001live stream mic check e e e the Board of Trustees of the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District is called to order at 6:30 p.m. this is a regular monthly board meeting being held on November 19th 2024 we have a quorum with three four five six members present with trustee box absent please join me for a moment of silence to observe as you feel appropriate thank you for the this next portion I would like to hand it over to vice president hudel please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance and the pledge to the Texas flag led by sixth grader Piper hotel from poly Ryan middle 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
002and justice for all honor the Texas flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one State under God one and indivisible thank you please thank you please be seated Dr Evans are there any recognitions or Awards yes sir Mr President we do have a few I have Miss go Hamilton come to the microphone all right good evening board presidents trustees Dr niens Lamar CSD community and those who have joined us in person or virtually tonight we've had an exciting fall semester across both academics and Athletics and tonight we have groups with us celebrating State and national achievements so this evening we have an advanced academic recognition honoring this year's National Merit semi-finalist this fall the National Merit Scholarship program recognized hundreds of students from our district high schools for National academic achievements and dozens received commended
003status we're especially proud to announce that three of our National Merit semi-finalists two of which were joining us tonight to be recognized with the board have done outstanding work from Foster High School Michael huckman from George Ranch High School Parker Blacklock and unable to join us tonight but from Lamar Consolidated High School Chase Chang our three outstanding students will compete in the spring for National Merit Scot finalist and we are excited to have them with us this evening congratulations students next up this evening we are celebrating the remarkable achievements of the Foster boys and girls water polo teams whose dedication and skill have established them as two of the most successful and recognized programs in our state since the UIL water polo systems Inception in 2022 both teams have consistently demonstrated Excellence advancing to the
004state level each year let's first acknowledge the Foster boys water polo team with a stellar record of 25 wins and only seven losses this season they fought hard in the semi-finals facing the eventual champions in a heart fought match and earning the title of State medalist a special mention goes to Ethan Molina a sophomore who earned a spot on the UIL Water Polo Championship all tournament team showcasing his talent on the big stage during the past two seasons the boys team have a mass and impressive overall record of 50 wins and 14 losses and their accolades include MVP Andrew ker newcomer of the Year Ryland Jeff and Coach of the Year Nicholas ker let's recognize our team this evening team members include Logan aayan grade 11 Dominic brogna senior Hudson cop sophomore Ryland Jeff freshman
005Thomas carnis sophomore Andrew ker sophomore Tucker leau sophomore Gabriel Lucero Jr Tanner McKay senior Ethan Molina sophomore Kaden shorman senior Dylan sorbel SE uh sophomore and Tyler white sophomore in addition First Team all district Rec selections include sophomore Andrew ker freshman Ryland Jeff Logan aayan and Junior Gabe Lucero notably the team also celebr 10 academic all district selections underscoring their commitment to both Athletics and academics at this time trustees at this time trustees members of the boys water polo team will present you with your official medal turn around yep with the official medal all right now let's get that awardwinning team photo everybody have your medals you can I think boys you could KNE a little bit that'd be good okay you can't see trust at all all right if all the student athletes could
006just kneel just a little bit for me please just come down there we go like cheerleaders you got it there we go take it down just a little bit a little bit more thank you [Music] [Applause] gentlemen now let's turn our attention to the Foster girls water polo team coming off backto back state championship they continue their Legacy by advancing to the state finals once again in a thrilling match that saw a dramatic comeback in the fourth quarter they they fought hard but ultimately fell short in overtime finishing as the state runner up their all district recognitions oh before we do it let's bring the ladies Al team members include Jasmine Brown Jor Mina deales s senior Connie Garcia senior Alysa Hopman freshman Cassidy Jack sophomore Kinley Nile senior Addison Olen Jr Paige olssen freshman
007Isabella Phelps freshman is Bella Salazar Jr Emma Woods Senior and Zuri Garcia freshman key players selected for the UIL Water Polo Championship all tournament team included senior kley Niles and sophomore Cassidy Jack over the past two seasons the girls have achieved an astounding record of 60 wins and just two losses along with two state championships and a state runner-up finish their all district recognitions include MVP Kenley Niles outstanding offensive player Cassidy Jack co- outstanding defensive player Emma Woods newcomer of the Year Isabella Phelps and Coach of the Year Nicholas ker First Team all district selections also featured senior Kenley Niles sophomore Cassidy Jack senior Emma Woods and freshman Isabella Phelps with a team achieving 11 academic all district selections reflecting their dedication both in the pool and in the classroom congratulations ladies we applaud the
008Foster boys and girls water polo team for their incredible performances of commitment and sportsmanship they embody the spirit of excellence and teamwork and we value in athletic programs thank you for celebrating their achievements as we look forward to even greater success in the future that is all of our recognitions this evening thank you trustees all right good evening bard of Trustees next we'll have introductions and also parents all the parents that were here tonight especially from the F High School both water poo boys and girls thank you all so much for being here tonight give yourselves a round of [Applause] applause okay next bard of Trustees will have introductions for tonight first tonight I am proud to introduce the new director of Performing and visual arts Mrs Amber Kingsley Mrs Kingsley was born in edinberg
009Texas and raised in the city of Austin she's a proud graduate of the University of Texas where she received her bachelor's degree in Lamar University in Lamar University where she receives her master's degree in administration and supervision Mrs Kingsley comes to us from huddle ISD she has a total of 21 years of experience in the field of Education where she has served as a teacher coordinator and director of Fine Arts attending with Mrs Kingsley tonight is our husband Bruce and Al they weren't able to be here tonight watching online is there are five children and four grandchildren ladies and Gentlemen please welcome the new director of Performing and visual arts Mrs Amber Kingsley [Applause] and next we'll have an introduction of our LCC police officer my chief Garcia good evening Dr nens Board of Trustees
010I have the pleasure tonight to introduce you to our new Lamar CISD police officer officer Dylan Holt officer Hol graduated from the Gus George Law Enforcement Academy in 2022 and joined the Forman County Sheriff's Office as a patrol Deputy before making his change to come to Mar CISD he grew up in Illinois uh he started his law enforcement career there in the Army uh United States Army Corps of Engineers as a park ranger I have the honor and pleasure of introducing him to you tonight officer Dylan h [Applause] he apologizes for not being in his dress uniform as he just got off duty all right president L and trustees that concludes all introductions tonight we will now have the board member reports and shout outs trustees please keep your comments to 1 to two minutes
011okay um and I guess they all left but my shout out is really to the Foster High School girls water polo team um and their coaches recently I was at another meeting where I met up with another board trusty from brazes Port and that he congratulated me and our girl girls and our coaches of how gracious they were after the tournament that he said you can really tell how well they're coached and how appreciative they were to their even though they they lost and came in second but um he mentioned they had beaten them twice during the regular season so uh this was I'm sure and it was a very close match and they but um he just felt like he had to say something to me because you don't always see teams being gracious
012about to the winning team it's easy to be um gracious when you win but it's harder to be gracious when you lose and he's a dear friend at another school district but I told them they'll be back next year so look out but right right and just the other we've been going to a lot of different things the last few weeks but I was able to attend the Foster High School senior serve uh Saturday night and I just want to thank you everyone for the invitation and so many seniors and their families worked hard to make it a very successful event and I saw a lot of kiddos that I knew when they were little so that was fun thank you uh since we were last together I got a fancy tour of the new
013Tomas High School uh Banks Junior High billstein middle school and uh an elementary school that sits there beside it and I want to thank uh our own Kevin Keever in the bond office and three other folks that he brought along uh Jason Tolbert from rice and Gardner Justin Jordan and Kevin kers from drala construction so they had uh we had a little little uh escort and two buggies that we cruised around and went inside all the different buildings and it had just rained not too long ago so it was very muddy but it's cool to go in these buildings when they're under construction and I don't have a construction Background by any means and to see what it looks like now and to take some pictures and then to go back in it in a
014in a year from now or so whenever it opens and it's it's quite an interesting process to uh see it in the different times of of the construction phase so I thank them for uh taking the time out of their afternoon to escort me around uh for mine I would like to recognize coach Zachary Castillo out at Beasley uh Dr Ryan and myself were invited to go out to their induction of their Boys to Men clubs so um at the beginning of the year I was able to offer a charge to our staff about um the saying it's it's not my fault but it is my responsibility and uh coach Castillo out there at Beasley took that to heart and he's doing an excellent job um so he saw there was a need in the
015community need in a school for the the boys of the school to have that male role model and all that so coach Castillo said yes to that call and he's doing it and it was really neat um it very like heartfelt touching whenever he gave the student students an opportunity to grab the mic and give shout outs and thank yous and so a lot of them were you know thanking their parents and all that but almost every single one that grabbed the mic was saying thank you to coach Castillo for this opportunity and so um it it means a lot to the kids in that community that coach Zach Castillo at Beasley Elementary is doing a great job so thank you so much coach Dr niens is there a super oh we will now have
016board commit committee reports do we have any uh yeah I'm a head of the uh strategic planning committee that we have a committee that we put together the board committee put together a Community Committee of parents and staff members and different community members uh we've met three times to date and if anybody's watching this and you're on that committee and you have only attended the first one or if you haven't attended any of them uh please come to the next one if you're able to because we need uh more voices we have a lot of folks on the committee but not everybody is able to show up every month so the more folks that show up the more input we can get as we're developing our new strategic plan for five years thank you Dr
017nans is there a superintendent report yes sir Mr President um excuse me what we know next week is uh uh Thanksgiving and uh uh I I Define you know uh being thankful and being grateful of two separate things and so in my opinion you know being thankful is being thankful for a certain event you know something happens but being grateful is U uh is more profound right it's more deep and uh so I just advise us you know would implore us and challenge us to be grateful uh and use Thanksgiving to be grateful about your circumstances about the blessings that you have because we have a lot and um there are other folks going through a lot worse than what we're going through right now and so I just want us to be mindful of
018that and always uh be grateful of what we have and so I just want to remind us to do that and take next week to be with your family and your friends and uh take some time to relax especially to all the staff out there that's helping kids every single day take some time to yourselves and and rejuvenate Mrs Johnson are there any public comments all right wonderful all right may I have a motion to approve the current consent agenda oh I apologize at this time we will take action on the consent agenda are there any items that the board would like to pull I would like to pull B please please all right uh trusty danzinger would like to put pull 9B all right may I now have a motion to approve the current
019consent agenda with the exception of items 9B all right secretary Welch makes the motion do I have a second Vice President Hotel makes the second is there any discussion all right I will now call for the vote all in favor of approving the the current consent agenda say I I None opposed the motion carries now may I have a motion to approve consent Item B 9B okay uh secretary Welch makes the motion do I have a second Vice President Hotel makes a second any discussion now now you can yes okay um the reason I decided to pull this and I don't usually do this but I've been attending different um meetings and workshops and had one last week at uh Region 4 about team of eight and one of the concerns that about 30 different
020School boards that were um attending is transparency of the board to the parents and constituents and I know last year at this in uh may we um passed the uh update to the library materials and then we also passed at that time a new because we hadn't had it before the parent rights and responsibilities and tonight excuse me Item B brought forth some revisions and some additions and I feel like we should at least look at those and I have a couple of questions about them if you'll uh bear with me through this um and again just to remind people when the policy committee creates policy for local that's part of a board member's job it's not Administration coming and saying this is what we want it's us coming to the administration and then they
021have they are um responsible for making sure the policies are um followed through by their Administration and their uh administrators so um if we could turn to page 17 um in the board book it talks about gender fluidity and gifts and donations and um including books that um there it just says no materials in elementary middle school and Junior High shall contain uh material adopted supporting and promoting gender fluidity material in any High School collection that adopts supports or promotes gender fluidity requires parental opin for uh student uh success have we had issues with that are we finding I don't know if Mr Jaster is here tonight for library but have we no he's not um I just wondered if this is just something because this is new this has not been in there before
022and um you know we I don't really know what that looks like I guess I'm really having a trouble wrapping my head around what what a book with gender fluidity would look like so that I guess is part of my question and concern I know what I think it is but I don't know what others think and is this making it difficult on our Librarians and teachers and and I know House Bill 900 is going to be Revisited because I think this is a question I know I found some information online with the Texas state teacher Association that they're having issues with House Bill 900 so um I just didn't know if we had an example of what that would look like or if we've had an issue with that or we just trying to
023be prevented and proactive um well trusty box is not here so I don't want to speak for her but as the chair of the committee I think um the goal was basically just to strengthen the local policy okay and align it more with hp900 which I believe this would fall under um well on it talks about um um you know they they do have different issues that it brings up but it could fall under that but again I wasn't you know what is it um I thought it was more um sexually explicit materials does it truthfully say gender fluidity I think in House Bill 900 at least not what I've read maybe I've missed it but we can move on um on the next page it talks about a district may not purchase Library material
024from library uh V from vendors that are not on the te's website and I just thought we always did that and my question was have we lost vendors because of that or all our vendors are on the website um yeah I I we don't we don't have the answer for that about if we lost vendors or not but we can get that back to the trust okay I just um because I didn't know how many vendors are not complying to this policy had to be removed again I just didn't know if we were in some ways uh trust try trying to reiterate what we already know that we usually cannot purchase books unless they're from vendors that are approved but that's what I my impression always was from my understanding I think that what that
025does is House Bill 900 states that books must receive the ratings and there are some vendors that are not applying those ratings or not putting ratings right now right right so with that saying I think this policy is just of a protection of saying okay if they're not doing what the letter of the law says right now then that will be okay I just didn't want that we're creating a problem that doesn't exist if it's already being done but okay I think yeah I think some some of the policy is you know protective and preventative just to say okay we if something does come back say know we are following the letter of the law which is not allowing that I understand I just didn't know truthfully if we had vendors that were having to
026pull out of our district or if Librarians were having trouble finding vendors but I assumed that that would be something we would be hearing about from The Librarians if they were not being able to purchase the books that they needed to purchase um going on to parents rights and responsibilities and I know we've had a little update in here that number six instead of saying fluidity it's now saying gender fluidity um content is excluded from the classroom and in instructional materials I have a hard time believing that there's anything out there that is getting into our schools since the only thing our teachers can really teach is the scope and sequence that comes from the uh from tea from their uh te so um again and I assume that this is I was just asking
027have we found materials like that that we've had to remove with gender fluidity in any our materials so and then it said something the district will not diagnose treat gender dysphoria and respect the right of the parent to determine what is best for the welfare of their child which I believe no District staff has ever diagnosed I remember as a teacher I would couldn't even say I think your child needs medication I think as teachers we are very limited of what we can say to parents no matter what the condition is and I think that's already covered in other areas of our policies and uh so again I just assumed this was just making sure that gender fluidity was part of that um narrative that's and um again I had a real problem with the
028uh on page 28 because it says definition G and then you crossed out definition and it's just gender fluidity of what our district assume is saying what matches gender fluidity so um and it's more leading towards the transgender or people that are not wanting to be associated with the uh biological gender of their birth but I'm hoping that that's not including other parts of the lgbtq community because and I that's I guess what I'm having a problem with because as a first grade teacher we teach family and I don't want to ever tell a teacher they can't use a book that ch um non-traditional families because we all know they're out there we know there's families with mothers we know there's families with fathers with grandmothers with maybe two fathers two mothers but they're all
029families so I didn't know if any of what we're putting in here is falling into that umbrella um I would say no the again because our policy already um had something in it that said wouldn't talk about this type of thing in grades K through 6 or K through 5 I believe it came up that maybe we needed to Define what exactly does fall under that so when let's say a child in elementary school does choose to transition that you know that that's fine that's the parents choice but that based on this definition no one is going to go in and tell the entire class or speak to the entire class on it it's just going to be between the parent and the child in the administration well see I kind of missed that in
030this definition I agree with what you're saying because we talked about last year when I was on the policy but I kind of didn't see that and that's my I guess I just didn't read that into it that you're trying to say if there is a situation that it's not to be handled by the teacher or Administration on the staff of that school well that's already in there corre so I think you're just trying to um strengthen what by adding a definition okay yes and then I guess um we did make some changes on bottom of page 29 again the board acknowledges that the district volunteers staff including counselors uh are not employed as experts and diagnosing affirming or treating gender to for or related mental health conditions I hope we're not saying that if
031someone's going through gender dysphoria that that's a mental health condition because that's kind of tying those two together and I hope that's not what that was meant to do or prohibited from doing so um again we know uh teachers and administrators and counselors cannot um diagnose or treat many different areas of a child's without a doctor or parent taking that child to a doctor or and bringing in information so again I just assumed that this again was just trying to strengthen the uh the District of what they can and cannot do and I know also in our we said last time we um defined a minor but if there we have we're going to have a lot more students especially second semester that are seniors that are 18 are they still considered a minor if
032they're still in school or are they considered um an adult at that time to make decisions considered they're considered an adult okay so um so if there's some an 18-year-old that comes then um because it said I think there was confusion here and that's why you put in in grades K through five the district will only send notifications to the parents of their minor child request or he or she be identified as transgender changes his name or uses different pronouns in school but by using the word minor if it's an 18-year-old teacher might not not know that so I didn't know if they can make that choice on their own yes so that policy is only for K through 5 that's why it says in K through five and again it's just so that if
033that happens in elementary school let's say someone in your class changes their gender the parent is the parent of that child well the parent of that child is allowed to say okay you can send a notice to the rest of the class so that the rest of the class knows okay what's going on but sent to the parents so that the parents can talk to their own child instead of having some like a counselor come in and tell the whole class while a parent doesn't really know what that conversation you know to preempt the conversation but the rest of it for over fifth grade is it's okay just as before but I just wanted to clarification of minor and then of and then the last page page 32 is gender flu good materials and I
034guess again that was the question I had earlier um again I don't know what these look like I guess I would know it if I saw it but I didn't know if we were having a problem with this or if we were just trying to be proactive against a problem happening on our campuses I don't know that we are having a problem with it but I know that the material is out there and no teachers I mean teachers are teaching you know what they're taught but there's always supplemental materials there's there's always like the pulling up of a YouTube video or something and so it is just to be proactive and preemptive well anyway these are just questions I had because they can get kind of sticky and um we need to make sure our
035parents know that we don't we are not having a problem we are just being proactive to make sure a problem doesn't exist and um I won't speak for Suzanne because Suzanne and Jackie and I are on the the policy committee so I was in on a lot of these discussions um there's so much from our culture and politics that comes to the public school system and this is one of those issues and I will speak for myself alone 100% John Welch I believe gender dysphoria is a mental health problem it is a problem it is not something that is good for society it's not good for the individual it's my opinion uh I don't believe that our school system should be in a position of helping a kid transition I think that child that student
036um needs professional help and the fact that the culture encourages that I think that is a problem um so a lot of these uh material a lot of the things that are in the policy are trying to be proactive to say this is not necessarily a problem in Lamar right now but it's out there in our society and our culture and it's probably coming to Lamar at some point so let's be proactive and let's put some parameters around these things um so that students can learn about this at home if they want uh secondary students can learn about this in school with their with parent notification this is something definitely we don't want our elementary students being taught from the school system that's that's not at the place of the school system that's that was
037the impetus behind a lot of this well I'm just going to conclude and then I'm done you know I thought our mission is to teach all students no matter what walks in the door exactly and we should be teaching hist and feel safe and absolutely 100% I agree with you K we should but we should not cater to every little whim and and Nuance that every student or any new group of students comes along and has that all of a sudden the school system has to adjust to that when it's going to be total chaos for society and total chaos for I mean just think about the pronoun thing and what that does to the teaching of the English language I mean how how ridiculous is it and that's the kind of stuff that is
038thrown a wrench into society and um we we we do teach every student and we do welcome everybody through the doors we don't discriminate but we don't cater to every little whim and every little little uh new thing that comes along that that particular group wants recognition for but I do think it's important to acknowledge that whether you agree or disagree with what it is we acknowledge that it is happening and we do have students who transition so that is I mean that is why we created the policy in the first place to make sure that there is a protocol for them that they have help that we have bathrooms for them to keep everybody safe um a large part of this also stemmed from the fact that because we passed the policy then Dr
039nens had to create the regulations and he met with I think a bunch of counselors correct and they went over and they created you know how are they going to do this and so we just wanted to make sure that the policy and the regulations were in alignment and that policy meeting ensured that everyone was on the same page and everybody like our counselors felt comfortable with how they were going to be able to help these children too and I know we have a few but again I guess in my opinion and again it's my opinion we're working a long time on things of a problem that I'm not sure exists as severely and as um I I guess my I'm I'm also coming as a former teacher we're having teachers leaving in droves we're
040having Librarians leaving in droves they're all worried they're not doing what they're supposed to do and we're adding more and more pressure on them and I have a real problem with that so we just need to make sure we're on the same page that we hear our teachers and we understand because I I have a problem with okay how will a principal know if a teacher did put something up in her classroom that should not be up there do we know what you know what I'm saying it's going to it's a lot of this is subjective and I know that there's no black it's gray it's not black and white so we're just going to have to be uh trusting that the people that are out there are doing the right thing for the kids
041and taking care of them and not wishing to harm any child in the process of transitioning to these uh new policies I think a lot of times when we create policies and when we talk policies the way I see it excuse me I see it as uh guard rails on 59 right now we all know how to drive on 59 we know which lane we're supposed to go we know we're supposed to go and none of us are going to be go going into the ditches but there are guard rails there to protect and there are guard rails to provide guidance on the directions we should go so I think a lot of the policies and some of the changes in here um they're not they're they're there to protect they're there to guide they're
042to say okay these are the parameters we're going to go through safely and the intention is for us to drive straight down 59 we know there's construction there's all these things that come up and the guardrails keep us within those boundaries um so I think some of this stuff and changes and I encourage every single parent and teacher and staff and uh maintenance worker everyone our all of our policies are on our website and they are there for the public consumption and as a parent when we moved to this District I got on the website I wanted to read what the policies the dis district has and there were some certain things at the beginning that were not it was policy and I'm like oh and so then I spoke up and we were able
043to get some of that changed and worked on to within our society's sake and all that so um so I think a lot of this is just protections and gives us boundaries in the direction which we're going and we are here to educate all students and so but we're here to educate and all that so um any other discussion all right hearing no discussion I will now call call for the vote All In favor of approving consent item 99b say I I any opposed one oppos the motion carries at this time we will take action on the action items Dr nens all right board we have uh Miss Jill Lo coming to the microphone good evening Board of trustees and Dr niens uh this evening I will cover material on the resolution and election ballot
044for the Fort men Central Appraisal District uh election first of all the board of directors is comprised of nine directors three are elected by the public five appointed by the taxing entities that participate in the appraisal district which would be lamarc ISD and then the County Tax Assessor Collector the local appraisal districts required to facilitate an election for the five members in October uh the board did submit five candidates to be uh represented on the ballot and all five are there Texas property tax code 6.03 requires that the five directors be appointed by the taxing units and the deadline for that is December 15 20124 Lamar CISD can cast all votes for one candidate or distribute votes among all of the candidates which would be the five and then each eligible voting entity is allowed
045a certain number of votes per position uh there are a total of 5,000 uh votes voting entitlements are based on the voting entity percentage share of the tax total tax levy within the county lamarc isd's percentage share is 12% and so there's 5,000 total votes times the 12% gives Lamar c D 600 votes uh and as I said 5,000 total votes will be cast by all entities this is what the ballot looks like uh you'll see the five candidates there in the middle and then again Lamar CISD trustees can cast all votes for one candidate or distribute them among the the five traditionally Lamar has distributed the the votes evenly uh the resolution and election ballot will be submitted to this the appraisal district before the 15th so I can answer any questions trustees any
046discussions questions I just want to um say again ask you again publicly what I asked you last month because folks don't always watch our meetings I understand that uh these are these are folks for the thead board the Central Appraisal District that board does not set the appraisal rates for the property of each individual home in the county correct it's the chief appraiser who does that this is the board that oversees the appraiser but this is not necessarily folks who have a direct hand in the value of their home and I think that's very important because um I don't necessarily know these folks I know two of the names on here um and I don't know if anybody else on our board knows these folks but it's it's kind of an oversight Board of the
047Central Appraisal District which is an entity set up by the state of Texas in every county in the state right so um the there are a team of appraisers there are a teamers that's right and historically we have lowered our tax rate but the property values are increasing which is increasing the taxes and so yeah just to say that again is it we we've lowered as a board all right any other discussions all right may I have a motion for the Board of Trustees oh thank you so much you're welcome may I have a motion for the Board of Trustees to consider voting for The Following candidates for positions on the board of directors of the fort Ben Central Appraisal District um I may mispronounce the name and I apologize uh number one Jim key
048number two David James number three Paul status number four pamil G and number five Michael razelle I'll make a motion that we uh distribute the votes evenly amongst the five all right secretary Welch makes a motion that we distribute the votes equally among the five do we have a second all right trusty Daner seconds that any discussion hearing none I will now call for the vote all in favor say I I I I None opposed the motion carries we will now have reports and presentations on the informational items Dr nens yes sir Mr President we will now have our um student discipline report Dr weits information it sorry disci update good evening president Lambert Dr n Board of Trustees today I'll be sharing the latest data on student discipline within our district uh this data
049will provide you with a snapshot of our current discipline information and I'll begin with um the information within our student code of conduct and our uh student management system which is Skyward uh as seen previously uh this is just a uh graph of all the student data we as of uh November the 8th we've had 29,9 66 referrals some of the highest areas are the MLD which is misuse of electronic devices at 4,685 Fai failure of follow rules at 2575 no non-compliance at 2382 and phc which is physical confrontations at 765 this is just a continuation of the same discipline information uh the majority of the referrals on this slide as you can tell are boxed in red which are associated with tardies other areas are ski which is skipping at 579 vbc verbal confrontations
050at 142 sp1 serious and persistent misbehaviors at 127 and TRS which is uh threats to students at 103 uh discipline referrals associated with tardies account for nearly 40 I'm sorry uh account for 45.7% of all referrals if we were to remove the discipline referrals uh associated with tardies that leaves us with 16,257 discipline referrals this next slide is just a twoe comparison of discipline referrals uh between the 20123 2024 school year and 2025 uh within the first 60 days days of school um notice that uh this year we are about 5,957 more referrals than last year but it's important to remember that this year we have really focused on reducing uh interruptions with into the instructional setting and have addressed electronic devices as a u as as something that we wanted to make sure that
051we we focused on this slide here represents the total number of disciplinary in incidents in which ISS and OSS have been assigned as disciplinary consequences as of November 8th there have been 4,100 disciplinary incidences that have resulted in either ISS or OSS being assigned as a consequence ISS has been assigned 34 times and OSS 1086 as of November 8th we have had 5 five dap recommendations uh dap recommendations are uh distributed by six weeks uh this year they're represented in color red and for comparative numbers I have included the number of recommendations for the first three weeks for the 2023 2024 school year and those are represented in blue as you can tell our dap recommendations this year are currently trending down in comparison to last year one of the things that we started looking
052at was of those 505 how many of those kids are repeat offenders and so we're looking at reivisa 33 students that have been placed there a second time and only one student that has been placed there for a third time well we take the 471 and we divide that by our current District enrollment the 46,9 14 that equates to about 1% of lcisd students uh this graph here represents the total number of dap by a fence uh notice that ECG which is our electronic cigarettes or Vapes are at 134 uh fig which is fighting at 91 and then we have a assaults at 38 and there you have the information for the uh top five um of the 505 uh 334 account for those top five areas uh harassment and TRS which is terroristic threat
053are both tied at 22 and at fifth slot and they account for 66.1% of all recommendations uh here you have the uh dap recommendations based off of student grade levels um secondary at 421 and Elementary at 884 and Ninth Grade 10th grade and seventh grade are leading uh on in placements uh this information here is specific to our cell phone tracker we uh mentioned earlier that we started uh tracking the number of uh misuse of el electronic devices uh this year and so uh within the the we started tracking the information simply because uh when we start looking at uh discipline referrals not everything is coded as MLD some of those are eventually coded as non-compliance or insubordination so we wanted to use a a slightly different method to try to track any misuse of
054electronic device information so here you have uh 3,829 cell phone offenses and we started this tracker after school started so the numbers may be off just a little bit uh but here you have them by uh campus level so Elementary had has had 29 offenses Middle School 32 Junior High 7,000 uh or 773 in high school 2,995 and here you have it by grade level and then here again we want to make sure that we're tracking the number of repeat offenders uh so of those 3,14 have uh violated the the policy one time uh 567 a second time 119 a third time 244th we had 10 students uh violated the fifth time and five six or more this information is the number of police notifications that we've had uh up to the beginning of November
055uh and they are uh displayed for you by color track and we've had 397 uh police notifications so far and these are the reasons for the notifications uh assaults at 112 threats at 94 uh disorderly conduct 33 and theft at 28 those are the ones leading are there any questions Mr na can you go back to the slide about the da recommendations and I was going to ask you to uh this one no where show the grade levels yeah there can you can you talk about uh why why it is that we have the ninth graders more than the others is that they don't have even high school or what traditionally yeah traditionally graders uh they just have a little bit harder time adjusting to high school you know they're the big fish last year
056they're they're running Junior highs and then they come into the high school and nobody knows their name or who they are so they're trying to make their Mark so they act a little silly they're trying to fit in um but you can see that the same thing in in seventh grade uh so it's just that transition year both in 7th and 9th um a lot of things we talk about in The Boardroom AC around these tables is for the community sake and our teachers and so to inform and so we don't talk about the discipline reports just because we enjoy busting kids chops or getting people in trouble we talk about it because these every single bar graph in every single item and uh all of the 397 police notifications takes away from the learning
057environment it is a distraction there our teachers and our staff and our counselors and our admin are there to educate and they are there to guide and they are there to do these things and each time they have to tell the student to put away a cell phone it takes away from valuable classroom time and so for the community sake and for our teachers listening and um for the parents that are listening the and I wish there were more parents tuning into this um we need our parents to take ownership and responsibility of their children's behaviors so that we can bring down these numbers and these bar graphs and lower that and so um and I know there are situations and circumstances that are in our kids lives that um lead to some of these
058bar graphs getting higher that's n not their fault but if we can bring some of that down and we need our parents to say that to understand that we are talking about this because these are problems that are taking away from valuable instructional time so um so that's why we you know when Mr Nava gets up here and speaks about this we don't we don't like to air laundry that we're talking about kids misbehaving and all that it's kind of to acknowledge that there are some situations that can be fixed that our police um shouldn't have to deal with because some of these problems can be fixed at the house and all that so um any other discussions yes can you go back to the slide with the self phones and just the back with
059the second time first time and second time offenders so at the beginning or at the end of summer we were all talking about the cell phone policy and whether or not it was strong enough and basically we agreed we're just going to enforce it much more this year and create a cell phone committee um to kind of track how we're doing so obviously it is I think we have over 4,000 infractions but obviously it is being enforced obviously kids are learning the first time because the second offense drops down dramatically yes dramatically so that's a good I I say that's a good thing so hopefully we can just keep with our current policy because it seems like they're learning but again I think as a board we in ask that they really strengthen the discipline
060that from their handbook and to actually enforce yes so we're going to see bigger numbers at the beginning of this year until the kids know we're for real and the teachers are for real and administrators are for real so I'm hoping what we're going to see as these kids move to the next grade or maybe the next BL you the next um School uh from middle school to Junior High to high school those numbers again will go down until they test the system and see it's not going to work at that new school so thank you for reinforcing it trustees anything else for Mr Nava oop Sor thank you sir thank you Dr div all right next board we have Miss lock coming to the microphone good evening again uh this evening I will be
061providing information on the 2023 24 first rating for Lamar CISD uh this rating is based on the 2022 23 fiscal year data um the ratings were released relased to districts earlier in November um and as you'll recall the first system measures um District's accountability and um is based on a number of different metrics or that are referred to as indicators and uh it measures the financial management and operations of the district uh this year the rating system includes 21 indicators there are five that are considered critical indicators four of those are pass fail uh one of them is pass fail and also has a ceiling parameter and then the others have n numeric scores excuse me um as in the past uh the system is uh scored or ranked on an A through F system
062um the B rating is an 80 to 80 9 and you'll see that our score or lamarc ISD score this year is an 89 uh that is due to a ceiling parameter uh we did score 92 out of 100 points so our score is 92 but we're capped at the 89 uh we have had an A or Superior uh being a 90 or above score for all the years since 2001 so this um this SE in parameter has really uh troubled us this year uh indicator number five is the indicator that caused us a little difficulty this one has not been evaluated since uh 201718 and that was based on the 201617 fiscal year data so it's been over uh six years since this has been measured uh this indicator uh speaks to net position
063net position is similar to fund balance in the general fund except it includes all funds uh and then there's some accounting entry so that's what net position is uh there are two conditions that they measure that the tea measures uh under this indicator um and then there's also the ceiling parameter that I mentioned uh if you if you uh fail the first condition the highest score you can get on the no matter how many points you score the highest um official score you can get or the ceiling score is a 79 and on the second condition if you pass that one then you can get as high as an 89 but that's as that's as high as you can go so uh talking about the conditions uh the first test is whether net position is
064greater than zero if you have a negative net position which the district has uh you know for uh a number of years uh due to our fast growth um if if you do not pass that one the highest score you can get is a 79 um but we did pass condition two uh why is our net position greater uh less than zero it's mainly because our liabilities mainly our bonded debt exceeds our assets uh it is a penalty for being in hyper growth mode uh we should be able to mitigate this in future years as we add um buildings as we build buildings purchase land uh this would be similar to if you took out a home loan uh before you build your house you're in a negative equity position so that's basically where we
065stand um we like I say as we uh build buildings and uh purchase land this that will help us however we will be issuing more debt along the way uh we there are some new federal guidelines that are effective in 24 that should help us um but short of the tea making some adjustments possibly to this rating um uh that's that's what it's going to take um condition two as I said we did pass uh this one has to do with and this is the one we've always passed in the passed before we had a ceiling parameter um this measures the increase in students over a 5-year period uh if a district has growth of 7% or more or at least a thousand or more students over those five years then you pass the indicator
066uh Lamar's growth in students was 9,17 students uh or over 27% so again we did score 9 92 but are capped at the 89 at this time uh Mr beanan will come up and talk about our hyper growth situation good evening Board of Trustees and Dr nans um Miss leg was speak speaking about earlier is is we have the money borrowed to build the buildings and we're in the process of building them in the uh fall 23 we opened up two campuses this last fall we opened up three but we also opened up an equivalent of a high school with the high school editions at the four campuses moving forward in 25 we'll open up six buildings um we'll open up five campuses and a Transportation Center in 26 we'll open up three campuses and
067an administration building and then in 27 28 and 29 those are predicted based on our growth and our demographics that we have looking forward in the 27 year it is high school 8 Middle School 8 Junior High 8 but then we've added some additional campuses based on those demographic growth so as you can see we're going to continue to um add buildings as we move forward forward so uh next month we have on the agenda our annual Financial accountability management report and we will be doing a public hearing where we will discuss more than uh just the one indicator we will uh uh provide the performance on all 21 indicators so with that I can answer any questions you might have so can I want to summarize and tell you what I think I heard
068and you confirm this or not okay um this is the first time since 2001 we have not scored an a we have we have scored A's every year every year except the Inception except for this year yeah based on the the law or the rule established in 2017 that needs to be updated we are we have borrowed more money than we have assets four and because of that we are at a 89 in our score instead of a 90 or above based on the way net position is calculated yes uh they have not they have not ranked or scored indicator five uh since uh for six years um back then there was no ceiling so we passed the second con condition so we passed the indicator so therefore um uh fast growth um in students
069caused us to pass the indicator uh it recognized that we would have debt because we're building schools and borrowing money but now with the ceiling that's kind of taken that safety net away so we had a 92 but because we didn't pass indicator one of five it brought us down to an 89 yes so we're being penalized for being a hypergrowth district yeah stuff and what you said at the beginning this is based off of the 2223 school year and then we found out about this change or that they were now judging us spring of 24 yes and is this something that the commissioner can change yes the the te a can make adjustments from year to year and they do make adjustments from year to year maybe you said it and I missed it
070what was the reason that they haven't scored indicator 5 since for six years we don't know okay um there are various ones that they don't score from year to year and there's they add they subtract they change you know various things over the years when Dr niens uh told me about this and we had a conversation about it I immediately wanted to um write a statement and say like you know how this is affecting us because this is nothing to do with our accounting or stewardship of the funds that are trusted to us so I'm going to go ahead and read this and go slow so make sure that it's all all said um as a board we value transparency with our community and believe it is important to clarify complex topics or information unless
071you are in the educ system then it's typically difficult to understand how School Finance works we understand that financial terminologies and metrics can be confusing it's important for us that you have a clear picture of our financial health and the reasons behind our ratings this helps Foster trust and ensure that our community is well informed about how we manage the resources entrusted to us tonight I want to discuss our District's recent first rating our rating has experienced a slight dip this year due to the ranch roduction of indicator 5 which assesses a District's net position this measurement has not been evaluated in the past 6 years how this indicator is measured is CH is challenging for hypergrowth districts like ours the reason is our hypergrowth and the issuance of bonds for example it's like if
072I have to taken out a home loan in fact multiple Home Loans but I haven't built any of the houses or properties yet so I don't have the equity from the houses if I keep taking on additional debt with nothing physical or tangible to justify then my credit score will be negatively impacted by it that is why we're in the shape this situation that we're in because as a hypergrowth district we have a lot of bond debt but we have not built all of the buildings yet I want to emphasize that while this temporarily impacts our rating it does not reflect the quality of management by our finance team this team has maintained a legacy of Stellar ratings consistently earning a grades for financial integrity and their diligent efforts continue to uphold the highest standards
073of financial stewardship as we build our buildings we anticipate a positive adjustment in our net position just like if I were to build the houses for the home loans that I took out the equity will be reflected however given our expected growth over the next decade Bond issuances will continue and if the measurement criteria remain the same we will face ongoing challenges with this indicator this is why Dr nens is a actively advocating for LCC and is in discussions with commissioner commissioner morath himself to revise the first rating system to fairly account for the Dynamics of the hypergrowth districts like Lamar cic we are grateful for our finance department's hard work and dedication and for all who contribute to our fiscal management their commitment ensures we can keep up with our District's growth while maintaining
074fiscal responsibility so to land This Plane bring it home as a hypergrowth district we have to build more schools to create safe learning environments to and to build those schools we can only do so by calling for additional bonds this Bond debt is seen as a negative impact to our rating due to the reintroduction reintroduction of indicator 5 this is another example of the goalpost moving by tea in the state and It produced an unintended negative consequence for school systems across Texas to reiterate due to our circumstance circumstances the maximum score we could receive is an 89 this is not caused by a change in our accounting or our stewardship of the finances trusted to us commissioner Morra is aware of our situation and will continue to work with Dr nens on this thank you
075for your understanding and support we work as we work through these complexities together um and I kind of wanted just to say that publicly on YouTube because we know that's going to live forever and so when people get on there and they see that there is a change in the score and on paper it's like oh they went from an A down to a 89 they're not going to listen or read or figure out why and so that will forever Live on YouTube that y'all are doing a fantastic job and there are goalposts that are moving and that will continue to move and we're being judged again on something from 2223 school year and we're finding out spring 24 that that now is a factor in our judging so thank you so much Miss lwig
076for all that you've done for our finances thank you anyone else yeah I was just going to remind the public if anybody is watching and and they're tuning in for the first time or they're new to all of this uh our district is publicly audited by an outside firm every year and if you are interested in that report uh you can email anybody on the board or the superintendent and uh we can get you a copy that uh we want Total transparency here with our money and our finances and uh because it's all public money that we're dealing with oh it is on the website I was just reminded by superintendent nens it's already on the website for uh but if you need help finding it we we can help you find that as well
077Dr gens all right trustees next we'll have Miss cotton gang good evening board Dr nens so tonight I want to come and give you some information about the half days we have built in the calendar so in the spring of 2023 I conducted a listening tour I met with teachers from every track and asked three questions what is working well what do we need to change and what's a wish through all the meetings there were three strong consistent themes time consistent discipline and smaller class sizes as you saw in the discipline report we're working to improve discipline and to closely follow the student code of conduct class sizes are determined by the budget and by hyper growth so then the question was how could we give teachers more time with the constraints of 187 day
078teacher contract and a requirement of 75,6 minutes for students the solution to this was a monthly half day for planning built into the instructional calendar being being a district of innovation allows us to start the school year earlier to allow for more days off during the year the purpose of the half days is to provide teachers with more time to work collaboratively with their team to work through the planning process to create lessons aligned with the state standards these are not intended as free time planning half dayss are at the end of each month so that teachers can plan out their units for the next month 3 to 4 hours is an appropriate amount of time for planning for a planning session as opposed to a whole day teachers can stay engaged and do quality
079work for 3 to 4 hours staying engaged for 7 to 8 hours would be hard and quality planning time would be lost our current calendar has 7even half days for planning and three half days as work days work days are days with no agenda for teachers to do admin uh so that teachers can do administrative things or tasks in their room that need to be done if parents need a place for their child on these days there's after school care at a fee at most for a fee at at most elementary schools they just need to let them know ahead of time so that the providers can plan for the extra students if there's confusion about these days we'll be happy to send out clarifying information we will also closely monitor the agendas for staff
080on these days as well as the student schedules be happy to answer any questions or discussion um so just being a parent and having friends with kids and other districts and stuff it came up in conversation that um some districts do full days off for planning days and we do half days and we have a lot so I really just wanted to talk about if is it working now like how did did did we have half days before in 2020 before you're listening to her and then since then like do teachers feel like they are getting the most out of their half days have we considered ever changing it to a full day off for teachers but I heard what you said about 7 eight hours is a long time but I just I don't
081know if there's a balance there before I got I can't tell you you know years before I got here but before the year before I got here there weren't half days like that in the calendar um and so we asked principales just to try to figure it out just you know try to work some time in for teachers um so far this year I can say that it's working we're right in the middle of benchmarks right now and as I'm monitoring bench scor benchmark scores we're up over where we were before okay um you know in some in some places double digits not across the board double digits but some places double digits and so I do believe the time that we're giving teachers is is working and is helping our kids and like I
082said I just feel like to plan a whole day is taxing you know when you're in these conversations you're deep in the conversations you're looking at data you're you're trying to plan what's best and so I to stretch it for a whole day I really think we would lose a good amount of planning time when now if when we're doing it in smaller chunks we can stay focused for that three to four hours and then take that break and then come back for the next three to four hours I we can we can explore anything you like but that's that's the reasons for the way it is now okay and I think the change came about because we became a DOI a district of innovation so that we could bring on some of those half
083days before we were not really able to and the half days um that were used especially for elementary were used for uh conferences with parents and and I thought once upon a time they did give the teachers in the secondary half days to complete grades so I don't know if they're still doing that or if they need that at the end of a semester because they have um finals but uh did the on your listening tour did any of them talk about needing more of cuz sometimes you could take a whole day and have half day be planning and half day on your own sure if you needed to but um these are just suggestions putting out there but I know we have more flexibility now than we did before Miss cotton game uh with
084all the uh running around that happens on a half day the getting the kids to the school especially like on a weather day it's a bad weather day uh what is the academic day like for the kids in a half day um like like speak you speak to the elementary and then the high school different levels of of what that looks like the expectation would be that we're having school that they're they're getting lessons they're having school um I can't I haven't been on every campus on half day so I can't tell you what it looks like but that's the expectation is we have 75,6 minutes and we need to make the most of those minutes well I think part of it is especially with the elementary you're getting them in because they need to
085feed them breakfast and lunch and if they're a full day off then some of those kids are not getting meals so that's why they try to do more half days but they are feeding them and they're doing smaller portions of their classes from what I remember but I don't know what the secondary if they just have a different bell schedule I believe yeah they they adjust their bell schedule to to meet it um so on the half day for the staff this so they're not supposed to be pulled into meetings is that what is that what I'm hearing right there is it's supposed to be PLC time where they meet with their their either their content or their grade level to plan lessons it's not for professional development or to be pulled for meetings or
086things like that how about the other staff instructional coaches the Paras what happens to those folks on these days it depends they can be in planning with the teachers um if that's the kind of pair Prof so if it's a prek pair they can definitely be in with the teachers for planning or those days are that we do pull pars sometimes to go get extra professional development because that doesn't take away from the instructional time instructional coaches should be in the plc's with the teachers and that I don't they can't sit in one PLC all day but they should be you know going between them just to see what the need is and how they can support you mentioned so with that there are two different half days that we provide there are some that
087are for those plc's and we also have three days I believe you said that are for teachers to get in their classrooms to do their grading their data and all that there should be no agenda that day there should be no professional development it should be a day for teachers to go in their room and work or you know whatever they need to do that day and for for our teachers listening this conversation came up just because we want to figure out yes with the start of the Innovation days we're creating space for that to come up and this really just started as additional conversation of like how do we create more time in the day for our teachers to do that kind of stuff so they're again they're not taking it home sitting at
088the dinner table grading papers while their kids are eating dinner next to them and all that so um do we have any I'm just thinking like this Friday our kids have off and our teachers don't but if this Friday were half day I would think a lot of parents might just not send their kids to school do we have any data on attendance on half days we can pull that I don't have it on but yeah we can we pull it get it to you I would just be curious I mean looking at fortbend isds and KD isd's calendars they they they do it a little bit differently and I don't I don't know if it's just worth oh yeah no no no I don't want to add any time they actually have 171 instructional
089days and we have more than that but someone said they add five minutes to their school day some people do that get that done yeah yeah I just want to make sure we're giving teachers as much quality time as we can understand and we uh we have a survey that's open right now for parents and everyone to submit um 47,000 plus students in our district and we have about 3,000 entries into that survey so if we can have everyone listening open that email it's I got one about it and I haven't I need to take mine tonight um but we need we need to that that that's why we do the survey so we can hear from our our parents and our teachers and our staff about what what works best for them as a
090family and our community and we listen and we read those surveys answers so 3,000 responses and where can folks find that email if if they don't find in their inbox how can they get that uh Dr nens can they contact the principal or or Administration or they can just send an email to info NFL csd.org but I would encourage them to check their spam inbox first thank you all right um are there any items on the future consent agenda that trustees would like to pull for discussion at the December board meeting all right secretary Welch yeah maybe maybe a um a presentation uh brief or long however however yall think it needs to be on F discussion of member district Partnership of shared service agreement for okay on item F 13 13f 13 13f yes
091all right thank you is there anything else okay it is 7:55 p.m. we are adjourning to close session pursuant to Texas government code sections 551.071 551.074 and 55108 to the open meetings act to discuss Personnel land acquisition or consultation with our attorney e e e Board of Trustees are returning from closed session Board of Trustees are returning from closed session e we are now back in Open session it is 8:34 p.m. we have a quorum are there any motions to be made uh yes Mr President um I move that the Board of Trustees approve the land for the future CTE site as discussed in Clos session we have a motion by trusty Daner do we have a second secretary wch makes the second I will now call for the vote all in favor say I
092I I motion passes are there any more motions uh Mr President I move that the Board of Trustees approve the employment of personnel as discussed in close session we have a motion by trusty bronzelle do we have a second vice president hosel makes that second we'll Now call for the vote all in favor say I I I motion passes are there any future items or any discussions or anything as we wrap this up all right the meeting is adjourned at 8:35 p.m. than you're going to get I for