salary for a teacher. Um, and then it incentivizes them to to stay until you're a thirdyear teacher. So, you get that 2500 bump as well. And one of the things we talked about during that meeting is that, and we may get into it later, but this is all pending the legislature. if they continue in two years when they come back for the session if they can they they could amend this bill this law and say we want to apply different funding or maybe
042we want to take this funding away so that those step ups um just to note for the public that it's pending that our legislature and our governor and our the the House and the Senate come still agree that we're going to push this forward every session. So in other words, it would only be good for two years unless it's continually renewed by the legislature and signed by the governor. Correct. Um, we briefly discussed in our when we met putting a separate if it was possible putting a separate line on the W2 right on on their check on their payub so that they see that it is not extra but it's coming from the state that's in just in hopefully it never goes away but just in case. Yeah. Okay. Any other comments on that? All
043right. Again, a snapshot of where we are. This is before those adjustments that we just dis that we just discussed. So 57.8 in revenue, 57.3 in expense expenditures leaves us uh ahead at 545,000. Moving on to child nutrition. It is a self-supporting budget this year um estimated at $31.2 million. Revenues are generated from breakfast and lunch sales, but more importantly from federal reimbursements. That's a very large category of source of funds. Uh expenditures are the same typical ones. Uh salaries and benefits being the largest. Uh and then also uh food cost, supply cost, and capital outlay. So, this is how that budget stacks up. Uh, almost $12 million of the $31 million is payroll and benefits. And the other big category is supplies and materials at almost $19 million. That was a quick one. Uh,
044moving on to debt service. Uh, our total revenues and other sources of funds and expenditures. Uh, this is a balanced budget at 173.6 $6 million. You'll see that $151ish million uh would be property taxes, penalties, interest, and delinquent taxes. Uh about 5 million in interest earnings and that is uh interest on the debt service fund balance uh transfers of capital project interest and also capital pro um capitalized interest that's been generated from bond sales. Uh there is also statehold harmless funding for debt service of $17.3 million. Um just a little bit about statehold harmless funding. Whenever there are uh rules or laws passed where for instance homestead exemptions are increased that means that we collect less in taxes. So the state makes us whole by increasing our state funding to offset that. So that's why
045it's called um hold harmless funding. Um on the expenditure side, this is a fund that's dedicated solely to uh paying on our outstanding bonds. And so uh bond principle and interest are the biggest expenditures. So this year our principal will be paying down $40 million. And we do have interest of $133.5 million. Uh there are some bond fees there of $130,000. Uh and that's for paying agent fees and and other related costs of of having bonds and and paying um our payments. Moving on to the tax rate. Uh there are two components to our tax rate. the maintenance and operations or M and our interest in syncing tax rate which is INS and that is the one that funds the the debt service fund that we just talked about. So M um the that tax
046rate covers salaries and benefits, contracted services, supplies and materials, operating expenses, capital outlay, all the day-to-day expenses of the district. The interest in syncing fund money covers outstanding bonded debt. The current year's rate is about a $1.15 1.1469 uh made up of roughly 67 cents of an M rate and 48 cents on the INS side. Uh the proposed rate for 2526 is 1.13 or roughly A13 with 65 cents of that being M and 48 cents being INS. Those are the rates that we published in our notice um our truth and taxation notice and we expect uh the rate once certified values come in and all the the calculations are done we feel like the tax rate um that we actually need to adopt in August will be either this uh rate that we're showing today
047or less. Um let me move on to the next slide. If for some reason the numbers come in and the rate is higher, we'll have to renotice, meaning we'll have to publish that same notice again that that we've already p published so that taxpayers know uh what our proposed tax rate is. Um the as I said the state funding formula is driven by property taxes or values and tax rates and if the variables change the tax rate changes as well. uh the value growth rate will be certified and the homestead exemption. Um you've probably heard in the legislative session that that will go to the voters in November. Um we expect that to pass. Uh so there will be uh additional calculations needed to um uh compute the new tax rates based on those exemptions.
048Um and that's that's pretty much how it's going to work out for our tax rate. Uh, with that I can answer any questions you might have. Um, and for the community um, we are going to be taking action on it later on this meeting, but um, just to make note that a lot of districts are going to be starting this year with a deficit um, with the multi-million dollar deficits and the teens plus. And so, um, as of right now, we're going to be starting in the positive. So, um, I just want to give a massive thank you to our financial services team and Jill and her team for crunching them numbers. And we know it's going to change, um, once the tax the CAD and all that, everything gets certified. So, uh, but to
049start a district of our size and our growth at 544,000 in the positive, um, that's very, very rare in the state of Texas right now. So, thank you for that. Um, I have a fabulous team and, you know, it takes really all of us, you know, to make cuts and to balance and, you know, give and take. Really does take all of us. Anybody else? Okay, thank you. And I just want to say um way to go to the legislature. This has been a long time coming and our teachers really deserve these raises and I am excited for them to to get them. Okay. So, this is a public hearing, so there's an opportunity for comment. Um if you're interested in commenting on the budget and proposed tax rate for the school year, please come
050and stand by Miss Johnson. You'll be given five minutes. Is there anybody? Okay. Okay. Um, then we will close the public hearing at 7:24 p.m. I don't think I needed to do that. Um, okay. Now we will take action on the consent agenda. Are there any items that any board members would like to pull? Okay. No. Um, may I have a motion to approve the current consent agenda? Okay, Trusty Lambert makes the motion. Second. Uh, Trusty Marsters. I now call for the vote. All in favor of approving the current consent agenda say I. I. Anyone wish to Okay, motion carries. And now we will take action on the action items documents. All right, trustees. So, you just uh heard the uh conversation from Miss Lwick and so uh we'll need a um um a motion
051for the approval of the budget and also for the u uh option three for the u house bill 2 information. If anybody has any questions for Miss Lowick, she's at the podium. Oh, are the budgets Thank you. Uh for the three budgets um general fund, debt service fund, and child nutrition fund, the compensation plan um and the option choice. So I think I understand the wording. My motion will be to adopt the budget as presented with option number three as shown on the screen a little while ago. Is there any other piece that perfect? Uh the compensation plan and then passing through the other adjustments, the 2500 and the 5,000. You said it. Yes. The legislative adjustments. You just call it legislative adjustments. Legislative adjustments. That's my motion. Okay. Mr. Walch makes the motion. Do
052I have a second? Okay. Uh, Trusty Box second. Um, I now, and to be clear, we are voting for option three in this. Okay. I now call for the vote. All in favor say I. I think the discussion for that discussion. Oh, any discussion? Sorry. Discussion. And I think well one thing for discussion is that as a trustees and as the budget and as our leadership one thing that could have happened was to we already promised or we already made them talked about a $2,000 increase. One thing that could one of the things that could have happened was that the $2,000 increase could have come out of what the state is saying to do that. And so, um, I want our teachers and our community to know that this team up here, our admin team,
053the cabinet, your trustees, the budget committee said, "Okay, no, we already said we're given that $2,000 and we want to pass that full amount on to the staff." So, um, there could have been options presented where that $2,000 would have come out of that money that the state is saying, "We're going to give you extra money." But um our district leaders value our staff that we they said we want to give that $2,000 to our staff already because we already said that and we want to pass that full amount on through to our staff. So just a note of that. Any other discussion? I now call for the vote. All in favor say I. I. I. Okay. Motion passes. Okay, next up, consider approval of the 2025 2026, no, sorry, the logo redesign. Yes, Madam
054President, I have Miss Son Hamilton at the podium. Thank you, Dr. Divons. Um a few months ago, uh due to a trustee inquiry, we were responding to the trustee in interest in modernizing our brand. I believe this was sparked by our recent uh your recent approval of the strategic plan. So, you know, revisiting our logo branding does align with our new strategic plan and bold vision for the future and can reflect the evolving identity and spirit of our district. What we do know is that a logo is more than a symbol. It is a reflection of who we are and it communicates our values to students, families, staff and the community and a strong clear logo strengthens trust and recognition. So in looking at consider and considering designs some objectives we had was to ensure
055visual alignment with the new strategic plan was to preserve the elements of legacy while signaling forward thinking change create a versatile logo using um that's adaptable across digital print signage and apparel. And we wanted to maintain consistency across all district communications and campuses. And so the concept number one we have for you this evening trustees we call it the grad cap and sun. Um this logo retains the same classic font as our current logo. This way we're still able to match our branding that has been placed on campus exteriors. Um the other option for concept one uses a different font. So with this logo, we will have the two options, the vertical and the horizontal design for people to use for flexibility. In this logo, you'll see that the graduation cap um is also a
056book and there's a sun on top of it signifying the bright futures. And so that's the design concept behind um one option number one. Concept number two, we're calling our grad cap and gold tassel. And the differences in these options are one is in script font the tagline at the top and the other just retains a classic Samans Sarah font. The task trustees is for you to select which option and concept which concept and then option but for your consideration we also could always maintain our current logo which is option number five just updating the um tagline big thinking bolt learning and bright future. So for your consideration, we've got options 1 2 3 4 and five. So what do we need to do here to have a discussion? Do we need to uh uh
057have a motion in a second to have a discussion? We can we can we can discuss during this next question discussion. We then we can discuss again. Um, my thought and I'm asking for my colleagues opinion. My thought is to table this and to uh continue with the current logo but not long term to ask the graphic department to go back and and and bring some fresh ideas. I I was first time I looked at this, I I wanted to I wanted to be something that was like, "Wow, that's awesome." And and uh we all see things differently through our eyes. And so when I first looked at it, I was very uh I did not have that reaction. And so I would not mind that we table this but not maintain the current logo
058long term. We just don't take any action on it tonight. And I'm kind of curious if everybody else's thought on this. Okay. Uh, first I I want to say that I appreciate the effort that went into developing these concepts, but I like uh uh sorry, Vice President Welsh, I I don't feel like these uh designs really align with the identity uh and legacy of Lamarcis. So, um I would prefer that we revisit uh the direction to to ensure that the product meets that. Um would it be possible for us to give the graphic arts department just maybe a little bit more parameters, directions? I don't know if any of the trustees want to personally speak into it. I also had the thought that we have graphic. I mean, we could we have artistic kids on
059in our district. We could do a competition or like you know how you do like a yearbook design cover. I don't know if that's an option. We can talk about it, but I just thought that would be something fun and different. Okay. So yes to tableabling right now. Okay. Um can I have a motion to table the logo design until future date? Okay. Trusty Welch makes the motion. Can I have a second? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. So before we move forward, trustees, uh what I would like to see is uh if you don't if you mind sending sending me your ideas uh and some feedback on what you'd like to see, that way we can pass it forward to to the team that Miss Compton uh has commissioned to do
060this work so we can make sure that we're encompassing all the all the thoughts that you have. And so um so whenever you decide to do that, you can email to email it to myself or Miss Co Hamilton or Miss Johnson either way so we can go in a direction that you guys would uh feel comfortable. All right, we have Mr. Buchanan at the podium for 12C for design development for middle school number eight. Good evening board of trustees and Dr. Nemons. Tonight we will bring forth a discussion and possible approval of a design development for middle school number eight. Uh just to remind everyone, middle school number eight is on the west side of FM 359 at the county line north of downtown Fulsure. This was option number one that the committee looked at.
061Option number one, adjacent to the approved high school design. Option number one, adjacent to the approved junior high school design. Option number two, adjacent to the high school design. Option number two, adjacent to the junior high school design. Option number three, adjacent to the high school design. Option three, adjacent to the junior high school design. These were our committee members who sat and went through these options. This was the voting of that committee. Three voted for option one. One for option two and 14 for option number three. This is option number three adjacent to the approved high school design along with the ranking from the committee. Are there any questions or discussions? Okay. Um, may I have a motion for the board of trustees to approve the design development for middle school number eight as
062presented? Um, I'm assuming option number three. Make the motion first. I'll make a motion to accept uh option number three. Okay, I have a second. I'll second. Okay, Trusty Welch second. Okay, I now call for the vote. All in favor say I. I. I. Okay. Uh the motion carries. Any Okay. I just want to say thank you to the committee, our trustees. Next, we have our student code of conduct uh and telecommunications revisions and we have uh area superintendent Mr. Ben Hernandez, future Dr. Ben Hernandez at the podium. Thank you, sir. Uh good evening, President Hotel trustees and uh Dr. Nven. Um I'm here again to to um as a request was made last last month during our meeting regarding uh uh data, I'm here to provide that data uh for the request and uh
063before I get there, I want to discuss how we got where we are essentially. Uh so again uh this conversation started in the fall. We convened a committee to discuss the the cell phone policy for students as it existed. And the committee consisted of three trustees. Um Dr. Dr. Nonsens our superintendent, all the secondary principles, uh myself, our leaders of technology and leaders of and our leader of student discipline. We we met twice uh in the fall, once in November, and once in December. And again, these are the the topics that we discussed during those meetings. We reviewed the current student code of conduct as it pertains to the uh use of cell phones or telecommunications devices. uh principles talked about campus level practices how to ensure that the the code of conduct was enforced
064as it states as it is stated we uh also discussed the at that time the current infraction data shared by Mr. Nava, we discussed also the impact of the policy on student culture and learning and uh we discussed at the end any potential need to change uh the policy as it was written at the time and again this is what I shared during our last meeting last month and uh we saw that the lion share of infractions are at the high school level and again uh MLDD is misuse of electronic devices that's the code that goes in our student information system uh to track the discipline infractions. Very few in elementary, middle school, and in junior high, almost twothirds of the um infractions are at the high school level. Another way of looking at the
065fra at the infractions of MLDD, uh you can see again that 72% of those infractions are at high school, uh 26 in junior high, 1% in each elementary and middle school. And this is the data uh parcel down now by grade level. Uh and again it matches what we looked at meaning that the uh the most of it is at the high school level and this is a data that was requested that we provide and so I want to share this data with you. This is by elementary school. We can see the number of infractions again MLDD misuse of electronic devices by campus. I give you a chance to look at that and this is the entire year. This is by middle school, by junior high, and lastly, our high schools. So, Mr. Hernand, if
066you pause for questions for u about any of this data from the trustees before you move forward, please. Absolutely. Yes. Any questions that I can respond to? What is being done for the outliers? The out the the extreme outliers. I mean there's a clear everyone's pretty much in line and then you have a couple campuses that are extreme outliers. So okay I'm sorry. So Mr. Nava um our our director of student discipline meets with us or assistant principles and principles and pre presents information on discipline including cell phone data infra cell phone infractions and any issues like outliers as you say are are the responsibility of the area superintendent and the principal to to address those outliers. practices are in place to make sure that um you know those numbers are not increasing but also
067to make sure that you know students are understanding the expectations. Any other questions? And I share I shared this with you last month. Uh this is the graduated um um consequence is based on infraction and the the first infraction is parent contact uh telecommunication device is confiscated and returned at the end of the day. The second infraction is similar uh results in the similar consequences as the first. However, at this time the parent has to retrieve the device with a $15 fee. The third infraction adds that the student is assigned ISS. Again, a $15 fee confiscation device parent contacted. The fourth offense increases the uh consequences where a student is now suspended from school. And then the fifth offense uh all of the previous consequences except except in this in the fifth offense the student
068is referred to our alternative learn learning center ALC and these are the infractions by consequence. So we can see that the large number of infractions are one time and they increase dramatically uh as the number of infractions increase decrease. I think I said increase decrease dramatically. I'm sorry. Any questions? Yes, ma'am. Can I ask where the money goes? The money goes to the activity funds of the students, but it stays on the campus. Okay. I'm sorry, not acting fun of camp stage on the campus. Yeah. Good evening, trustees. Uh, tonight we're going to present in this part of the presentation the proposed student code of conduct updates. Now, this is review what we talked about last time, but there is a little change here. We talked about 1481 house bill, and right now it's sitting
069on the governor's desk to be signed. So instead of pre-K through 8th grade, the House bill requires preK through 12th grade for devices not to be used during school. So here's our current student code of conduct. And on page 15, here are some highlights that we have where it says in the verbiage, students are allowed to bring their devices to school. They can take them out. Teachers have the discretion that used they can use them at lunch and it's a privilege. But with that verbiage and the new House bill at this time, this verbiage is obsolete. So red indicates that we're going to request to remove this verbiage and blue is going to indicate what we're going to add into the student code of conduct that's proposed. Now, this is what we talked about last
070time in our uh in our board meeting. And so in this section, I'm going to give key points after this, but in this section, it talks about all cell phones are are turned off. um they have to be in backpacks or lockers and they're not on students at any time of the day. So the key points of that section that's requested to be added into the student code of conduct are the cell phones could be needs to be turned off and in backpacks throughout the day. Uh they're prohibited everywhere in the building and devices can be turned on at the final bail. And so another addition which is in blue addition to the student code of conduct it shows every dismissal time for all schools prek through 12th grade. And the key points of that
071section are the elementary and uh elementary, middle school and junior high times uh and high school times for dismissal to indicate the dismissal time when students can utilize their phones. Also it is not allowed in the building anywhere and you can get a disciplinary action. And for emergencies, parents must call the front office. Another addition in blue is student exceptions. And the exceptions are with students with the IEP or individualized educational plan or uh or 504 plan or any type of other medical plan that the student needs. So at this time, if the our committee uh agrees, then the student may utilize the phone for medical purposes. And the key points of that section uh are the IEPs for students uh students with electronic devices. Uh they can use them during emergencies for intimate health
072or safety and the district is not responsible for loss or damage of the phones. Now, here's a new uh uh proposal from uh what we're going to add into the student code of conduct. And in House Bill 1481, it does state that we no longer can charge fees for students receiving their phone back uh at this time. So that is an adjustment to the student code of conduct that we're going to remove the $15 fee at this time. So at this time I'm going to speak about other house bill required updates. Any questions before I move on? I like to say thank you to Representative Matt Morgan. I talked to him today on the phone about, you know, we talked about the potential for this being signed and he let me know that this may
073um only require a veto from the governor that depending like based on when this was actually filed to his desk that this may just need a veto. Um but I asked him I said, you know, represent Morgan, what's our what's the likeliness of this becoming a law? Um because I let him know that we were talking about this tonight and he says that he feels that it is very likely that this is going to be a law. So again for the community that this is going to be a law that it's going to be a law for the state of Texas for the community to know this is going to be a law. Yes sir. It's not our policy but we're going to be falling in line with what the law says and law supersedes
074policy. So it's the law if a law that takes away the discretion that we had originally given to let students have their phones out at lunch um and downtime for instruction. And this just says you cannot have it. Yes, ma'am. And we still plan on letting them bring the device with them to school in case of emergency. They're not expected to leave it at home. That's correct. But they cannot use it. Period. That's correct. So that's So we actually gave the discretion to the principles and the teachers, not necessarily the students. Um my my concern is if the governor does veto it, we're making these changes now on June 17th and we're taking away uh the teeth of the the financial penalty and if he vetos it, then we either have to come back and
075add this language back if we want it or we just leave it as it is. Right. It seems like we're No, we can come back. We're anticipating something happening and we're changing this now. before it happens. I'm a little uncomfortable doing that. I understand because I like personally, just to let everybody know who wasn't in the discussions, I personally don't like cell phones in the in the in the classroom and stuff. I love the idea, especially at the high school level, of a principal having uh jurisdiction over his or her campus or the individual teacher having because I think that there could be scenarios where it would be acceptable. And so, I've always been on the side of I personally don't like it. I just want to leave that discretion with them and I'm a
076little hesitant to vote on this since this is pending before the governor and I and I respect Morgan tremendously. Um he's not the governor though, God bless him and so I'm a little hesitant to support th this change right now. Dr. So trustees, we have several options here. One is uh that's right, hasn't been signed yet. Uh the reason why we put it on the agenda was to make sure as the trustees I think the policy committee talked about getting that information out to the community as soon as possible so you know they can uh have that information and students can be ready right because our young people are digital natives and so they were born with that device in their hands and so we want to make sure that they have enough information as
077soon as possible to make to make their decisions. Uh but trustees you can always table this and we can come back after the governor signs it. You know our next meeting will be coming up in August. We can always do that and as a team u we can send out some potential information to our community and say hey this is what could be coming uh and then you know we'll we'll we can always post to the community what's what could be happening what could be coming um and so we can wait to do that if you if the board so chooses uh but also uh I like to say something to the to the parents and the students that are watching this is that if this does pass then your cell phone now is considered
078contraband and contraband and means it's it's illegal to have. And so um it carries a much more significant consequence uh because you may not be able to get your cell phone back. And so we we're we're going to ask our attorneys about that. Uh if it's considered contraband, are we allowed to give it back or do we keep it? And so there are some more significant consequences to this law that could come down uh the pike once once it gets signed. And so but I like the trustes to know you have multiple options. And so if you like to pass this tonight, if you want to pass this tonight just for K through 8, you can do that also. Just depends on the motion. You want to go K through 12, you can do that
079also. If you want to table it, we can do that as well. So it just depends on the motion and we'll gladly support whatever the uh governing body decides to do. My initial thought was yet that we we were looking at this for K through eight and then everything happened with the bill, but it like John said, it has not been signed yet. So, I guess my thought is to pass it K through eight with with the stipulations of if you're to get your phone back, you do pay the fine. We continue to do that until we're not allowed to do that. And and then if it it gets signed, then it's very easy. We just take away the fees and then transition everything K through 12. So, it's already all the work's done and
080outlined and every the policy is already created. That's my thoughts. Is there a way to pass the policy like on contingency that he signs it? Okay. Yes, ma'am. All depends on the motion. Okay. I do have some other updates to the correct before we keep on going then some other folks. I'll make motion. He's not done. Not yet, sir. All right. Here's some other updates. And these are this is House Bill six relating to student discipline. has not been signed as well. And so currently in law, we have uh students who are in inschool suspension. There's only three consecutive days they can stay in in school suspension, which is ISS. And for students who are vapors or have vapes automatically go to DAP and there's no option for virtual DAP placements. And we cannot suspend
081students pre-K through second grade and home to students. But right now, which is sitting on the governor's desk, that has been changed from for HB6, students can stay into ISS up to 10 days and then reviewed by the administration. Also, students do not have to go to DAP once they have a vape. There is no longer a mandatory placement for vapes. Also, districts can have the option to uh have virtual DAP for students who are expelled. and then we can at this time suspend students prek through 2 grade and homeless students. Another addition to the student code of conduct uh on page 28 uh once we have right now for house bill 6 have moved that vaping from mandatory to a discretionary removal and that'll be moved on the discipline chart and again red means
082remove and blue means to add. Is that a mandatory change? Yeah, it's a it's a mandatory change. Yes, ma'am. According to House Bill 6. So, you're no longer allowed to give DAP for vacant. You can go to DAP for it, but it's not a mandatory first time placement. So, but so, but we could keep it as it is if we chose to do so. Okay. Yes, ma'am. According to House Bill 6, at this time, it's it's no longer a mandatory placement. And so on page 32 for the student code of conduct, it's going to talk this talks about the verbiage here of students uh cannot be who are not allowed to be suspended pre-K through second grade and homeless students. So we are proposing to uh to revise that verbiage. And that verbiage also in
083the state uh law for HB6 says that we're going to add these two bullets and remove this bullet here and students conduct that threatens the immediate health or safety of other students in the classroom and the conduct that results in repeated or significant disruption in the classroom. So those would be the two uh added columns according to House Bill six. And then on page 67 glossery, uh we're going to just to change the definition of sus suspension for the last sentence and just define what out of school and uh in school suspension are and how many days they can be in. And then of course we're going to definitely update the school year administrative titles, schoolboard listings, conduct contact details, legal citations, forms updates, grammar and style. And this is all based on approval uh
084from the trustees. And this will be implemented once approved. Now take questions. I have a question. Yes ma'am. What is virtual DAP that like school from home? I mean kind of. Yes ma'am. So we we'll have to make definitely provisions in a rubric uh to make that happen but it's for those students who are expelled uh from school but so they do school from home. That is a kind that is an option for expelled students. Okay. That sounds like a bonus to me. It does. And that we don't have to do well. Traditionally, trusty box, you have uh so JJ uh is really only uh mandatory for counties of a certain population. So you have some counties that have a lesser population where they don't have a JJ to expel the student. And so uh
085smaller counties will expel a student to the street, you know, if you say that, like home. And so this really was an option for them uh to allow the student to still be in school virtually. Uh but we have a JJ AP that's right here in the Marcisd right down the county right down the street. We have our own ALC and so um that's not something that we were considering uh bringing to the trustees to let us off to do that uh for JJ for expulsion. Uh we do have some other options on the table that I'm talking about with my team and how we can have virtual school for our students in 1621 uh who's making up credit who wants to gra you know who are trying to graduate early. But as far as
086students who uh good kids who make bad choices uh for JJ uh it's not an option that's not an option we're presenting for us to offer online um uh JJ for expelled students. But it's also said I saw I thought I saw DAP not just JJ that's all again for the smaller uh counties and districts. Yes ma'am. I mean we wouldn't do online alternative school. No, ma'am. We would Well, alternative school, we would do online school for um 1621 for students who are needing to make a credit. That's different. Yes, that's different. But the word alternative encompasses all that. So, I just want to make sure on the record I'm clear about what that means. ALC is the same to as DAP. Yes, ma'am. That's correct. ALC is the same as DAP. Yes, ma'am. Well,
087I actually have another question. So, the cell phone policy and the rest of the student code of conduct updates would be separate. So, would we need two separate motions? Okay. Um, so if there's no other questions about the latter part of this presentation, may I have a motion? Okay. Go ahead. Um, so for the Can you go back to the vaping um change that y'all were going to make? Second. So now it's just become discretionary. Yes, ma'am. So what are we saying would be the consequence for that? So discretionary means you can still get ISS, OSS, and if it's for students who are repeat offenders, they can go to ALC as well. How would we I mean get that in policy to say maybe they have grace the first time and then the second time
088they go to DAP. I mean because vaping is a real problem in our schools and so I feel like it needs to be addressed. So the last session is when they made it mandatory even first time offenders and that kind of filled up our our facilities really quickly because there were so many first-time offenders and maybe not all of them you know needed to go deserve to go. It really it it takes away a lot of your I mean athletics you know just one time at ALC. So the law what the law is saying they did an interim study of how this was affecting school districts and it was a disaster for some of them. So they're saying okay these kids who are otherwise good kids have the five mitigating factors factored in. Do they
089deserve ALC? we their first time we can say no you can have an alternative placement okay but what about the second time then they then it is mandatory I I believe no it's still a discretion it's still discretion of the uh the campus administrator at that time okay so that's what I'm saying if the first time okay give the principal the discretion to look at the child the whole situation or whatever I mean obviously they're still doing something wrong but whether they decide to that would be their discretion but then the second time so We don't have it outlined in the student code of conduct of what first, second, third offense would look like. No, ma'am. We do not. Uh not for the babies bait at this time. Okay. Is that something y'all would want
090to to do so that we're more clear? Okay. So then what else is left to approve as is? So right now remember House Bill Six has not been signed as well. So these are the things that go into House Bill 6. So House Bill 6 would affect page 28 uh which we're talking about the vapes. Yeah. It also affects uh page 32 and it will also affect the glossery. So at this time for the student code of conduct the only updates that are not affected by the bill would be these here such as So we might just table this thing. I mean if we if we can we not since they were presented now like a future action item right I mean since we have all the information can we not address it as a
091if it these get signed address them in August and our first meeting in August. Yeah, I just want to make sure that we are thinking about timeline because I know for us we think, okay, our next meeting is August 26th, but if you go to staff developments and you go to teacher trainings and all of that is well before our next board meeting. And so I think if you have all this in place so that teachers can be trained, that's a drastic change. And so that everybody hears it at the same time before school starts and students hear it before school starts. then you go to school and oh hey two weeks later now we want to come in and tell you what's changed. So better to do it beforehand and then rescend. I think
092it's better to have that in place before students come back to school. And one to think about the along that line is that if and when these are signed it'll go into in effect September 1st. So, we don't want to go ahead and start the year with one policy and then September 1st comes along and say, "Hey, y'all surprise. Two weeks in, we're going to now add this new thing." So, along with that, the timeline, it's like, okay, we need to from the before the first day of schools have our the direction we're going. So, we don't want to start school allowing cell phones on campus at discretion and then now say, okay, September one after habits are already Oh, habits are already there. Yes, but we we we often have more than one board
093meeting in the month of August. So, why don't we just schedule a board meeting, our first one, before the first day of school and enough time to update the student code of conduct, maybe the first week of of August for our our PD and our staff development. And uh yeah, I think it has to come before PD starts. So, okay, could we make a motion? Let's let's take the cell phones first. Um, we could pass it as is with the contingency that if the governor were to veto it, we would revert back to what we had written before the law. Does that make sense? That doesn't sound I think K12 or K. I think it would still be K through 12. That was the point of tonight before the law was to make a vote
094on whether we wanted to go K through eight. K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K through 8 in addition to K through 12. So, we would make it K through 12. The pol the new policy would be K through 12. Absolutely. So, I can make a motion that we approve the cell phone policy K through 12 um with pending the governor vetoing the bill, us still allowing to charge the $15 fine because we got to inconvenience the parents until September 1st. Until September 1st and then if it is signed u so via the motion, if it's signed September 1st, that $15 penalty will fall off and then we'll fall in line with the law. So if it's not signed then if
095he doesn't sign it, it just goes into law. If he vetos it. Can you say that again? I'm a little confused. I make I make the motion that we we approve what was presented tonight. K through 12 cell phone ban out of schools. Um pending. If the governor signs the bill, uh we will no longer be allowed. So, as basically operating as we have been with the $15 fine in place, if the governor if does become law, that $15 fine will drop off and we will change and we will operate in accordance to the law because the original proposal was only K through eight. Well, we already have the hire is already in place. So now this is adding to encompass our whole district K through eight. So basically the the policy that was presented
096with the the blue and and the red that's the way that it's written now. Yes ma'am. This is the way it's written now. Here are the highlights of that page. Yes ma'am. This is the way it's written now. But the the other pages. Yes ma'am. This is this where the blue is. That's the way it's written now. No. This will be the way that we're going to try to implement. Uh I'm sorry. The new legislation. Yes. Yes ma'am. Yes. Okay. So right now high school has discretion on phones. Um they can use them at lunch. They can use them for instructional time. Sorry. So does right. What we I think the what we were trying to do tonight was pass prek through 8 would not be allowed to have their cell phones period. So what
097we're saying is we are going to pass that policy and then if September 1st if it is law then we go with what is law. So that's opposite of what you said. No that's I mean that's that that's what I said. So you're saying K through eight? I thought you said K through 12. Well, because that's what we already have. Well, we have No, we don't. Right. We have Well, it would bring it. So, Dr. Weights, can you speak here, please? Yes, sir. I don't mind. I don't mind. Yes, sir. Go ahead. Okay. Yes, sir. My motion is to to approve what we have presented tonight minus the $15 fine exception. So my motion was to approve what was presented the what is potentially going to be in line with the law whenever it is
098approved. So that will be K the law will be K through 12. So my motion is to approve what's going to be in line with the the pending law. Um and then if the law becomes valid then we will have to drop off that $15 penalty. And if he vetos the governor vetos the bill, then we're going to have to revert back. Your motion, I'm asking a question. Your motion would be if he does veto the bill, do we stick with the current cell phone policy as it is tonight? Is that correct? Or are you changing anything even if he vetos the bill? We can just That's where I'm confused about your motion. Yeah, I would say that is a great point. Um, I would like Yeah, we'll add that to the motion pending it
099goes back, but we just got to be proactive in that. So, given the law, this is so not knowing this happen. Let's just table let's just table. So, I make a motion to table this until we know what is going to happen, but that's se September 1st. So, we're going into the school year with the the current policy. We'll find out on Saturday. We'll know Saturday if it's going to be the law. So September 22nd is the deadline. June. June. June. June. I apologize. June 22nd's the deadline if we're going to know this is going to be our lineup. So we're discussing this not knowing what's going to happen in a couple days, right? I think I think we should pass it. We don't have a crystal ball. I if I did though, I mean,
100if I was going to take a bet, I think it passes and this is the law of the land September 1st. So, I kind of think we should just pass it. I think we should, too. And then and then if it doesn't, we can just bring it back to 8 K through eight. Right. If it if it doesn't pass, then we will I'm not if we do if if y'all make that motion, I'm not going to support it. I'm just going to let everybody know right now. I won't support that. I'm I'm I'm going to I'm going to default where we're at right now unless the governor takes proactive action by signing the law. That's just my opinion. Well, and I have a question about that because then are we saying that we start school
101August 11th, we collect $15 up until September 1st, then we stop collecting the money or do we start August 11th and say this is the rule? Why don't we just leave it as policy has it? The other thing is the first week or so of school. I mean, don't principles let kids have their cell phones out for schedules and but there's paper. Why? Why is there need I'm just saying I think we offer like in two days you can't have it. I mean to to to address that to address the amount of president. We we've been having conversations about what does it look like for the first days of school. And so we will we will be printing schedules for students. Um and then we'll print multiple pages. And so you think a school like
102Forcher High School that has over 3,000 students, we have to print about 6,000 copies of student schedules. Uh students will have a schedule. Their home room teacher may have a schedule. We'll ask students to write it down. Um and then so that way they're not walking around the halls with their device looking for their classes, you know. So we we'll we'll take care of all those things. But as we tell the staff, uh especially first days of school, it's always good to uh be more strict and then loosen up than to be loose and then try to get strict. Correct. That's always the best way to do it in classroom management 101. And so um we'll support whatever the board likes to do. If you want to u uh approve the approve the law, approve
103the policy in alignment with what we think the law was going to be, we can do that. And it's always good to loosen up at the end. If we if it doesn't pass, we can always come back to the board and the board can revise it. Uh however you choose, but we'll do whatever the will of the board is. Okay. Can I make a motion? Yes. I have one more question. Okay. Sorry. Can you go back to uh the slide that showed it? It it said that the cell phone can't they can't have the cell phone at all, but that's only after school is let out. Correct. They cannot have the cell phone all. So you're saying here go back, right? Uh after school is fine. So after school is after school is fine. Uh
104go back one. Okay. Okay. All right. Yes, ma'am. That's it. Okay. So before you make your motion, I just want to be clear on what Trusty Welch was saying. You prefer to table and if we do move forward, you you don't want to support that. Is that what you're saying? I'm saying today on June 17th, 2025, there's too many unknowns about what the governor may or may not do with legislation that's on his desk. and I don't want to put things in place that are in that bill before it becomes law when it might not become law. Um, and so I think it's easier, it's not as messy to table this and schedule a meeting to cover any kind of other district business, including the student code of conduct, late July before training starts if
105that's what we need to do or sometime in early August. I think that would be the e the cleanest way to go. So that's that is that's that's my per that's my personal preference. My um can my personal preference is that we make a motion to pass it with the blue writing and then loosen up like you said which is easier to loosen up if for some reason it doesn't pass. But I think I mean I think it's gonna pass. And one thing note to note with the law in HP1481, it's the law states that we must then create a policy. So we would have to go back to the policy committee. The policy committee would have to create the policy. Then we'll have to bring the policy an actual policy and not just include
106it in the student code of conduct given September 1st. So, um the I this is kind of the student code of conduct is kind of that weird gray like is it policy? Is it uh procedures? Um the the 1481 bill requires school districts and charter schools to adopt a written policy prohibiting students. So, that's going to be the law, but the the bill clearly says that we're going to have to create a policy. So, that's a whole other step that we will have to do. Well, I think we would use we would use this, but this is not an actual this is part of it, but it's not a standalone policy like the bill says you would have to create a standalone policy for it. So, um, my original motion, and that's the one that's
107on the table first, is to put approve this as written and then I will edit that to say given that it is not become a law, we will then continue to charge the $15. Fine. Do we need to charge the $15? I mean, we need an inconvenience. Well, he said if it if if it becomes a law, then we can't charge the $15. So, um, approve this going forward with the $15. If it becomes a law, then we will drop off that $15 to stay in accordance and underneath the law. Well, it's only 20 days and we could come in the the August meeting and add that back if it didn't pass. Do you see what I'm saying? Right. We'd have to make other adjustments. But so, but the motion will say we will proceed
108with this charging the $15. If it becomes law, then we will be we will not be allowed to charge the $15. But we're we're passing this policy assuming it's going to become law. I think Suzanne's saying the opposite. So, if it doesn't pass, then we add the 15 back in. So, that's basically what I said. Yeah. Is that this if we'll put this through including the $15, then if it becomes law, we will not be allowed to charge that $15 anymore. So, putting this in with the $15 fee on there, that's I mean, we're saying the same thing. Okay. Sorry, I thought you were saying the opposite thing. I think I was just saying leave it as is and then if for some reason it doesn't become law in August, we'll just address it and
109we have going to have to make changes regardless. When you're saying leave it as is, it's what's proposed or what it is now? I'm sorry. As presented as presented without the $15. So just yeah just don't worry about the $15. We can sort it out in August. So my question is if we were to have a meeting in July, late July before school starts, what is the harm of tableabling it? And until we know, isn't the district closed in July? No. No. No. Our district's not technically closed, but every everyone goes on vacation. So we don't have a we don't have a set vacation time for our district. Most districts like close like the first two weeks in July, so everybody's gone. So, um, nobody's at work bothering everybody. That's why they're on vacation. Hint,
110hint. So, we're not taking clothes, but everyone takes their vacation sporadically throughout July. And so, that's why we typically don't have a meeting in July because it'd be hard to get everybody back in the same in the room to have a a robust conversation. Okay. So, would you, Miss Fox, like to make a motion to pass the cell phone policy portion of the student code of conduct updates as presented? Well, for parliamentary pro procedures, I made the motion. So, we'll need to have a second. If not have if we don't have a second, then we can make an additional motion. Okay. Do you want to say yours again or So I'm still I'm still for tableabling. I'm just letting everybody know. I'm still for It's very confusing. I'm I'm going to listen. Who's on first?
111Who's on first? Can you start the motion? My motion is to approve what was presented minus taking off the $15 fee. If the 15 if the law is passed, then we will be forced by the law to remove that $15 fee. Trusty Lambert makes that motion. Is there a second? Okay. Just so I understand, the motion is to approve the cell phone policy prek through 12 as presented excluding the $15 fee pending pending well excluding removal of the $15 fee. So, excluding the removal of the $15 fee pending it being signed into law, then to fall underneath the law, we will need to remove that. It's my motion I made and I stick it. Is there a second? Okay, motion does. I love it and we're all laughing. Do we have another motion? I would
112like to make a motion to pass the student cell phone portion of the code of conduct as presented. Do I have a second? I second. Okay. Can I have a vote? All in favor say I. I. One, two, three. Wow. That Oh, no. Four. Okay. Motion carries with Now, what do I say? Three with four. Four. Four. Yeah. Motion carries by four. Did you ask for the Does anybody abstain? Did you ask for the Oh, the no votes. The no votes. Okay. I'm a no. No on that. Trusty was no. Okay. Okay. So, it passes 43. Okay. Now, we need to talk about the rest of it. So, the vaping, do we want to, what do we want to do with that, Do we want the administration to create a table for offenses when it
113comes to the vaping? I feel like I feel like this is kind of Yeah, I feel like it would be benefit more if we had more time to think about it. Um, and as it's not passed in the law, nor does it really affect Well, okay, that's not true. Um, once school starts, school starts early. Can we app can we approve it as is with the um and give the administration the charge of creating the discipline steps? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. If the board chooses, you can approve it as is and then and then u direct me to go back and have a conversation with the team and then we can present something to the board late July, early August, whenever that whenever we decide to have another meeting at that time, bring that back
114to the trustees. So then you can uh officially approve it or you can delegate that to me and then I can u uh make you aware of what the table is. It's it's completely up to the board on what you want to do. And so u we can do whatever it is you like to do, but we can always do that. we can go back, come up with a table, we can email it to the trustees. Um, we I can ask you for individual feedback, but then of course you can't act until you become a a board. And so we can always do that. So you can have that information and then at the meeting, make sure everyone has the information and then ask for approval or Okay. Can we are we allowed to to
115vote on this type of things at a board workshop or no? No, you have to be uh Well, you can vote. Yeah, we just have to post it on the agenda as an action item and let the let the public know that it's something that you're going to discuss and act on. So it doesn't Yes, ma'am. So it's possible to pos do that maybe early August. It's possible to do it early August. It's possible to do it uh last week in July. I believe there are three dates in July like we have several events. We have, you know, convocation, we have new staff stampede, we have some events going on. Um but the last week in July is an option. And also uh before school starts, we can try to make something work. I would
116just like to go into the school year with the policies clear and not if somebody's watching the meeting today and we change a policy and it's going to change again, it's going to get confusing. And so it to me there's no harm in tableabling some of these items until we have a a clear path and plan. So, and then we could have a board workshop and and talk about other things that that are on the legislator's uh table right now on the governor's table. Yeah. And I think to what Monica said earlier, I think the cell phone thing is a little bit different because that takes a lot of planning and getting into people's minds. Okay, this is what's going to be expected. This is what you're going to have to expect from your students
117at your staff at your school. Um whereas the vaping thing, it's wrong. It's still going to be wrong. The consequence might change. You know what I'm saying? So, if we left it as is and then addressed it in early August, I don't think that would really affect anybody's planning when they're talking to their teachers. It's it's still wrong. We are not sure what the consequence might be at this m moment, but So, okay. So, can I have a motion to table the rest of the student discipline updates until a board workshop before the beginning of the year? So that would sorry can I say would that include that would be vaping and so what what the changes would be would be vaping um let's see also when it says in the student code of conduct
118where we want to change the verbiage of students cannot be suspended and that's the verbiage according to the house bill six and then the glossery when it comes to what suspension is okay I'll make a motion okay to table these items Okay, I'll second. Excuse me. Was that a motion to table? Yes. And it's to table all the remaining the remaining item. Okay. So the vaping OSS and the glossery student cannot be suspended. Everything except seven table. Okay. So we have a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. And so, trustes, just so you know, u uh our job is to make sure that uh whatever the board decides to do in the act that we communicate that clearly to the community. And so, the team and I, we will
119have a conversation about how do we communicate this uh swiftly and clearly to the community and frequently to the community so they have a clear understanding. And so, uh and we'll always make sure you're part of that communication. If you'd like to see it first, we can do that. So, we'll start sending those things out early early next week just to let the community know what the board decided to do. Uh, and then what the expectations are for young people uh as they enter school and then something changes, you know, we'll let them know that as well. But we'll we'll we'll do a phenomenal job. Miss Co Hamilton, Miss Co Hamilton, her team would do a phenomenal job. I'm taking credit, but she and her team will do a phenomenal job at communicating that. All
120right. Next, uh, trustees, we have, uh, policy FM local. We have, uh, uh, Coach Gabbert at the podium to talk about homeschool UIL participation. Good evening, madame president, board of trustees, and Dr. Nons. I'm going to present information regarding homeschool participation in athletics. Already passed law, so we don't have to table it. The tempt law was passed uh house bill 547 in 2021. The key aspects to it is it allowed non-enrolled students or homeschool students to participate in public education settings. The parent and guardian was responsible for academic oversight and they could not unenroll from a public school to homeschool and participate. This has already been in law since 2021. And so there's an FM legal policy that's already in place. And so basically says the same thing we just stated that the residence requirements
121they have to live in the district. The academic requirements they have to have a norm reference test and the parents are responsible for academic progress. So this past year in UIL there were 45 districts or schools that allowed homeschool participation. There are six of the 45 were charter schools. Santa Fe is the one school in our region that currently participates allowing homeschool participation. And it used to be a district decision that had to be presented to UIL by August 1st for varsity participation. The relevant policies were still the same. Um it was based on the level of participation in activities were local decisions by the school board. Non-enrolled students had to have established residency and a PAPF, which is a previous athletic participation form. It's the same form that a new student who moves in
122that wants to play varsity fills out to be eligible for varsity competition. Now, the new law, uh, Senate Bill 401 was passed in May of this year. It is sitting on the governor's desk. The I'm going to compare the 2425 school year to what the new Senate bill is. So, previously to this point, ISTDs could opt in to allow homeschool participation. The change now with Senate Bill 401, a district is opted in by default or the school board has to vote to opt out of allowing homeschool participation. As far as the the second tab that's down, homeschool participants may participate in UL activities as long as they're a resident of the district, that's been the same for both. The other key piece of information with Senate Bill 401, if a district opts in or defaults
123and opts in and a neighboring school district opts out, the students that are homeschooled in those neighboring school districts can then attend the closest school that is an opt-in school and allow participation there with local policy or with local approval. And I'll go over that because it's two key pieces that I'll go over again in a second just to make sure we're all on the same page. So, how we would plan on doing this if we chose to opt in or if we defaulted and opted in, um the first thing that they would do, a homeschool student or parent would reach out to our office of student programs. They would complete the online registration forms. We'd require proof of residence. That would allow us to determine what school they would be attending. um they would
124have to have standardized test results to determine grade level age verification because it's required by UIL for their their age level and a vaccination record. At that point, our office of student programs would contact the campus registers. They would enroll them as a zero member and all that means is they are attending school for two hours or less a day. The campus would set up a student identification and a badge for security measures. Step three, they would meet with our UIL compliance coordinator. They would orientate them to relevant policies that are UIL policies along with LCISD policies. Um there's athletic participation guidelines. For example, no pass no play is still in effect with them. Um outside participation guidelines during the school day from let's say we're in school from 8:00 to 4:00. They they are
125allowed to participate in the athletic period, but they're not allowed to go home and then go see a private coach or get instruction in that athletic area. Um there are restrictions during the school day because of that. There's an 8-hour rule for practices. It's in play for both uh a homeschool participant and a regular participant. And then of course the UIL forms and athletic compliance forms that are required by UIL. Step four is they're going to meet with the LCISD campus administrator. We're going to have to designate a person on that campus that's going to orientate them to the campus policies and procedures and guidelines. You've got to think for some of these students, it's their first time to be at a public school. So, we're going to have to get them in a process
126of checking in and checking out of campus, designated times and location for pickup and drop off, campus safety policies and procedures, and district and campus rules. Step five, they'll meet with our campus athletic administrator and the coach of their sport. It's going to give them an orientation specifically for that sport and that school's athletic policies that may be a little unique. Procedures and guidelines that we use as a district. Once again, um the required rank one forms and physicals that UIL requires us to have. Try out procedures, how they take place, when they take place, the timing of it, athletic period times and requirements, pick up and drop off again for the athletic period, um game and practice schedules for game times and game day procedures for home games and away games regarding transportation. So,
127for example, we prefer that the student should enroll at the beginning of the semester in which the sport is started because there's going to be an off-season period for every sport, whether it's high school or junior high. Day one, we start working with them as student athletes. The parent will attend meetings about triyouts or team regulations just like all of our other parents do. The parents must provide transportation to and from the athletic period during the day and any before or after school practices unless it's a high school student who's eligible to drive and meets campus transportation requirements. The student must check into the school for the athletic period and then check out of the school to return home. And that's more along campus security guidelines. On game day, students will meet at the school
128to take district transportation to and from games. So there's there's two decisions that kind of need to be made and it's important that we make them quickly because it rolls in. You've got to think we start school August 1 with volleyball, water polo, and then football starts August 3rd. So UIL has given us till September 1 to make the decision, but realistically they kind of want to push us to that August 1 because that's what it's been. This year it's September 1st because of the late change, but going forward for every year going forward, it's going to be August 1st like it always has been. So there's kind of two motions or potentially two motions to look at. The first one, we would either need to decide that we're going to default and opt in
129and allow participation or we're going to need a motion to opt out. Okay, so that's the first part is whether you want to allow participation and opt in or you don't want to allow participation, you need a motion to opt out. The second part of that to me is an important part because I understand why why we would opt in because you're looking at taxpayers who want their children to be involved. Um we are not open enrollment in any other kind of transfer. So to me it's important that we decide also if we're going to opt in that we make a decision on whether we're going to opt in with participation requirements being they are resident in LCISD or are we going to allow any local kid to participate within LCISD questions? Uh, one thing
130when looking at House Bill, what was it? 457, the original one. Um, that goes it's not you when it talks about UIL, it's not just athletics. So, we're looking at STEM, journalism, speech and debate, one act play, athletics, music. So, we're talking about mariachi, ensemble, wind, orchestra, theater. Um, when we're looking at this, we're not talking just football, basketball, water polo. um by us opting in which is we want all students to have all whether they're home school whatever have access to everything we do. So um it's not just athletics. So keep that in your frame when we're talking about it is like okay so it's everything UIL varsity level um from academics to athletics. So there's that note. um questions about will there is there a stipen, an aotment, anything for these students? Will
131we charge fees? Um will because the the law allows districts to charge fees to the participants. Um so what does that look like for us? Um the law also says that those participants will have to meet the academic standards. They'll have to take the standardized test. So all these things that I don't know are we prepared? I mean of course I want to give access to all these students to so I mean and and I do will the numbers support that. Will there be a lot that we have to worry about? Um coach Gabbard, will we have it to where like they have to reside in the high school's attendance boundary or will they be able to choose which high school they go to as long as they're in LCISD's? It currently is based off
132their residency. So if they're zone for Lamar Consolidated High School, they go to Lamar Consolidated High School, right? Unless we have a local policy that's different than that. Okay. And so if we go something different where we're accepting students from outside our boundaries, if we go that route, KDISD um or Fort Bend ISD or say Neville for one of our ones that surround us, will they go to that closest high school closest to that or what will that look like then? If we opt in with no limitations, it is the closest school to the residents. To the residents. Okay. So, do is there an aotment that the district will get to cover that? Not on the front end. There is on the back end. At the end of the year, you turn in PE's numbers.
133We would have to change some of the documentation we do for it, but it's up to $1,500 per participant. Okay. $1,500. And are we um we can't go in there and cherrypick which events or which if we want to say just athletics or anything like that that's a local policy. It's a whole that would be a local policy. So we would be able to do that. Okay. So, but we we will say okay for everyone else that is no longer interested in athletics but they want to be they're you know one act play they're thespians and they want to come be a part of that we won't allow that have to be our own policy correct yes sir that could be local that can be a policy uh in the policy committee we talked about
134the board uh the policy committee said to add a paragraph in the policy that says we will allow it this is before all the laws came out we will allow Uh and then the committee asked me and my team to develop regulations on how we will implement that. And so we can do the same thing here. Now we're automatically opted in. And so if the board decides to continue to be opted in, then what my team and I can do is we can go back and create regulations that we already have some uh that's written. Create some regulations uh send that to the trustees for you to look at uh and get some guidance on if you want to make it just for athletics, if you want to make it all URL participants. give me
135some guidance on that and then we can create a regulation on that specifically for the trustees to look at at our next meeting to to vote to approve and that will be allowed within the law because the law says UIL activities. It doesn't necessarily say that you can pick and choose which ones. Correct. It'll be it'll be a local it could be a local policy. So the board can give us authority to say, you know, we want to opt in and then say that, you know, we'll follow the regulations set by administration and then the regulations will say we're only opting in for these particular events or we're opting in for all. Could that potentially uh contradict the what the law is though because the law says UIL activities, right? But the law also says
136you have the option to opt out. Perfect. And so what we do is we opt in on some things, opt out on others, or opt out on all things or opt in on all things. Um, when we did the policy, didn't I believe we said it was for for athletics only, was that correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, when we did kind of talk about that and we that policy wasn't in our board book, so the other trustees have not received the policy. The policy the policy stated that we will opt in and then the regulations said it was only for athletics. Correct. Okay. So, we we'll make sure that we get that to the trustees uh as soon as possible so you can look at it. And then it really depends on the will of
137the board. If you'd like to create an entire policy for it, uh we can do that. If you'd like us to do a regulation, we can do that. And so, we would get all of our sponsors and our directors in the room to have a conversation about what that looks like and then we can create a regulation or have a policy committee meeting and draft the policy and then bring it back to the board uh at the next meeting. Um Dr. Gab, Mr. Do you was it 1,500 per student or per sport? Per participant. Oh, okay. Is it 1,500 per student per UIL activity? It the law states per participant and it's it's kind of very general and vague. The way that I read it was that it's I thought it said per activity per
138UIL activity but uh we have further conversation about this. Go ahead. Okay. So, the yes, the policy was not in here. And so, uh, just in looking at this and and reaching out to some of the constituents about the way that they felt about this policy, um, there was an overwhelming majority against this. And, uh, so it was surprising. I I believe that the policy that the committee wanted to opt in, that was the purpose of to allow it. Yes. Correct. Okay. So, in this uh it says that this policy to allow uh homeschool kids to come and participate in EIL, it aligns with our strategic plan. And uh I have to disagree with that that being on obviously the strategic planning committee uh that we uh have built a strong student centered public school
139system and when we look across Texas less than 4% prior to this of school districts have opted into this policy. So in here it says that this is attuned to local culture and customs and I would say that adopting this policy is not a reflection of local culture but it's stepping out of it. So what what I would like to do is I would like to make a motion to table this item until next year because we don't know what it's going to look like. Well, can I say I'm sorry. If we if we table it, we're automatically opted in. So just this past year the policy committee it was brought to our attention to to opt you had to opt in. So yes and we didn't create necessarily a policy we were bringing the
140idea to the board to see if we wanted to opt in or not. Um and then the law changed. So now we have to opt out. Um but yeah, we can't make a motion to table unless Okay, let me that would us in if that makes sense. A motion to opt out. Well, can we have more discussion further? We can't. We need to. She has a motion on the table. So, we can do we have a second? We'll take that second. Okay. We had a discussion about Now we can discuss. Now we can discuss. that just gets um I need to do that first. Can I pause you because we have we do have public participation. Okay. So um I believe we have one person here to participate. It is the desire of the Lamarcisd
141board of trustees to appropriately and effectively fulfill its governance role in accordance to best practices for quality organizations and to the applicable provisions of the Texas Education Code. Trustees also desire to afford an opportunity for public input from for for input from the public. Members of the community who wish to address the board must have completed a public participation card and submitted it before the presiding officer called the meeting to order. Public participation allows individuals to address the board regarding posted agenda items. Public comment allows individuals to address the board regarding non-aggenda items. Trustees may not respond to public comments as they are prohibited by law from discussing or deciding any subject that is not on the board's publicly noticed agenda. All patrons desiring to speak and who have completed a public participation public comment
142form will be heard during the public participation portion of the meeting before final board action is taken on an agenda topic. While speakers generally have five minutes to address the board, the presiding officer may establish an overall time limit for public participation and adjust the time allotted to each speaker when necessary to accommodate a large number of speakers. However, no speaker shall be given less than one minute. All of this is in compliance with HB2840. Each speaker tonight will have five minutes. Each speaker must address the board from the provided podium unless special accommodations have been requested and approved. Speakers are to present their remarks to the board and not to the audience. Speakers having complaints against individual district employees may only address the board after filing a complaint form and in the manner provided
143for in board policy DGBA employee complaints FNG student and parent complaints GF public complaints. The presiding officer or designate shall determine whether a speaker has filed a complaint according to policy. Any speakers who complain of individual district employees during public participation may be directed by the presiding officer to refrain from naming the employee and will refer the speaker to the appropriate complaint policy. Schoolboard meetings are meetings held in public but are not public meetings. While the school board values hearing from members of the public, trustees will not answer questions or respond to comments from patrons. Speakers will not engage in dialogue with the trustees. Please say your name when you come forward. Our speaker tonight is Stacy Ortiz. Hello. Hi everyone. Um, my name is Stacy Ortiz and I am a resident of Richmond and
144the parent of Titus Ortiz, a homeschool student residing within the boundaries of Lamarcisd. I'm resp writing to respectfully request that the board consider adopting a policy to allow homeschool students to participate in University Intercolctic League UIL activities as permitted under Texas Senate Bill 547. My son previously attended Foster High School where he was a proud member of the wrestling team his freshman year during the 2024 2025 school year. During that time, he achieved significant success um winning first place in the JV district wrestling tournament and being voted wrestler of the year by his teammates. This recognition reflects both his athletic skill and the respect he earned from his peers and coaches. He had an excellent experience representing the school and he would be honored to continue doing so as a homeschool student. In addition to
145his success in UIL wrestling, homeschooling has allowed my son to fully pursue his lifelong passion for Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which he has been dedicated to since the age of six. The flexibility of homeschool has enabled him to travel extensively for training and tournaments, which is where he is now. Training opportunities that would not have been feasible in a traditional school setting. His dedication has led to extraordinary accomplishments. He is currently ranked number one in the world by both Jiu-Jitsu World League and the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation, IBJJJF. Um, just last month, he traveled to Rome and became the European Champion in his division. These achievements reflect not only his talent but also his um his um discipline, commitment and the value of a non-traditional education path that still keeps him rooted in this community. While he
146pursu pursues jiujitsu at the international level, he remains deeply connected to the district and hopes to continue contributing locally through UIL sports. Senate Bill 547 provides the option for school districts to allow home skill homeschool students to compete in UIL academic, athletic, and fine arts activities at at their zoned public schools, provided that they meet the same eligibility requirements as enrolled students. We are fully committed to meeting all the AC academic documentation and eligibility standards required by the district. Homeschool families like ours are invested members of the El Lamar CISD community. Um my husband is a bus driver for the district. Um, we support local program or district programs and value the opportunity for our children to participate in district activities. Allowing homeschool students to participate in UIL fosters um equity, strengthens community engagement, and
147gives students like my son the chance to grow on and off the mat. Thank you for your time and your thoughtful consideration. I would welcome the opportunity to speak further to provide any additional documentation needed and my son would be honored to continue representing Lamarcisd through his hard work, dedication and sportsmanship. Thank you. Now we can continue discussion. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just here if y'all have any questions. Yep. Um, I I'll say I I fully support opting in to this because I'm going to I'm going to quote a lot of folks are tired of hearing me say this. There's a lawyer in the city of Houston named Dave Thomas who I heard at region 4. He gave a stat in my first year on the board that I've remembered ever since. 30% of the
148public has a direct connection to the public school system. Meaning a student in their home or an employee in the home that's directly connected to the school system. Yet 70% do not and also pay the bills. So 70% of the public does not have a direct connection to Lamarcisd. This is a general number statewide, but they pay our bills. And for whatever reason, uh we just heard one, uh from one local resident who pays our bills, who pays for our facilities, whose uh student is pursuing a different path education wise, but would love to be part of our uh athletic program, and in my opinion, deserves that right. Those parents have contributed to our facilities, help pay the salaries. Um um I fully uh support this. Uh the policy committee began working on this before
149the state legislature was in session in January and we've been talking about this for a while. Uh so I I I want the public to know and my colleagues to know I I fully support opting in and allowing uh homeschool students to be part of all UIL opportunities in Lamar. the as I'm still trying over here decipher the law. I just I don't know if we have the ability to opt in and like what you just said all UIL activities as are we prepared as a district. Do we want to say all or are we going to say just athletics? Um I I don't see where we can choose which ones to go towards or not. That was my understanding is that it was you have to participate uh give that to all the everything
150all activities across UIL. So um I would just like to add that I'm not saying that we don't opt in later but it's like all the other items that we discussed tonight that we don't have a clear policy in place from at the state level. And it concerns me that this item is not a budgeted item. And while we might get $1,500 from the state, we do not know the actual cost that it costs the district per student per activity. And having a year to figure that out to me is more responsible with uh taxpayer money. uh not just that it's not currently budgeted but the state has not finalized the UIL or the TEA impleation implementation uh guidance uh leaving uh major questions about the funding logistics oversight and accountability unanswered. So I just
151think that for us to stay opted in right now is uh premature. Um, I disagree. I think um I I don't I mean with the student $1,500 per student, I don't know. I guess it depends on how many sports the student plays, what we allow them to play. With the policy that we wrote, like John said, long before the the law changed. Um, we had we had decided on UIL athletics is what we had decided. And with $1,500, I believe that that covers any kind of uniform cost, you know. Also, I mean, many of our homeschool students, they have friendships in the community, either through church, through activities, um, boy scouts, whatever. So, they have a lot of friends in public school. So, they've built friendships and relationships. We have homeschool families that attend public
152public activities. They go to the theater programs. They go to our football games. They go to volleyball games. So they're in the community and they're engaged, but they're not engaged in in this way. And so I agree with John. I think that, you know, they are taxpayers and and you know, maybe what we do is we do start with athletics and see how that works. We don't know how many homeschool students we have in our community or in each individual, you know, district. But and not all homeschool students want to participate. It's not like, oh, you can. So we have like 500 show up. Um, but if we start out with something like athletics and we feel like we are able to maybe increase it in a year or maybe it's maybe it's not working
153out and maybe we don't, you know, it's not working out for the school and we don't do that. We can always reevaluate in a year. But I do feel that it is more than reasonable to to start somewhere. Um, I do however disagree with number two. I don't feel like we should open it up to residents who are not taxpayers who come from Katy or Fort Bend or Needville. I mean because not many um I don't know if if that will change if other districts will opt in or opt out. You see what I'm saying? Participate. So, but I do think it should be open to residents who who pay the taxes in our area. I have to advocate for those students and those children. As personally being a public virtual homeschool teacher, I've seen
154the advantages that those kids have that go to districts that have opted into this. I personally would never want to be a part of a district that told a kid no. Um, if we look at those guidelines, the state lists them very clearly. Um, and if we have members of our community who are wanting that opportunity, to know that a district said, "No, we don't want you." That hurts my heart as a teacher. Um, and I also want to make sure like the board understands if you go back, um, it is a qualification that you have a standardized testing score to come in. So, that really kind of streamlines who exactly we're allowing to come. they've got to be in a very highly qualified homeschool program. So, this is not opening it up to any
155homeschool. And I know there's a lot of parents who choose homeschool who choose to not have that standardized testing route. Therefore, those families cannot participate. But I personally know that the students that I teach are the are the kids that are so talented that they want to go reach their dreams and being in our standardized school day is it it doesn't allow them that opportunity, but they still want to participate and they still want to be with their friends and I want to let them do that. I have a couple cl clarifying questions and I we do have a motion on the table um in a second. Um for sports that have already kind of tried out for the year. So cheerleading, dance, things like that. Those girls would not be able to participate for
156the 2526 school year or what would I couldn't answer but I could tell you with cheer. So cheer has two different teams kind of um we have the team that they try out for that we call our sideline team they try out for last year and they've tried out for football in essence you have a JV and a varsity we have a spirit cheer and a lot of that's because we currently don't allow freshman to be on varsity in sideline cheer for them to earn their letter jacket they participate in UIL spirit cheer which is a January competition so for cheer they could roll in to that category okay and for UIL classify spirit different than athletics. So if we would allow that, we would have to opt in spirit as well. Coach, oh Mr.
157Roy, yes, I I do have a question. I just want to clarify that if I understood correctly, you mentioned that homeschool students are subject to the no pass no play regulation. Correct. Okay. And so since parents are responsible for the administration of of the academics, is there already we'll have a form that they'll fill out every three weeks as their grade check, just as if we were filling out a a form or checking grades for a kid who's in school. Okay. Okay. I'd like to concur with Trustee Henderson. in in my college classes, my LCISD students are very strong performers. But I also have students who are homeschooled who some are in my class, my college class for dual credit purposes, others are former homeschooled students. And in addition to my college class, the students
158that that I work with through 4 are also top performers. And u and I and and a big reason for that is the parental support. And I I completely agree. Frankly, I believe that that we should allow them to participate. They're they'll be subject to the same standards as our students. And frankly, I come on I'm going to you come down on the end of allowing them to p participate in all programs that across the gamut. I think it it makes it stronger uh experience for them as students and it it supports public education and I believe that it will rising tide raises all ships and we'll all be better for it. I'd also like to add to Sorry, Mr. watch coach Gbert uh on on a on a sport like a basketball for instance,
159high school basketball, there's a limited number of spots compared to football for instance. So any homeschool student would still have to try out and be good enough for the coach to select that student. Right. Correct. If things were in place the way we would like for them to be done, the first day of school, they'll enroll in school from then until roughly like girls basketball starts middle of October. So October 15th, girls basketball starts. They have a three-day triyout process and at that point they'll determine what team they're on if they if they were to make a team. If they were to make a team. So, it's possible that uh a kid is really not that good. His parents think he is, he thinks he is, and he just doesn't make the team and he
160wanted to participate, but he's just not able to participate because he's not good enough athletic wise. Is that that's possibility as well? Yes, sir. Hypothetically, let's say that we had been opted in and we had a homeschool student who was part of the Randall State winning championship. If it turned out that that child was we didn't do our due diligence or someone didn't do their due diligence and they were failing at homeschool, would that would they be able to retroactively if that student played in the game take away the title? Yes, ma'am. Yes. So, and it's not just that part of it. It's the other UIL rules that apply as well. The participation outside of school, the practice time, all of it. If it's a UIL rule, it's it's a violation. It could be that.
161And so it would it's incumbent on the district and our UIL coordinators to make sure that they are eligible before they play in any game like that. Yes, ma'am. Okay. That's what they do for all students. So I mean any student can leave school and go get a QB coach. Right. So, it's I just a lot of this is talking about it puts the onus on the parent, but we have to I mean, I would hate for something like that to happen. Well, they would be turning their grades into the coaches. I mean, they're the ones who look overregs and all that before they approve them. There's a process that we have that our coaches put in a shared documents that goes through their campus court. The the head coach, the campus coordinator, the principal
162has access to it and our office has access to it and we check it. Every grade report we're checking it and these kids will be expected to be just as much a part of the team as any other student. So, well, even hypothetically, let's say it's UIL theater or it's choir and there's after school practices or what about situations where I mean I know my daughter would have practices during the school day that weren't part of her choir period. So, for go back to basketball for example, most of our boys basketball periods and some of our varsity football athletic periods are during fourth period. Mhm. So they will be expected to be there from 11 to 12. Okay. So that check-in process and that checkout process becomes very important. And then at 4:00 after school's
163out, they also start after school practice or they've practiced before school. So those two times that that student athletes expected to be there and participate. Okay. And I imagine they have to come in the front office just like everybody else, check in and check out through the front office so we know who is in our school at all times. Okay. Anybody have anything else? My my hesitation is limiting it to just one thing because like we we we in our minds we view cheer as athletics but under UIL it's a different category. So, we would have to be very specific on what we're allowing, what athletics, what spirit, whether it's that and then I want to be very clear and understand that the law allows us to exclude academic activities from this UIL because from
164what I am not a lawyer. I've always wanted to be one when I grow up, but um from what I'm reading in the text, it just says UIL activities. So, I want to be very clear that we're we are allowed to say we're only selecting spirit and athletics that we're allowed to do that. I want to keep us as a district above approach and make sure that the law is followed. Okay. So, so we have a motion on the table and can you remind us of your motion what what it is exactly? So I just want to clarify it's it's not to leave any children behind. Not that's that's not the it's that this is something that this is a lot. We have to have somebody on each campus. Is that correct? Yes ma'am. We
165have to have somebody on each campus and everything outlined ready to go for cheer or starts at the beginning of August. So that's what I'm afraid of is that we're not prepared for it and having students come in that aren't technically enrolled could be problematic, disruptive if we don't have a proper policy in place. though. But that being said, uh if I can amend it to say that to to opt out for this school year, 2526 and then obviously we re revisit it. Uh August 1st is the deadline for it gets revisited every year, right? Um we already had a current motion on the table. You're making an amendment to your motion. Is that right? Or you just want to withdraw and make a new motion. A withdraw and make a new motion. Okay, that
166seems cleaner. That's fine. I will make a note that my motion or my second to the motion was to get us to the point to where we can't discuss it like we did. So that was my intent for the second is to allow us for parliament parliamentary procedure get us to a point of discussion. So that was So Miss Marer's motion is to opt out for the 2526 school year. Correct. Correct. Do I have a second? Okay. No second. So it dies. I'm sorry. No, I'm not going to second. But if the motion's dead, I would like to make a motion. Okay. You may do that. I would like to opt I would like to make sure Lamarcisd is opted in to allow UIL participation. We don't have to do that. We don't have to
167make a motion to opt in. You will have to I would like to make a motion to allow Lamarcis students to opt in but not allow students from other districts to participate. Okay. Okay. Do I have a second for all activities for UIL activities? I second. Okay. Now we can discuss. Yes. So when we had the policy committee meeting, we really only discussed athletics. So I don't know the whole entirety of what all UIL activities encompasses and how that would affect I mean we went through all the details for athletics and how that would affect us and the processes that we would put in place which Mr. Gabard just went over. Um, so opting to do that without knowing the capacity of all of that or how it would affect other things during the school
168day that Okay. Okay. I'll make it I'll make it simple then. I'm going to withdraw my motion and I'm going to make a second I'm going to make another motion a clean first clean motion. opt in Lamar CISD to UIL athletic events and not allow kids from other districts to participate. And if my motion is seconded and passed, then we can talk about UIL non-athletic events. Okay. Do I have a second? I have a second. Okay. Trusty Box second discussion. Again, I just want to state that we're operating within the law on that. So what you want is clarification clarification on the law that we can say and because we're saying athletics um KDISD it's and it's up to the district to see where they want to put cheer and all that kind of stuff.
169So if we need to go in there to say we want to allow athletics and cheer, athletics and dance, those are different EIL events. Those fall under different things. So we would need to be very specific to keep us let our intent be seen. Is that correct? We have to specifically add in certain like spirit cheer. That's just the board the local local decision at that point. Okay. To me with UIL athletics, UIL spirit is underneath our realm. Right now there's not a UI dance competition and so that's where the the cheer kind of falls under athletics right now and the dance does not. So essentially what we are we are opting in by default but we are saying no to other residents and then we can still have we still have time to say
170who can participate and who can't by creating a local policy. Correct. And do we have to have that policy done by September 1st? Okay. So is everybody good with that? So, we have a motion to opt in but opt out of neighboring districts and athletics only. And we have a second. Okay. Any more discussion? Can we have that policy in place at the meeting that we were going to have in early August? Continue the policy. Well, and to that note though, the it never made it out of the policy committing to the full board. The full board never saw that policy. We never created an actual policy. We had a little blurb that we would put into the policy, but once this law changed, we kind of just okay, paused that, I guess you could
171say. We didn't Yeah. So, we'll rever that. Okay. So then we'll just go back to policy committee and we will hash out the details of and we will vote before September 1st on that. Okay. Okay. So can I call for the vote? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Okay, we will now have reports and presentations on the information items. However, it is 9:00. Does anybody need a short recess? 5 minute bathroom break. Okay, we're going to So, what do I do? Recess. Okay, I'm calling for a recess at 9:08 p.m. We will be back in about seven minutes. What are you doing? Y'all ready? Okay, it is 9:18. We are back in open session. We will now have reports and presentations on the information
172items. Yes, ma'am, Madam President. We have our legislative update uh financially from our chief financial officer, Miss Lwick. Good evening uh board of trustees and Dr. Nons. Uh tonight we will cover the more finance related legislative topics. Uh this is an overview, you know, of of legislation that really has significant impact to Lamarcisd. It's not comprehensive or exhaustive by any means. And there are a lot of other bills that will impact the district financially, operationally, instructionally, uh, and we've seen some of those tonight. We won't be covering the impact of potential homestead exemptions, at least monetarily, uh, that'll be presented to voters in November. Uh, those will provide tax relief to taxpayers, which is the good news. Um, but it will it'll just change the allocation or the share of state funding that the state
173pays versus the local taxpayers pay, not necessarily the amount. And as I mentioned other um earlier, there will be um hold harmless funding that in the calculations will make us whole as a district. Um that will and it'll replace uh any tax collections that we might um be short on. The session ended on June 2nd. Uh it'll take time to understand all the interpretations and of course accur accuracy is important to us and we will amend the uh budget as necessary before September 1st. The estimates in the public hearing were based on current information and current law and but the recent legislative action is not included in the budget yet budget yet but we are um getting ready to amend. So now with that I'll cover the significant legislation. Uh there's about eight and a
174half billion in new funding to public schools but it really isn't all new money. Some of it is, some of it is not. Uh 4.2 billion was uh set aside for teacher compensation. We talked earlier this evening about teacher retention uh the teacher retention aotment. And for us that's worth about 11.8 million. Um we are in the category where three or four years of experience uh teachers will receive 2500 and 5,000 for teachers with five or more years of experience. The state set aside 500 million for non-administrative ta staff payraises. For us, that's about $2 million. And that was the the support staff retention uh allotment that we talked about earlier. Uh there's 1.3 billion set aside by the state for a new fixed cost aotment for Lamarcisd. That's about 4.8 million. um you know
175probably about a quarter of that um will be spent on um um employee benefits. There are additional withholdings that are required when you provide raises for staff. So part of that money for us will go to that. Uh it is called the allotment for basic costs and it's $106 per enrolled student. It's also intended to pay for utilities, transportation, and other types of costs. Uh the the legislature set aside $677 million for early learning programs. The district will receive about 1.4 million uh there. And when I when I give you figures, those are all estimates that we've seen models run uh for our district. There's $430 million set aside uh in additional school safety funding. The per student allotment is going from $10 to $20 a student and per campus allotments from 15,000 per campus
176to 33,540. There's 850 million to in increases for special education and to include a move to an intensity based model of funding. Uh most of that in year two of the bienium uh for Lamar it's $1.7 million. The state set aside 200 million for charter facilities, 300 million to increase the small and midsize school aotment uh adjustment for that. 153 million for career and technical education. Lamarcisd will benefit about 700,000. With that, um 135 million for teacher prep and certification initiatives. Uh that will require that all teachers in foundation courses be certified by 2930. There was a $55 increase to the basic allotment which for Lamar is about $2 million. However, that's really um a move what I call from one pocket to the other because even though we're getting uh more money in the
177basic aotment, the guaranteed yield uh tier 2 enrichment money is actually decreasing. And so for the first year of the bienium, we're looking at about 2 million minus 800,000. In the second year of the bienium, we're actually losing more of tier 2 money than we're gaining. So, uh, it's, like I say, it's moving money from one pocket to the other. And the way the state's doing that is they're freezing the guaranteed aotment factor, uh, which is about $130. Uh, they're freezing that instead of allowing it to go up. And so that's how they're paying for that. U of that all of those items I just talked about um Lamarcisd will benefit about $25.7 million. Uh and of course I listed all those there. Uh 20.4 million of that is really uh directed towards certain types
178of spending. So, we talked about the $12 million that'll go to the teacher retention aotment, 2 million to s support staff retention, a million and a half to well, actually a million and a half of the 4.8 for um uh benefit costs, and um you can see there on the on the slide about 20.4 million of that is committed. So what that leaves is about $5 million to still allocate. Uh our plan is for cabinet and the superintendent to have discussions about uh mandated uses of the funds, additional budget priorities and any budget amendments that uh we would like to propose. We will also have board budget committee meetings to discuss those priorities and then we'll have the amendments uh to the budget before September 1st. and let that all answer any questions you have.
179I think one thing I would like to note for the community and for people watching is that uh the state legislature goes in there and put they put these mandates on our district and say and then a lot of the times those mandates are non-funded mandates. So for like the increase for the school safety aotment, it's one of those ones that said okay you have to have an armed uh somebody on campus that is armed whether it's a marshal or um as a district we have chose police officers. the money that was previously there was not fully funded. So now we get to allocate some of that money that was taken away from one pot. We now get to replace that. So um a lot of these you'll see increases u but now we actually
180get to use the money for what we say we're going to use it for or what it was intended to be used for. Am I correct? Right. Correct. And so like you know when you leave our schools um every campus there's a sign that's there that says sex trafficking and how say say no to it and all that. That was one of those state mandates that was required by the state for us to put. So a lot of these increases now realizing that kind of like the the vaping bill they're realizing now there's some things that's costing money that we need to add increases to. So, um, just a little point of clarification, not necessary clarification, but just to beat that horse again about there is unfined mandates and now they're catching up some, right?
181Can I ask um said 1.7 million for the special education evaluations? What does that mean specifically? Uh there are provisions u where um 1.7 million it's the fourth item down uh will be used or at least replace some of the funds that we already allocate for student evaluations. Um I think Miss Matthysse is in the in the audience so we'll ask her to get into that in a little more detail. So what is your specific question? I was just wondering, so that money has to be spent on evaluations specifically, correct? And what does that mean? So, based on what I've read um about the evaluations, like this year we had about 1,500 evaluations and so we get $1,000 per evaluation. And so it would basically help us fund um the high number of referrals that
182we have. So you're talking about a student is referred to special education, you'll do the you do an evaluation and determine where a pro which program that they go into or if they go into a program. Say that again. I said so if someone referred a child to to special education and then you would do the evaluation there to determine what program if a program that they go to. So that's the evaluation process that they're talking about here, right? Eligibility. Yes, ma'am. Uhhuh. Before you leave, I have another I have another special ed question for you real quick. Sorry. That's okay. Um, so I I know with the school choice bill that the public education districts will be given $1,000 to test those kids. Would that money come from there? I'm not sure how they're
183allocating for schools of choice. Yeah, I'm just thinking that could possibly be why that money is there because we will be given that money to test those students. It could be. We haven't received a lot of clarification on the bills just yet. Um hopefully uh sometime in July. Um we have a TKE board that that distributes the information with clarification for those evaluations. Was there a pot of money specifically set apart before or is this just saying now you're now you're going to pull from this pot of money cuz was that money coming from somewhere else? No, it was just part of our budget. We just budget for evaluations um through the federal grant as well as local funds. And so now you can use your budget for what it needs to be. And so
184now for these evaluations that you can now Yes. Could you explain this one? Could you explain that top line for me again? Yes. Okay. So in in the models that we've seen uh when you increase the basic aotment by $55 our regular program uh funding uh will increase by about $2 million. Uh the regular program aotment is part of tier one and the funding formula has two big pieces tier one and tier two. Tier two is the guaranteed yield and the guaranteed yield is um we get what they call enrichment funds um based on our tax effort. So uh our tax rate, tax collections, all that stuff figures into that calculation. Um we have five cents of enrichment pennies. Uh four that uh the board adopted between 2008 and 2012. Um and then we have
185one uh penny from 2019. Uh those extra pennies generate additional funding. That's basically what the guaranteed yield is. Um the new the new legislation actually is and and a component of that calculation is the guaranteed yield um the $129.52 $129.52. um the state is now going to freeze that amount at $129 whereas it typically would have moved up to $132 and then it would have moved up to $140 which would have increased our guaranteed yield. Instead, it's frozen. So, but the way the calculation works, our guaranteed yield money will drop. So, the 800,000 is how much it will drop this next year. So, we're getting 2 million, we're losing $800,000, so we're netting 1.2 million. I don't know if that, you know, No, I understand. I'm just It gave us $55 increase, but not really.
186So, it just changed pockets. Okay. Okay. Thank you for explaining that. Okay. What is next? Bond. Okay. Yes. Next up is um item B 2025 bond update. All right. We have Mr. Buchanan in the podium. Good evening board of trustees and Dr. Nims. Now we will bring forth a discussion. Um, we have a lot of input uh last at our last meeting, June 16th of 2025. So now we're bringing back that input and giving you a little bit more options as we move forward in the process. So again, we had a bond citizen committee that met. These were the members of our committee. Committee met on June 10th. They discussed all the propositions. They also discussed the financial impact and then they voted on each individual item. So here is our proposed projects with the
187feedback that we received. Proposition A, we have elementary schools 39 through 45. Elementary school 39 and elementary school 45 received five 95% in favor of from our bond citizen committee. 100% for elementary schools 40 through 44. For our secondary schools, we have the layman and Roberts edition. We also have secondary nine complex made up of those three campuses. And then the Terry High School, George Junior High, Navaro Middle School replacement. We did remove the 12,200 seat auditorium addition. Um that has been removed from our input last night. I do have one uh bit of information. The question last night was how much square footage was going to be added to the building and it was 30,000 square ft was what going the net square footage addition would be for that auditorium. Again the input from
188the bond citizen committee was 100% for layman and Roberts 100% for secondary 9 and 95% for the Terry George Junior High Navaro. This is again the map of our 25 26 school year. the top lefthand corner you will see the octagon with the number eight that is where secondary the secondary 8 complex was part of the 22 bond is currently being constructed so that is that is under construction now for all three of those campuses the location of Terry high school would move down to the spur 10 cluster hoff road that is u the same site that we're building the current CTE center that will open in the fall 26 so we're looking at that site to be able to move those again like Our discussion last night was to be able to separate the
189two campuses, Lamar and Terry, to be able to expand those attendance zones. Again, Terry High School will be built at 2575 with the ability to add another 500 seat addition in the future. These are our support campuses. There has been no modification since our last meeting. Again, the bond citizen committee had uh was in favor of all of these items by 100%. We'll briefly go through the roofing and air conditioning. These are the color tracks. These are the scope of work that we'll be doing at each one of those campuses. So, here's the blue and red track, gold and green, maroon and purple, silver, and our support buildings. So, now I'm going to bring Dr. Jones up for Proposition B and C and then I'll be back for Prop D. Good evening, board of trustees.
190Uh from the feedback we received last night, we've split the technology proposals into two different propositions. This first one is specifically focusing on the technology devices refresh. So that would be two projects. It would be the technology equipment refresh, which is $43.8 million, and the graphic arts updates, which was $250,000, which the bond citizens committee uh supported with 100%. The total for this uh proposition would be $44.1 uh million dollars. Just a reminder of the details of what an equipment refresh is. Equipment refresh is replacing technology equipment that has an expired warranty or is no longer supported for security or functionality functionality updates. Our computers, desktops, laptops, and monitors are purchased with a 5-year warranty. iPads are not purchased with a warranty, but they typically have a 5-year functional lifespan. Uh below is the list
191of devices per year that would need to be replaced based off of their warranty uh falling out of that 5-year period or the uh suspected um functionality time rolling out for those devices. For monitors, it would be about 1,400 devices. Student laptops 20,700. Student desktops 4,500. Staff laptops 2,900. Uh close to 3,000. Staff desktops 4,600. and iPads would be about 21,000. For graphic arts, uh the graphic arts uh team uh the department there supports large-scale printing for the district including high volume printing and large format printing. Tools identified for replacement include one large format printer, replacing a large volume paper cutter, replacing a cutter creaser perforator folder machine and replacing four wake tablets which are graphic design tools. estimated costs. The per device pricing is based on current quotes. An additional 15% is put in
192there to cover the price of these. I'm going to have a little bit more details about some of the specs, uh, because that was a question from last night. So, I'm going to share that a little bit. Uh, but for monitors, uh, about $230, student laptops, uh, $966. Student desktops and staff desktops is 1,150. And the staff laptop is 1495 with the 15%. iPads 402. Overall cost of the project, you can see by school year, the number of devices that would need to be refreshed or replaced, the total estimated unit cost, and the cost of each project for a total of $44,125,738. Just a breakdown of each of those by major category. You can see that student laptop refreshes the most. followed by iPads, desktops, and then staff laptops. Some frequently asked questions about this.
193First one is the price of student laptops. The price of student laptops seems high. Some people have said, "Why are we budgeting $840 for a student laptop?" Again, it's the cost. This cost has risen significantly in the past 6 months. But we are uh purposely getting devices with larger batteries. It's the number one piece of feedback we have about our devices is that we wish the battery life would last longer. And uh as a reminder, unlike standard consumer devices, student laptops are built to be more durable, include that 5-year accidental damage warranty to min minimize long-term repair expenses. So, I wanted to talk a little bit about the technical specifications of our laptops to help clarify what we're getting there. I'm going to try and really explain this in very userfriendly language. There's some phrases
194up there that look a little scary, but they're not. They're very easy to understand, I promise. So, this is our three different laptop types. our student laptop, instructional laptop, and our administrator laptop. And the current cost if we got a quote today, these were the quotes that we received today for these devices. And then there's the four major p uh components of the device and and what they are and how they impact the pricing of that device. And so I'm going to briefly explain those. The processor is kind of like the brains of the computer. It's it is taking in the data and it's spitting out the work. It's doing all of the work for the device. And so for our student laptops is an Intel i5. It's an older processor type and it has
19510 cores. The 10 cores is like the brains. How many brains does it have there doing the work? An Intel Core Ultra 5V Pro is what we have for our instructional laptops and our administrator laptops. That's a newer model of processor. It's a heavier, stronger uh processor. And for our instructional laptops, we have 12 cores. So it has two additional cores for working and thinking harder and faster. And for our administrator laptop, it has 14 cores. So two more from our instructional laptops. The storage category there uh we have RAM which is the working memory that the the computer works on as it works it has its memory that it does all of its processing and then it has its storage the long-term storage. That's the second line there the SSD. It's called solidstate drives.
196So it's like a flash drive inside of the computer itself. It's not one of those discs that spins anymore. So all three of these uh models have the same amount. What is not listed on this page is the right speed for the RAM. For our student desk laptops, it has a slower right speed. So, it's a little bit slower device and it gradually gets faster as we move up instructional laptop to administrator laptop. So, it's a faster machine. It processes things more quickly. The battery for the student laptop and instructional laptop that the student laptop is a recent change. It now matches what our instructional laptops are. And our administrator laptops have a four cell 63watt hour battery. What watt hours is saying is how many watt hours of wattage usage will the device work.
197So on average, let's say it takes about 8 watts of power to use the device. So if you have a 55watt hour device and it's using eight watts every hour, it's going to last about six or seven hours with that type of regular uses. So, that's what those numbers are helping tell you. And then the last piece there is the screen size. Our student laptops are a smaller screen size. It's 14inch. Uh for our instructional administrator laptops, they're 16in. Uh as an an adult who's grown gotten a little older in the past few years, it suddenly creeped up on me. I have learned to appreciate a larger screen size. Uh and so that's why we've have those instructional and administrator laptops with a little bit larger screen size. They are all touchscreen. uh we have
198found in feedback from our our staff and our students that they really enjoy those uh uh touchscreen computers. We did reach out to one of our vendors today to get a price of what if we pulled back on some of these things. And so for an instructional laptop example, if we pulled back to going back to just a ultra but not the V uh V Pro processor and reduced the RAM to 8 GB of RAM uh with uh no touchscreen, we could get the price down to $1,054. Um and so the the RAM number there is a concern that that could be a computer that might not be a lot of fun to use. if you start opening up a lot of tabs, a lot of internet tabs, applications, it's going to slow down for
199you. Another thing that I think is important to mention here is all of these devices again come with that 5year warranty. That that is going to be between $2 and $300 per device. And what that allows us is anytime that device is damaged in that five years, we can get that device repaired. So that's part of the purchase there is it gives you that five years of damage repair inside for the device. the price of the desktops. Our current desktops today was 9,000 or $958.61. We actually buy the same for our student and uh classroom desktops right now. It's an Intel i5 with 14 cores. So, it's an older processor, but it has more of those brains inside of there to help it move quickly and and process the work it needs to do. Has
20016 GB of RAM, 256 GB of that solid state drive. And uh something that is different from our desktops is it has a CD ROM CD DVD ROM in them. Uh we don't have that in our uh laptops. Functions of a Lamar CISD staff computer. So what capabilities should a computer in Lamar CISTD K through2 K through 12 have to support daily instructional administrative tasks? So the one of the questions is what do we need to be able to do with these devices? Uh it needs to be able to run multiple applications at once. That's going to be things like Skyward, taking attendance, Canvas, uh online instructional tools. It also needs to be able to support locally installed software like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and that interactive flat panel apps that are going to be working
201if it's connected to an interactive flat panel. It also needs to operate our content filters. We must be u we have to filter our internet to uh remain compliant with federal guidelines there. Uh and then we also have system monitoring and management softwares. And then the antivirus and security tools. We want to make sure that we have solid anti virus on all of our devices and that can uh put a little bit of effort on our processors. Uh it needs to do all of those things while maintaining a smooth multitasking performance for seamless instruction and productivity. One of the things again revisiting what we discussed last night, we've heard other districts are using Chromebooks. Why aren't we? Uh they are an affordable option but they tend to be less durable and typically come with shorter
202warranties. uh typically three to four years would be the max you'd be able to get often requiring replacement sooner than a standard laptop. Their limited ability to run installed application and reliance on web-based tools can restrict their usefulness for certain instructional needs. Uh another piece to that is we have our environment that is not Chromebook friendly right now. We would have to develop that environment to make sure we can support those devices. Uh and then then another question last night repurposing refresh devices. So what does Lamarcisd do with computers and iPads after they are refreshed? Uh after devices such as computers and iPads are refreshed, Lamarcis sells them to a certified reseller. This reseller is responsible for securely wiping all private and sensitive data from the from the device. Once the data is removed, the
203reseller evaluates the condition of each device and pays Lamar CISD a current market value based on its state. Uh we'd had a small sale uh last month in May 2025. We sold 120 desktops and received $4,860. It was about $40 per per desktop and we sold 201 laptops for $6,01. This is something we always would go out for negotiation on to make sure we're getting the best price for the district. That's when when we get a check back to help go back to buying more devices. Any questions on Proposition B? No questions, but thank you for adding in all that clarification. It was super helpful. Thank you. All right, Proposition C, 1:1 student device initiative. So, this is separating out from the refresh the possibility of going one:1 in classrooms. So, this student 1:1 student
204laptop ratio is uh would be a budget of 10,688,790. The bond citizen committee was 73% in favor. Uh Lamarcisd has 36,459 student laptops and 35,8 students in grades 3 through 12. So right now we're really close to being able to do one one uh with the reallocation of devices and additional purchase for break fix we could get there uh w without a a huge huge number of devices needing to be added to our environment. The Lamarcisd 1:1 program though as a reminder is not a send home device program. Uh below is the number is the enrollment expectation for grades 3 through 12 for each of the school years and the number of devices we would need to have in our environment to meet that 1:1 need plus 10% for the break fix requirement. And uh
205the last row is the number of devices per year that we would need. unit per unit estimated cost total devices we would need to purchase over that that period of time would be 11,65 for that total of 10,688,790. Increasing total benefits for teachers. What are some potential benefits for our teachers? It's providing every student with a laptop ensures consistent access to essential digital tools like online textbooks, Canvas, and other instructional resources. The access uh enables teachers to more effectively integrate technology in their lesson planning, enriching daily instruction. It also supports uh the state requirements for online testing in all of those grade levels 3 through 12 by providing allowing them the opportunity to give their students regular practice for those digital assessments. For our students, uh again, having a laptop in the classroom is valuable
206for students because it helps them build those essential technology literacy skills like typing and navigating digital tools prepares them for success in an increasingly tech techdriven world, giving them that hands-on experience with tools they'll use in the future. Additionally, regular laptop use ensures students are comfortable with the digital platforms used in statemanded online assessments. Teacher choice. We want to really want to emphasize this. If we went forward with this program, uh we teachers are that most valuable resource in the classroom. Without them, instruction does not happen. A laptop for every student provides a teacher a known tool available to them, but it does not require them to use that tool. If the teacher wishes to not utilize student laptops for a particular lesson, the teacher has the discretion to do so. By providing the laptop
207though, it would give them the peace of mind to know that if they do want to use that technology, they have it available there for them. And a final piece there, we would not be sending student laptops home as part of this program. Any questions on Proposition C? Um the in the when you had the how many computers we would need to buy each year? Yes, ma'am. If you can go back. It included the 2425 school year. Why? Why was that included? Uh because right now we have Prop C funds. It was Prop C from the last bond and we've run out of money to refresh devices that we need to go ahead and Well, excuse me. This number, this number is because based on our current enrollment to be the plus 10% for students
208we had at the end of May, we would need to buy 250 devices. So really for 2526 it would be the 2050 plus the 209. Okay. It would so it really be like almost 4,000 devices that year. Okay. Yes ma'am. The total would stay the same at the at the very end at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. I would just like us to consider maybe changing the wording of one to one. um the more that this has been presented and we've heard it and seen it and processed it, we are already one to one with the data you're showing. Um and I think to the public one to one has a very different meaning especially with our surrounding districts the way they've implemented onetoone and I think the key highlight here is they
209are not going home. Um, and I think something like an equal access to technology or um, just being very clear on what it is we're asking because we're truly not asking for onetoone in the way that the public thinks of onetoone. We are more asking for equal access to all students to have the same technology. So, I would like us to just think about um and maybe just possibly discuss rewarding that on the bond. Absolutely. Well, I mean, technically all students have equal access to the same technology within the school. They have equal access in the sense of they are available for use. So, you're telling me there's classrooms that don't have access to laptops depending on if they're Yeah. And depending on whenever they're available. For example, um if there's a laptop cart per
210hallway, from what my understanding from listening, um if one say we have a dual credit class that's in there, they're predominantly going to use those more than an elective and that elective may need it for a oneoff lesson or like that, but will they have access to that if that dual credit? So I would say um it would be from my understanding and my presumptiveness is that you would they would have to go in there and select it and request it and all that. But there are certain subjects that will be heavier use on that than another subject. But if that other subject says, "Hey, I have this lesson plan coming up and we can use this." this. But if that dual credit class is over here, which is, you know, there it's a whole
211other entity involved in this with the Lonear, they are been working all that stuff. This one may not have access to it if this is heavily used over here, right? And I know that libraries also have laptop cards that can be checked out. But I mean technically if we are already onetoone to say that one classroom doesn't get laptops for a whole week or exact I mean you do you have to plan your lessons and you have to reserve them but if we are onetoone and I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm just saying I don't think that that is a huge problem. Correct me if I'm wrong, but well, I think what Miss Henderson's point was is the one to one may turn off voters. And so considering alternate wordings, it doesn't have to
212be equal access. We don't have to get hung up on what those what that word is going to be right now, but maybe just start brainstorming and thinking of a more well student device initiative maybe. as to and again for the public if you did not catch that we had a board workshop and talked about this at length last night and you're confused why this is suddenly a separate prop um you can go back to our website and watch the workshop from last night because we did discuss a lot of this um we decided to separate out the prop for the student device initiative the onetoone um because there was a a concern that Maybe this would sink the entire refresh and the refresh is is needed. So I think I think giving the public
213like you said exa exactly what it is and then they can decide. I mean it's up to them to decide. So thank you Dr. Jones. So good evening. I'm back up to talk about Proposition D. Um there was extensive conversations about um the stadiums. So I brought the board some options when it comes to that. So the first option would be a 6,000 seat trailer stadium. Um and we'll go into more depth of what that looks like. That would be a 26.7 million uh project. And then if we were to add a 6,000 seat stadium at the Terry High School replacement, you're looking at 66.56 million for a total of $93.3 million. So 6,000 seats at Trailer Stadium, we would be replacing the bleachers. Again, like we said last night, um no engineer will be
214able to look at those bleachers and be able to repair or or adjust them. So we would have to take all of the bleachers down, both home and visitor side. In doing that, it triggers the the requirements for adding restrooms, concession stands, ADA requirements. Um, a lot of our sound system is attached to those uh systems. So, as it comes down, we would replace the sound system and then updating the school board that currently exists at the facility. So, that would be the encompass. Again, that was part of our facility assessment that the board looked at last night. Looking at it, extrapolating the soft cost, the FFN, design cost, and escalation. That's how we got to that number. The second option was, can a stadium fit at the Terry High School complex at the Cluster
215Hoff in Spur 10 if that's where the location was uh if Terry High School was to be replaced there? It would. We would have 6,000 seats. It would be matching what Trailer Stadium has. We would have to use the elementary school site. There is currently an elementary school site a part of that land plan that we have, master land plan on that site. we would have to use that elementary school site for that stadium if that's what we choose to do. The other thing is is by doing that it cuts a lot of cost off because the stadium would be located directly behind the CTE center. So for parking for the stadium we can use the CTE center and the high school Terry High School for the required code for all the parking for the
216stadium. If we were to include um the stadium, we would have to reduce the land and land development budget by $52 million to be able to stay within our our current budget. So the land budget would go from 169 million to 117 million for land and land development. So what we what we've done is is these are all the propositions that was presented tonight. Proposition D is trailer stadium only, not having the second stadium at the Terry High School complex. So the total would be 1 bill985,33,558. If we were to add a second stadium, so you'd have trailer and ranger stadium would be Proposition D. You're looking at reducing Proposition A, increasing Proposition D. The total bond would be 1 bill999,593,558. Are there any questions about Prop D? Before we go into the financial data,
217I'm very surprised to see you all present this um like this the 93 million. Um I I do not like being a wet blanket. Prop D as presented right here on this screen is we're see that will fail. The public has proven that in this district. I do not think that the public has an appetite for high school stadiums of $93 million. So my my question is twofold. Uh one, does it cost us with the county since they run our elections? We we contract with the elections office if we add a prop E because what I'm thinking is we break out repairs to trailer as one and we put verbiage on that ballot that says necessary repairs to bring it up to code or something along those lines and then say a second prop E
218would be another stadium because I would hate I mean where we got for this last night was taking away the upgrades to one district auditorium as a fine arts uh mega center basically to make the necessary repairs to trailer stadium to bring it up to code and reducing the seating and there was a consensus in on the board of we have to do that we have to ask the public for the money to to borrow the money to do that but I think if we combine it with the second stadium I I just can't see the public supporting it after they've rejected it four times in the last five years. Yes, sir. Mr. West, that's why we we have this without the second stadium, but the second stadium was mentioned last night. So, we went
219through the exercise of at least saying what it would cost and what would it look like and what would we have to take out if we were to put a second one in. So, we just wanted to present the options to the board based on the discussions. So, is is there a does it cost the district to add a prop E with each prop? Do we incur more of a cost from the elections? Does anybody know that? And if and if it if there is a cost, is it significant? Is it just like an extra? No, sir. I don't believe there's additional cost. There's there's just a cost of partnering with the county to actually host the election. Uh regardless of how many propositions we have on there is what I believe. Uh but we
220have our bond accounts and the rumors also that can may be able to help us with that question. I don't know. Um uh but from the from the from the invoices that we get from the county, right? So regardless of what propositions we've had in the past, the invoices have always been like to partner with the county on running the election itself, not necessarily how many props we have. So I don't think there would be an additional expense. I'd like to express that I agree with Trusty Welch. I've heard it said that insanity is repeating the same action and expecting different results. I I raised the the idea of considering a a stadium now that I've seen the cost. Frankly, I'd rather withdraw that alto together. I mean, I I don't think that we have
221a strong appetite for for a stadium at that cost. And and frankly, I believe that the the original idea to uh repair Trader Stadium, I think, is is is our best bet. I do appreciate your work. Uh I uh and you you are correct. It's based on the discussion. Uh so but but nonetheless, I do I don't think the public has an appetite for a stadium of that cost at this point in time. Uh so I don't think there's a need for a property. Ma'am, can can you introduce yourself and Sure. Uh my name is Stephanie Liby. I'm with Norton Rose Fulbright and our firm services bond counsel to the district. So Dr. Neans is right. A lot of the costs associated with the election are fixed costs. So you don't normally incur additional costs
222for the number of propositions that you have. There are certain administrative costs that will incrementally go up. So you have to pay for newspaper publications before you have an election. The longer you're noticed, the more propositions that are running in that newspaper ad, the more the ad costs. Similarly, we have to have election orders translated by a professional translator into various languages. They do that translation on a per word basis. So, the more words you have, the higher cost of translation, but over for the overall cost of the election, those increases would be nominal. and and is are we able to put the wording on there that that we would like as a board or is it is it is it restricted to some kind of there's lat there's latitude within the language that would
223go within the proposition. So if you wanted to separate the two stadiums into separate propositions, we would identify them by the high school um that the stadium itself would be located at. So you would vote each high school stadium independently. I'll say just one more thing and then I'll shut up for everybody. Um I I just think that when we put this on the the repairs to trailer as a standalone item failed in 2023 with the public and so I don't know how much the public understood how much financing it needs to be brought up to code. I would like to see us put some strong verbiage in there to let the public know when they read the ballot. This is not to, you know, this is not an AT&T NRG stadium here. We're trying
224to build or repair. We're trying to bring things up to code and we're trying to make this safe. This is our this is our main stadium for the district and we really need to be we really need permission to borrow this money to do that. I'd like to make sure that's clear to the public on the ballot. I agree. And I also just want to say um now to make the repairs, we're looking at 26 million. like the longer we wait to make these the more expensive it is going to be every time we go out. So we asked for 15 million in 2023 and now we are back at 26 million for even less work because we've we've fixed some of the things already and we've reduced the seating. Yes, ma'am. Um, some of
225the things that I I just want to warn the board as as we look at this $26.7 million is if the bond passes in November, we don't get funding until the spring of 27. By the time we complete the design work and do the competitive bidding that is required, we will not be able to start the repair in December of 26. So it would have to be in December of 27 between the end from then until August of 28 for us to be able to do the significant amount of repairs. So that's there's some inflation built in this because even though the bond would be passing in 25, it's not looking at opening until the fall of 28 just because of all the sequencing that we have to do with code and code compliance and
226bidding and and things of that nature. Why why wouldn't you want to have the repairs to Trailer Stadium if it passes in the first series that sold with on Wall Street? Even if it is in the first series, it's going to take us anywhere between six to seven months to for the design process at least and getting all the drawings specific. I see. And then putting it out to bid, which is another two, three month process. By the time we do that, we'll be able to award the bid, but we won't have enough time to complete all the work before the fall of 27, which is basically August 1st is when all the students come back, we start using the field again. That's where it becomes tight. We might be able to do the visitor
227side in one phase and then we'll just have to see what that phasing looks like, but we're looking at a total completion by the fall of 28. I see. Can you please remind us what the previous bonds or requests were for the new stadiums? Do you know it's top up your head? I'm looking on the website and I don't see that on there. The second stadium or Yeah, for a second stadium for an additional stadium. I I would have to look up that information. I remember in November 2020, it was literally it was $93 million for a 10,000 seat concrete stadium. Uh and Kevin McKver, if he's around, he remembers this because I remember talking to him a lot about it. Um, two years later it was at least 190 million because of inflation costs,
228supply chain costs, and we were going to add some buildings to for our CTE students to use. So I believe it was at least $190 million. So at almost $100 million more um and then I can't remember the exact dollar amount, 15 million roughly in in 2023. All of that failed. Right. And while I completely appreciate the exercise of the Ranger Stadium and it's helpful to know what what that looks like and how much that would cost, I agree with Trusty Walsh. I don't I just don't think it's worth putting out there. But we had we we got the exercise. We ran through the whole exercise today to be able to bring at least information back for a discussion. Yeah. Okay, with that I'm going to turn it over to Miss Lwig to do the
229financial data. Thank you. All right, so we'll start with where we are today. We have currently outstanding bonds in the amount of three billion. Our INS tax rate is 48 cents and the rate, the INS rate itself has decreased about 12 cents over the last four years. We've been working to model various sizes of elections uh and and issuances of bonds. Uh we've been working with our financial advisor uh posttop municipal advisors. Um and so more specifically, we've honed it down to two billion. Uh and we've used conservative assumptions or variables in these models. Um we are looking at uh four bond sales annually beginning in 2026 and the tax rate would never increase um with this election above the current 48 cents that it is now. With that I can answer questions. I'd just
230like to raise a couple of points. I I agree that last time we had a a robust discussion regarding the the issuance of the bonds, but but one of the things that I want to express and I want to encourage the public to to bear in mind is that several times this evening we've you've you've explained that what we're we're proposing to do is decrease the tax rate despite the issuance of the bonds. And and it's important that the public understand that when they vote on the bonds, there will most likely or or there will be a statement on the ballot that indicates that it is a tax increase. Correct. Right. And and that's beyond the control of this board. It's it's it's part of the legal requirement of the wording. And so, so one
231of the things that I've noticed is the public automatically presumes that when we're issuing debt that we're we're also automatically increasing the tax rate and that is not true. That's not correct. Correct. Um we are able to uh maintain a steady tax rate uh depending on um how the variables actually play out. Um mainly the most important one of course is value growth. Yes ma'am. And and in the event that a person is paying higher taxes, correct me if I'm wrong, that would be a result of higher valuations. Correct. Which this board has no control over. Correct. It's the appraisal district that value that that that issues the valuations. Right. Now beyond that, if a resident files a uh age 65 tax exemption, then they will receive favorable tax treatment. Can you speak and walk
232us through the process of of the freeze and how it impacts seniors age 65 and how they're they're not going to be as adversely impacted by the issuance of this of this debt, right? uh once uh a taxpayer files for that exemption and and their um their tax amount is frozen, it's actually frozen at that same dollar amount no matter what we do as far as issuing bonds. Um and I may that's that's the most important piece. Now, the time that it could change, of course, would be if that taxpayer made improvements to their home, maybe renovations or um you know, expanded the square footage of their home or something like that, then uh the appraisal district would revalue the home and of course their taxes would end up being impacted by that. Uh but
233that would be uh based on their their personal choices versus the debt that we issue. Okay. Thank you. And and so essentially what we're what we're proposing here is is lowering the tax rate based on the calculation that you provided going out to to issue debt and to to borrow money from investors and pro and we in turn promise to pay them back their principal plus interest through debt service. Correct. My understanding of what we discussed last night is that we as a municipality will school district will receive a more favorable interest rate based on the the uh permanent school fund bond rating of AAA. Is that right? Yes. So, so we, you know, would you venture to say that a bond rating is comparable to a FICO score? A consumer going out and having
234an excellent FICO score and having the most favorable interest rate. In many ways, it is. Yes. As well as our underlying rating. U the as soon as we um start the process of selling bonds, uh our credit, our local credit is also evaluated. uh they look at all the various uh statements and and um audits and various things that um we release and then they give us a rating based on the local district uh financial strength and stability. Yes, ma'am. So, so part of the the robust discussion we had with Mr. Buchanan last night is that there are several significant developments that that are that are part of the growth part of the explosive growth we're experiencing in the southern part of the district specifically uh Emberly Austin Point the George and and there's there's
235one other uh Brook Brookwater I believe it is those those particular developments once they come online and start paying uh property taxes will share in in the repayment of that debt service. So, in other words, it's the new growth that's helping pay for the uh the new facilities that we're providing. Exactly. Yes, ma'am. All right. Thank you. [Music] Trustees, based on your conversations and feedback from last night, we put together a draft timeline uh for potential survey. And so we could start tomorrow based on your conversations and input from this evening develop some drafts draft questions for your review by this Friday we can include that in the LBU to get your feedback on both the questions and the format of the survey itself. Then the week of the 23rd through the 27th that's next
236week I believe we can finalize survey questions and content identify how we want to distribute the survey and then we can launch the survey during the week of June 30th through July 4th. We'll leave the survey up for approximately three weeks. So July 7th through the 11th would be a midcheck. Um we, you know, check the response rate, send some reminders out, and the week of July 14th through the 18th would be the final promo push with the survey closing on Friday, July 18th. That lets us utilize July the week of July 21st to 25th to analyze the data, put together any necessary reports. We can share that data with you in that Friday's LBU on July 25th. And then the week of July 28th through August 1st, use that time to prepare materials for
237the August 12th board meeting and then have all the information ready to present to you at the August 12th board meeting. And the August 12th board meeting is when we have to call. Is that our deadline or no? No, we just said it for August 12th, but actually it's the following week is the deadline. Okay. And so we want the board to have plenty of time to have those conversations. uh Miss Laba will be here also to uh help with draft that language. And so if the board doesn't uh uh call it that night, you have until the following week to do that. Okay. Could I ask you a question? So we have people in the community that aren't obviously in the school district. So we don't have their emails. Would it be possible for
238us to maybe discuss putting a link on the website? So for other community members that go to their website to look about look at the bond or absolutely and we they would be able to take it that way. Since the um the bond extends beyond just our ISD employees, it goes to all residents who live within our zone. We would send it out um post it on our website but also share it via social media. I I like the idea of sending out a survey. It's just one more piece of information that we can use, so might as well. So, thank you for putting that timeline together. Um, are we good to move forward with that? Yes, ma'am. If that's if that's what you like to do, you move forward with that. I know a
239couple months a couple months ago, Trusty Welch asked about uh making sure able to have input on survey data that the board needs to make decisions. And so that's why we built in at the first part uh where we we can create a draft but then send that to the trustees to get your input to see how things are worded and the format itself. And so once we get all the input from you then we will have a final draft that we will send out to everyone um and ask for feedback on that and then once all that is settled then we can roll it out. So if that's what the board wishes to do we can definitely do that. Okay sounds good to me. Okay. Um, also trustees because our bond council is here.
240If you have any questions about ethics Oh, we do. Okay. Okay. Oh, there we go. See, Stephanie again with Norton Rose Fulbright, bond counselor to the district. So, I'm just going to provide you all with a general overview of bond election ethics tonight. So the ethics themselves or the the nuances associated with the ethics law get very kind of down into the weeds and the minutiae the point for tonight's discussion is to give you all highlevel parameters and then if there are any specific questions those can be funneled directly to us um through Dr. Nves Jill or any other staff members. So, it's important to remember with bond election ethics, they apply when the district has a measure that's been called before the voter. So, voters. So, the conversation I'm going to have tonight relating
241to dos and don'ts assumes that the district has called the bond election. Before the board actually acts to call the election, these rules don't apply because there is no quote unquote measure before the voters. So as a general law or as general rule, district resources can only be used to provideformational information to the voters. So the district is not allowed to use its resources directly or indirectly to engage in any kind of advocacy associated with the voters. So you can't advocate for or against any bond measure after the bond election has been called. That advocacy is direct the expenditure of district funds or indirect the use of district resources in advocacy. Indirect resources would um involve district technology. So computer systems, email list serve addresses, school facilities, the buildings themselves. So anything that the district
242has invested time, money, resources in again cannot be used to advocate for the bond. district does have an obligation to inform and educate its voters of the fact that they have called the bond election and these are the measures that will appear on the bond election that the district is asking the voters to approve. As bond council, we're happy to review any and all district material that goes out to the voters. And so staff can send us all the information, whether it's web pages, um, videos, flyers, all of that we'll review, provide comment on before it goes out to the voters to ensure that that line between advocacy and information is never crossed. So again, keeping it very high level, right? If you're providingformational information to the voters, it is completely acceptable to use district
243time, district staff, district resources to push that information out. If you have anything that falls into the line of advocacy, you're trying to encourage someone either to vote for or against a proposition, then no district resources directly or indirectly can be used in that manner. So high level, but if you all have any questions, I'm happy to answer those. And again, happy to take an questions as they arise um through the pro through the process. I'll also be here um at the August meetings to help you all craft proposition language, make suggestions, receive board feedback, and um work to get an election order in place if you all decide to call the bond election. Does anybody have questions? Okay, Dr. N. Uh so outside of a duly called board meeting, are trustees able to advocate
244for or against the bo the bond uh using their personal resources outside of a board meeting? Trustees outside of board meetings are allowed to advocate for the bond if they choose to do so. Trustees are not district employees and so there are no district resources that are being utilized. Again, if they're not on the DIS, they're not operating um in their role as a trustee. A trustee would not be allowed to use a district issued laptop or other type of technology if they were going to disseminate the information through social media, email, anything along those lines. But personal computers, personal time outside of a board meeting, a trustee if they chose to advocate for the bond would be allowed to do so. Are there fines or consequences if I mean, let's just say we're talking
245in a board meeting and someone accidentally says like we really need this bond or we need you know what I'm saying. What would what would happen? So there are civil penalties associated. It's a class B misdemeanor if someone advocates intentionally or unintentionally for the bond. There is no dimminimous exception. So, it is a bright line rule. Historically, we've seen that complaints have been routed through the Texas Ethics Commission if there is a violation. Um, recent years, some of those investigations have been redirected to either TEA or to the AG's office. Okay. So, a let's say a marketing class in our high school, they could put out information about the bond, but they could not put out information that is probond or Okay, that's correct. So, say you wanted to have some type of studentled project.
246They could create anformational flyer that had the number of propositions, the type of propositions, election day, voting hours, anything that falls within the realm of factual information. They could not put anything out that would encourage someone to either vote for or against the bond. and we extend that to what we call tacid advocacy. And so as we review information that school districts put together, we look for that type of tacid advocacy. So you wouldn't want your students to put, you know, a box with a check to indicate a vote yes. We wouldn't want that to go on anything that would be district issued. So, as we review information before it's disseminated, those are the the types of things that we're looking for. And like it's really important after you call the bond election, you don't
247talk about district needs. It's really important or it's really easy to couch things because it is a need. But through ethics opinions, they've told us that they view couching things as needs as again tacid advocacy. So we characterize all the projects in accordance with TEA standards and requirements associated with with curriculum so that we're tying the bond projects to the services that the district's actually providing. And we also cannot incentivize anyone teachers to vote. We can't incentivize stu incentivize students to go home and tell their parents to vote. Is that correct? So we don't want to incentivize anyone to vote. Um we do want to encourage voter registration. Okay. Right. And so it's actually within the education code itself that school districts are are supposed to en or are supposed to encourage students to register
248the vote as soon as they become eligible. And so again falling within that realm of information orformational information that can be put out. You can do voter registration drives. You can remind people of deadlines associated with voter registration in and of itself. But we don't want to provide that incentivization. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. Thanks. All right, trustees. Next, we have uh uh review guidelines. This is something uh something else that was also brought up by our policy committee uh to present to the entire board and so I have Dr. Weights at the podium. Good evening Dr. Nonsens board of trustees. Madame President, tonight I'm going to present to you the seal review guidelines. So as Dr. N just stated that this was presented by the board policy committee for the administration to
249create a committee to review our current SEAL curriculum and supplements. So here are committee members. It goes from our executive director to our counselors and that meeting day was on May 2nd and they will meet quarterly and then the topics discussed were the curriculum se selection rubric also the current uh reviewing the current uh seal curriculum and supplements and then committee determining the curriculum based on the rubric. Here are curriculum and supplements here and I'm going to give a brief descriptions of them on the next slides. And so for our curriculum for character counts, it's based on trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. For responsive counselor, it's based on counseling resources of self-regulation and conflict resolution. for Quaar which is pending meaning it's going to be implemented the next school this coming school year
250it's a focus on a digital SEAL curriculum for younger students core essential values is pending as well and it's focused on courage honesty and respect through stories and activities here are supplements here so little spot of feelings series focuses on managing emotions for elementary students social studies weekly focus on healthy habits no place for hate focused on school climate through student projects and at this time the committee uh decided based on the rubric it did not meet the requirements to be implemented for the next school year based on not meeting board policy why try is pending to meet for I mean pending to be utilized for next school year and it's uh helping teens handle challenges and so here's our current rubric here I'm going to go through these three slides uh and these three
251slides going to have a key points at the bottom. So you can definitely see you don't have to read the entire rubric at this time. So it goes from need to improvement to exemplary and you can see these categories here and then you can finally see the categories here regarding the rubric and the key point is it it's uh with practices is embedded in classrooms and it aligns with district policy also student learning focus with uh appropriate grade level instruction. and this collaborative and datadriven approach. Uh it's for continuous improvement and with align with district goals. So here's the flowchart that the committee utilized and I'm going to zoom in. So you can see if the curriculum is not age relevant, it is not seen at all. So it it determines if it's age relevant,
252then it's yes. Then it's reviewed by the committee to see uh if it aligns with policy. If it does not align with policy, it is immediately rejected. And then it goes to the next part about cost. If it does not align with policy, then it's immediately rejected. But if yes, it goes further to the committee review. The director reviews it, submission to the executive director, and then final approval from the chief student service officer, which is me. And then at that time, at this time, do I have any question regarding these before I go into the updates for SPS and HBS? So that for the high school curriculum the Y tri what does pending mean? Pending mean it's going to be utilized for this school for this school year. It's been policed at some campuses
253but it's been it's going to be pended for this next upcoming school year. Okay. So qua bar would also be pending then. Yes ma'am. All right. I'm going to move forward with our uh Senate bills and house bill updates that are on the desk of the governor at this time. And this is updates for you and information for you at this time. So for Senate Bill 12, parental rights and the DEI ban and HB6 related to mental health and student support. So for House Bill 12 regarding parental rights in the DEI ban, advanced DEI duties for K through2 public schools. Also, it gives the option for student excuse me to parents to opt out of any uh any type of thing that deems inappropriate, any topic for their student or their child. And it prohibits
254staff from counseling or facilitating student social gender without parent consent. And we currently implemented this in Lamarcisd with our FA policy. Also, a part of the House Bill, excuse me, Senate Bill 12 requires written parent permission for any student to join any non-curricular campus club. And then if we don't abide by these rules, we don't we could withhold get funds withholded from us. And then house bill six relating to mental health and student support. Now the house bill says that uh parent consent a requirement for parent parent consent is required for mental health and screening services and we currently implement this with our policy fb legal in our district and teleaalth services is also uh currently implemented in our district with tad which is Texas child health access service through telea medicine which is a
255virtual doctor and the bill requires schools districts to have that at this time I'll take any questions Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Sorry, I'm trying to keep up. That's all right. Next up, we have the spring 2025 preliminary star test results. Yes. So, this this was a a We just received our star data uh domains one and two fresh off the press and so as you know we always want to make sure we share it with the board as soon as we get it so we can just have a conversation about it. So I have Mr. Moore at the podium that will go through our uh preliminary data um and then we'll be able to answer any questions the board may have after that. Okay, good evening board uh and Dr. Nans. Uh we're going
256to discuss uh STAR overview. Just as a reminder, uh the STAR test stands for the state of Texas assessments of academic readiness. It's been the official state test since 2012. It's based on the Texas essential knowledge and skills, which are curriculum standards in the state of Texas. It provides a foundational data for accountability system, uh the A throughF accountability system. And these results are preliminary uh based on what we've received from TEA at this point. Uh preliminary results generally include all students and so they're usually a little bit lower than the final results that exclude students that may have enrolled later in the school year. So this is very much subject to change. Just as a uh as an overview, uh there are three performance levels on the STAR test. The highest performance level is
257what's called master's grade level. Uh students that earn master's grade level are expected to succeed in the next grade level with uh little or no academic intervention. It's kind of akin to getting an A on the test. Meets grade level. Uh students who uh earn meets grade level have a highly likelihood of success in the next grade or course but may need some uh short-term targeted interventions. It's kind of like getting a B on the test and then approaches grade level. Uh students are likely to succeed in the next grade level with targeted academic intervention. And it's kind of like getting a C on the test. So we're looking at the percentages of students who earned each one of those uh performance levels. Looking at our reading uh language arts, for the most part uh
258at approaches uh we stayed at or near at or in the 80s uh for all of our grade levels. Our uh at approaches at meets we were in the uh 60s except in fifth grade where we u our students performed in the 70s. And then for grades uh 3 through 8 uh we were either in the 30s or 40s at the master's grade level. You notice there is a drop towards the end with English one and English two. Uh that's something that our uh teaching and learning department will be discussing a little bit more but it's not something that's uncommon. We generally see that especially with English 2 because we have a lot of students that are retesting and that's not only with us but that's statewide. Comparing to where we were uh last year
259versus this year uh we're pretty we are at the same uh at approaches as we were last year. We did see a slight increase in the percentage of students earning meats and also a slight increase in the student percentage of students earning masters. Going forward to math. Uh grades three through uh six and then seven and eight we remained near uh at or near the 80 percentile or the percent level with uh approaches. Our uh meats stayed within the 50s and then our uh masters stayed generally in the 20s or the 30s. Uh the one exception that we have is seventh grade math. And seventh grade math uh we do have a programmatic change at seventh grade math where about 40% of our seventh graders actually take the eighth grade test uh because they get
260onto an advanced uh math path. A little bit more discussion will be coming after I go through the slides, this first set of slides, and the uh teaching and learning department will be addressing that at the end of the presentation. Looking at where we were overall with approaches, we're in the same place relatively. We did see a twopoint gain with meats and we saw a five-point gain with masters. So we have more students uh making an A in math than what we saw in uh previous years. Science we see a gain in scores going up from 74% of approaches in fifth grade up to 94% uh with biology. We saw we see a similar increase with uh fifth grade uh science 38% at meets going up to 75 with biology and then at master's grade
261level uh 17% at mast's going up to almost 30% in biology. We had gains across the board with science. Uh we had gains of two points at approaches uh three points at meets and we were uh right about where we were last year overall with masters. Finally, social studies. At 8th grade social studies, we had approaches at 64% going up to 70 97% by the time we reach uh high school US history. Uh meets 38 going up to 79 and then uh masters 21 going up to 51. Just as a reminder though that uh the eighth grade test is not a high stakes test whereas the US history test in high school is a graduation requirement. So there's a lot of times a carrot out there for students to do better uh with the high
262school test than they do with the junior high test. Overall looking yeartoyear uh we remained relatively the same. had a slight decrease at approaches, slight decrease at meets, and we were in the same place at M's grade level. Just a 50,000 foot view of how accountability ratings are determined in Texas. We have three different domains in Texas uh with the A throughF system. The first one is student achievement which uh for most campuses or all campuses at some extent is uh the star scores just saw uh count in into that domain one except at the high school level where they also factor in graduation and college career and military readiness as extra indicators. school progress uh which is domain two that has two pieces where you have yearly growth on the STAR test plus relative
263performance uh for a campus based on how they perform against other campuses with the same amount of economically disadvantaged students. And then finally is domain three which is closing the gaps. That shows us how uh how much we have gaps between different groups of students based on uh race, ethnicity, uh programs such as emerging bilingual, special ed, economically disadvantaged. So at this point uh we when we look at how ratings are determined the state takes the better of either domain one or domain two as 70% of the score and as of today we have estimates for 70% of the score. So, what I'm going to show you in the next slide is based on the estimates we currently have. That 30% from closing gaps, we do not have yet, but we should have some estimates
264coming in within the next week or so. So just based on the first two domains that we have, we're anticipating that we're going to have at least 24 A-rated campuses, 13 B-rated campuses, six C-rated campuses, and two campuses uh right now that are at D-rated. Uh just a couple of bits of information to go along with that. D-rated campuses require extra intervention uh at the campus level and the district to direct that intervention. So if we do have those D-rated campuses, we will be talking more about improvement plans for those campuses. And then also a reminder that in our district, middle schools and junior highs share the same rating because they're in the same uh grade level group as far as how TEA uh constructs the rating system. They're both considered middle schools according to
265TEA even though we have a separate campus for sixth grade versus seventh and eth. Now, at this time, uh, what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn it over to, uh, our folks in teaching and learning, and I have Miss Marana. Oh, just a a timeline. U, by the end of, uh, this month, we should have our initial projections. In July, we'll have the final release of the data files. August 13th, we'll have the ratings sent to the districts. August 15th, uh, those will go public. And then in December, we'll receive our academic performance report and our school report cards. And then we'll gather back in uh January or February timeline for the public hearing for those uh reports. And now I have Miss March. All right. Thank you, Mr. Moore. There were
266a couple of areas that we anticipated you might have some questions on, so we wanted to just be proactive and address those from the beginning. Um Mr. more mentioned seventh grade math being an outlier or just a little bit different. And I said just want to remind everyone that in our seventh grade math area, that's where students start to divide into two different pathways for mathematics. So we start in sixth grade with preap math. And when we do that, we compact curriculum and start to combine sixth grade and seventh grade TESS. So in sixth grade, our preap path students take the sixth grade star test, but as they move into seventh grade, they've covered the remaining seventh grade TESS and all of the eighth grade TESS. So we test them with the eighth grade star
267test. And the eighth grade star test is for eighth grade, algebra 1, then they take algebra 1 and in um as eighth graders. So again, sixth grade, sixth grade star, seventh grade, eighth grade star, and then algebra 1 EOCC when they hit eighth grade. the eighth grade star test in the algebra 1 EOCC, they're allowed to use a calculator. Our seventh grade testers then is a much smaller testing population and those seventh graders are students who are taking onle 7th grade math. So when we look at supports for seventh grade math, we know that initially we have an area of of growth and an opportunity. And so our curriculum team is working intentionally this summer to lay um some additional resources out for teachers starting with unit overview videos which walk teachers through the planning
268process for each video or each unit um to make sure they understand the content in the TEICSS. We already have daily model lessons that are TEICSS aligned, engaging, and interactive available for all teachers to use. We're adding additional supplemental resources specifically to build numerical fluency. So students in seventh grade aren't yet allowed to use the calculator. And so just really building those skills um to make sure that that the processes related to addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are just easy um for students to take off the their plate. We have lead forward mathmark intervention resources to address any skill gaps that might exist. And then we're going to offer in the 2526 school year collaborative pl planning opportunities where on the half days at the end of each month we provide opportunities for teachers to
269come together across the district with our district level support team available to answer questions and just provide additional planning support because this is such a targeted group of students and we want to make sure our teachers have all of the tools that they need to plan effective instruction. Now, these ideas all come from feedback and um formative assessment that we've done along the way. As we continue to get STAR data layers, so we get um item analysis, we get specific TE reports, we get to see the questions that were on the test, we'll unpack that data in more detail, and we'll continue to develop action steps to address specific areas of concern. The other area that I want to tackle just a little bit is um the M's level performance in English one and English
270two. Um, we have a challenge keeping our English one and two students motivated to show us what they know in reading and writing. And so we want to continue to develop their skill set. These are a couple of areas of focus for us related to reading specifically. We want to make sure we're providing students with a variety of different text opportunities and complex text that are layered thinking to reach that master's level performance. And we want to provide students opportunities to discuss. So something like a Socratic seminar where they're having dialogue about text, comparing ideas with other students and really developing their thinking, stretching their brains to make sure we're again meeting those higher levels of perform performance. A big piece of the test is writing. Students have to write analytically. So we want to
271create writers. We want to create frequent opportunities for low stakes writing. just k get kids to understand that they can communicate through writing confidently and comfortably. And then we want to dig into that analytical writing and provide opportunities for students to practice building an an analytical writing piece that's supported with evidence that is text aligned and that is complex so that they are communicating at that master's level performance. And again, just like with seventh grade math and really with all of our tested areas, we'll continue to get specific item analysis data and dig in deep as that data unfolds over this next month and address any specific areas of concern that we identify. I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have or Mr. Moore, I'm sure, will be glad to as well. So,
272Mr. Moore, can you go back to um any one of the graphs? That's good right there. And so, uh, trustees, I had a conversation with the trustee this morning about approaches meets and master's data. And so, the question was, can we separate that out? Uh, because master students also met and they also approached. And so, master students really count for us three times, if that makes sense. And so, the question was, can we pull out like the students that only approached, students that only met uh, met, you know, students that met masters. And so, um, I talked with my team earlier today when I when I got back to the office. And so, we're going to work that out how we can pull that data. And so, according to the timeline that Mr. Moore presented,
273uh, we said, uh, sometime in the fall, you know, we'll get our taper report back and then we'll present that to the board in January. What I'm going to ask the team to do is that we prepare to have a bring this back to the board sometime in August after we get all of our ratings, right? sometime in August and then be able to separate that data out that the board that the board would like to see on what approaches meets and masters means and then also we'll have some more clear u u u guidance or some clear definition or pathway on where all of our campus landed and so I don't want to jinx them but you know uh Terry High School uh is projected to be an A-rated campus um and so [Applause]
274Yes, that's Dr. Smith and her team. And so I want to bring that up because you know Terry High School has has uh struggled in the past uh instructionally and in her second year being the principal there. You know, now they are projected to be an A-rated campus and so I don't want to jinx it because we still have our domain three that comes right. Um uh and so I'm proud of all of our campuses, but I know uh being being a principal that has been at a title one campus myself for I don't know how many years, you know, it's it's it's a different kind of struggle uh because you have um uh students with more needs, right, overall. And so for that campus to go from uh a D-rated campus in the past
275to now A-rated campus now uh speaks volumes to the staff, the students, the parents, and the leadership at that campus. And so I want to give them a shout out uh because I talked to Dr. Smith this morning and um just super proud of the students and the staff and the leadership at that campus. Um but again, sometime in September, October, we're going to bring back to the board. We're going to work out how we can separate that data so the trustees can see it exactly how it's requested earlier. Did you have a question? Yeah. Okay. Um, so with the seventh grade math, you said that there was model model lessons. Does that basic is that there's lesson plans that have already been created that teachers are able to use if they Yes, ma'am. Yep.
276Daily lesson plans ready to go. Okay. Is that is that written by LCISD staff or Yes. So the curriculum team leading lead teachers. So it's a a team that works together to refine those lessons each summer, but those lessons over the course of probably the last two or three years have been refined and edited into a point where we have lessons for every day. Okay. So is that something we just provide for seventh grade because they're we're having because we're looking at them specifically or is that provided for we have a model lessons available at every grade level and every content for seventh grade. We have daily lessons. So we have model lessons available for all. We don't have daily lessons available at all levels. It just depends on um saturation. Okay. And then one
277of the other things to what Dr. Nins was saying, do we have I mean we have ratings from last year and then our goals and what our goals were and where we fall in line with those when we get the new data. Is that Yes, ma'am. We can have that for you. Just one piece of clarification though. We don't have final tea ratings from 24 because those are still being he those are still injuncted in court. We do have final tea ratings for 23. So anything we give you from 24 is still a projection. And those are part of our campus climate surveys surveys. Campus climate campus improvement plans. Campus improvement plans that are posted on if you I mean if you go to a school's website, they have their campus improvement plan posted for
278anybody to see. Um, I have a quick question about a rating and I I don't necessarily know how to ask it, but if you have a student who, let's say, in fifth grade got meats on their math and then they move to sixth grade and they also get meats, but their score still goes down. Do those students one does do those students get intervention and two does that affect our rating if they're sliding down instead of going up? If if you're talking about if they're still in the u the same performance level, if they're still in meets, it it it what it means is that you get a half a point as a campus instead of getting a full point in either moving ahead to masters, okay, or staying at masters. So it it does
279have a slight impact. Usually students when you have that small of a movement they'll every student will get intervention but those are not as as targeted as a student that say was that meets grade level and then moves back to approaches. Those are students who we don't get any points for and those are students who need greater level of targeted intervention. And is that graded in the the other category the 30% that that's actually it's in domain two which is part of that 70% but there is a small bit of it in the 30% as well. So we get hit twice. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. Any other questions? No. Okay. Thank you Mr. Moore. Thank you Miss Painana. Okay, moving on to future consent. Are there any items on the future consent agenda that trustes
280would like to pull for discussion at the August board meeting? Nope. Okay, we are going to go into close session. It is 10:54 p.m. We are adjourning to close session pursuant to Texas Government Code sections 551.0 071 551.072 551.074 and 551.082 the open meetings act to discuss personnel land acquisition or consultation with our attorney The board of trustees are returning from closed session. The board of trustees are returning from closed session. It is 11:38 p.m. We are now back in open session. We have a quorum. Um, are there any motions to be made? Yes, Madame President. I move that the board of trustees approve the purchase of land on Reading Road and authorize the superintendent or designate designate to negotiate and execute the contract as discussed in close session. Okay. Do I have a second?
281Trusty Mars. Um any discussion? Now call for the vote. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. You did not make a sign. I I'm sorry. Motion carries 70. Okay. Are there any other motions? Madame President, I move that the board of trustees approve the purchase of land on Avenue I and authorize the superintendent or designate to negotiate and execute the contract as discussed in close session. Do I have a second? I'll second. Okay. All in favor say I. I. Motion carries unanimously. Do I have any other motions? Madame President, I move that the board of trustees approve the purchase of an elementary site in Austin Point and authorize a superintendent or designate to negotiate and execute the contract. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. Aoyo seconds. Um, now call for
282the vote. All in favor say I. I. Motion carries unanimously. Any more motions? Yes, madame president. I move that the board of trustees approve the memorandums of understanding between the local police agencies and Lamar CISD as discussed in close session. Okay. Do I have a second? Trusty Welch seconds. Um all in favor say I. I. Uh motion carries 70. The meeting is adjourned. It is 11:41 p.m.