Lamar CISD Board Meeting - December 13, 2022

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 in December 13, 2022. We have a quorum with all members present. Please join me in a moment of silence to observe as you feel appropriate. Please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance in the pledge to the Texas flag led by Wright Junior High School sixth grader Aninsley Spinx and Wright Junior High School 7th grader Raphael Escobar Constantino. 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. And now for a Texas pledge. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under

002God, one and indivisible. Thank you very much. [Applause] Good job, guys. All right. The next uh item on the agenda is recognitions and awards. Dr. Nonsens, are there any recognitions or awards? Yes, sir. Mr. President, they are. I'll turn over to Miss Co Hamilton. Good evening, Mr. President, board of trustees, and Dr. Nven and our esteemed community. So, our district is extremely fortunate to have a team of employees who exude um kindness. They exceed our expectations, especially when it comes to dedication, innovation, and their care for students. At this time, I do want us to spotlight a very specific teacher. I'm going to invite Miss Jessica Rising to come stand right beside me. This evening, we're going to shine a spotlight on our PE teacher, Miss Ryzen from Buie Elementary School. She has been named

003the 2022 Texas Elementary PE teacher of the year by Taper. Taper stands for the Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. And Miss Rosen was selected out of 3,000 of her colleagues for this prestigious award. She's been um committed to making fitness fun for over a decade through creative and engaging events that connect families to PE. She's the founder of successful in initiatives like the student skates program, family skate night, and PE with parents. Miss Ry is passionate about her students and fitness, and it shows in her work. It is her goal to encourage sportsmanship, teamwork, and personal growth with each of her students. Please join me in a wonderful round of applause for Coach Ryzen. And this evening we've got the principal in the AP from Bu Elementary School, Miss Rashad and

004Miss Castro, who joined us here to celebrate. Coach, would you ladies please stand? Oh, and come forward for the photo. Congratulations again, Dr. This concludes our recognitions for this evening. All right, Dr. Nonsens, are there any introductions? No, sir. There are none. Are there any board member reports? We're starting on this side this month. Okay, Mr. Lambert. Yes. Uh, myself and Trustee Danzinger got to be the illustrious judges of the buoy spelling bee. Um, it was great. It was awesome to see these kids shine and all that. Um, I was chosen as the designated bell ringer for when the students miss a word, which is the worst position ever because like they she made me do it because I didn't get to last year. I was like, "Not me. It's my first time." And this

005year they're like, "It's you." And I'm like, "I don't want to crush dreams." But um the students did so well. There was all there was the youngest was in third second grade. Second grade. Mhm. So these students were spot-on spellers. So which was really fun to do. I just wanted to uh wish everybody merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah. Appreciate all of our teachers and our staff for everything they've done to get us to this point in the semester. was trying to think. Uh, I went to a basketball varsity basketball game at Lamar Lamar versus George Ranch. It was a close game. It was really fun. And I'm going to George Ranch High School varsity game basketball game on Friday night. So, little basketball in there. Yes, we did have fun. But I've been doing it for

006a few years. So, I go, you do the bell. and uh and and they're not going to get upset looking at you. You're so sweet. They're just at least that's what I told them. But um I also several of us did um attend the golf tournament that was November 28th and 29th or 28th was the first time we did a Mullikan mixer and was very well attended. And the next day, uh, myself and a few of my friends helped register everyone and we had 36 teams and I don't think we've had it sold out before if have it was just a very good event. And thank you to LEAF and Rice and Gardner and all the other sponsors that helped to be a success for our teachers and students because that's where the money will

007eventually go back to. Um, talked about the spelling B. I've also had a chance on more than one occasion in the last couple weeks to uh be part of the culinary departments at both Terry and Lamar. the Terry one, the Fort Ben County Retired Educators Association. We had our holiday lunch at Ben's Cafe and which is in the school and the students, they prepared the meals, especially the desserts were incredible. There was another group of students in their floral department that created the uh decorations and uh the retired teachers were very impressed by the students and and congratulations to both the culinary teachers for the job well done and I know once we get that CTE center it's going to even be better. Um, the other was, which I have to say a shout out

008to, um, uh, let's see, to Jacob Frank. He's the culinary teacher at Lamar. His students helped, uh, create the food and cater an event at the Fort Ben History Association's opening of their, um, the candlelight tours. And it's a little cocktail or appetizer affair for um the members and they provided the food, they served, they were all dressed up and as you're going through the line, one young man said, "Try that. I made it." So he was so cute. And it's not only they getting that experience within the school, but now they're getting the experience outside the school. And it's just a future stepping stone for them. But congratulations to the two culinary departments that I was able to witness. So other than that, I think uh that's about it for it was a short

009month. We had Thanksgiving, so we weren't able to get as much in. I forgot one thing. Um my husband was able to play in the um Leaf Golf Tournament and so he played with Mr. Jim Rice and Mr. Buchanan and Dr. Neans. He had a great time. I know there was some um discrepancy on who actually took first place, but I will I'll but he he did play in my uh my spot. He's a much better golfer than I am. But thank you for everybody for sponsoring the event, Mr. Rice. And um maybe next year, right? Anyways, thank you and for Camila for doing a wonderful job. You said it was sold out this year, right? Okay. Um so that was awesome. Uh in the last since the last time we met, uh I've been

010out to several schools. I want to thank the principles of Dickinson Elementary, Pink Elementary, um Brisco Junior High for hosting me and and and having good conversation about the district and their campuses. Um also attended the third grade Christmas musical at Velasquez Elementary. And I know a lot of the the campuses, especially the elementaryaries, are decorating their hallways uh for this festive celebratory time of year. Uh and I know a lot of them uh are have gone really out of the way and made it special for the kids, but the only one that I've seen is the one at Velasquez, and they've done a great job in some of their hallways, the different wings. So, a shout out to Velasquez. Um I attended a wrestling match at George Ranch High School. Um I also went

011with Dr. Neans to the Parks Youth Ranch, which is a place for troubled youth and uh a lot of the kids that go there are students in Lamar CISD. So, um that was an interesting stop. Also went to one of the businesses that that relies upon u the district for a lot of their clientele and that was the gingerbread house daycare center and had a good conversation with the owners about uh how DOI becoming a district of innovation might affect them. Um, the other thing that I was uh really happy to go and visit this past month is the graphic arts and printing department in Lamar and uh Jorge uh Carmona hosted me. That was my second time there and they do a lot of uh great things at this department. Of course, they do

012most of the things that we see like printing this book and and a lot of the signs and everything in our in our schools and in our district. So, uh those folks are are tucked away in one of our buildings and they don't get a lot of recognition. So, I just wanted to say thank you for hosting me and having me out and you guys are doing a great job. All right. Thank you, Dr. Nons. Is there a superintendent report? Yes, sir. There is. If you indulge me for a second. So, how how many people have seen the movie Lean uh Lean on Me with Joe Clark? And if you remember the beginning of that movie, uh, when he first went to the school, there were about, I don't know, 50 young people that he

013had to, uh, excuse and removed from the campus because, uh, they were there for the bad for the wrong intentions, wrong purpose. Uh, the first 19 years of my career was in that setting. Uh, a lot of people hadn't been in that setting, but the first 19 years of my career was in that setting where you had gang violence, kids would get shot on campus, kids, we would get shot at during football practice. Um, you know, I had to bury kids every year. These are guys and ladies that I coached. And it was five of us on that campus. and the five of us, our principal depending on depended on the five of us to keep the peace on that campus. Anytime something happened, she was on the radio yelling for Coach Nibbons, Coach Johnson,

014Coach Huff, Coach Jordan, and Coach McKenna. And um I spent a lot of time over the last couple weeks talking about district of innovation, school bus time, B start, school start times, bus tears. And I remember when I was a teacher on on those 19 years now on that in that environment. I remember when I was a teacher that the five of us would have a day where we could go hide and have our lunch. like we couldn't have lunch cuz if we were having lunch something was going to happen and then we had to go break up or do whatever. So we had a pack. We said, "Okay, Monday is near as day. Go down to the dungeon." We had a dungeon. Nobody was down there. Turn off the light. Eat your lunch in

015peace. Whatever happens up here, we got it. And so we took turns doing that. And so then when I hear people say about DOI and that we're going to take away teachers lunches, I think about the time when I had to go hide just to even have mine. So I think about how important that is to a teacher. Um then I think about chapter 21 contract rights because if you break up a fight between the Latin Kings and the Mexican Mafia, it gets pretty ugly. And I'm thankful I had contract protections because breaking up those fights got pretty ugly. And I'm glad there was no social media back then either. And so you talk about teachers now wondering if we're going to take away Chapter 21 rights through DOI. I think about the time when

016I was on campus and I was appreciative that I had those rights and my principal took care of me because she needed us to keep the peace to make sure kids didn't kill each other. Right. Um, and I get emotional. I talk about it. I buried a lot of kids and that's not why we teach. But I remember calling Ro and I remember asking for Deontay and they said, "Oh, coach, man, Deonte got shot last night." He did. And that happened more times than it should have. And so I I only say that to say um I remember those times and it kind of it kind of bothers me. I'm going just be transparent. Everybody knows I'm I'm just I am who I am. Kind of bothers me when people think that under my leadership

017we would intentionally do things to harm people that speak life into kids every single day. That that that that's like a punch in the gut because I remember where I came from and I remember the first 19 years of my career wondering if I was going to get shot today at school, wondering at football practice what's going to happen to me. So, I just I just that's just on my heart to say that because I've had a lot of conversations and a lot of people just assuming that under my leadership we're going to intentionally do wrong by people. And that's not why we're in this business. We're in this business taking care of kids. And the first person taking care of a kid is a teacher. First person taking care of a kid is a

018bus driver. First person taking care of a kid is child nutrition. first person taking care of a kid is the custodial staff at the campus level. So, I just want to take the time since I have the mic to say those things. I want I want the entire world to hear that. And folks that knew me when I was in when I was in the classroom and that was in the war with me know exactly what I'm talking about. They know exactly what I'm talking about. I didn't go to college to become a teacher just so I can break up gang violence, run from bullets, um take drugs off of kids. I have to ride through the neighborhood with my windows down so people won't shoot up my car cuz oh that's coach Nibbons. He

019all right. He good. If you've been in that if you've been in that setting, you know what I'm talking about. But if you haven't, I advise you just to go just take a little time just to visit. Just take a little time just to visit. But I just want to take time to say that because it's it's it's heavy on my heart. Thank you, Dr. Neans. All right. At this time, we will open the public hearing to discuss the annual financial accountability management report regarding the financial integrity rating system of Texas Schools First at 6:48 p.m. will first have a presentation. Miss Ledwig. Good evening, board of trustees and Dr. Nonsens. Uh I'm pleased to present the annual financial accountability management report for the year ending 8:31 or August 31st, 2021. That does seem like

020a long time ago. Uh and it was a long time ago and a lot has happened since then, but uh there's a process, you know, the the year ends. We are required to have an annual independent audit every year. Uh after that the financial statements and all the reports and things are submitted to the tea and then the tea does their checks of all of our stuff and then they produce the ratings. So it takes quite some time for that to happen. So that's why this is a lagging report. Um first I'd like to talk about our ratings history. uh for the first 13 years that this uh system was in place uh we had superior achievement and then there was one year that uh the rating system was being revised and so you had

021a pass fail grade so we passed and then the next six years we also got superior achievement and uh this current year as well this will be the 20th year of superior achievement. Uh this report is done annually uh and it's available from myself or Ivonne Dawson. Um and it has all the information that I'll be presenting. This year's score uh is uh 94 points out of a 100. Uh there are several critical indicators where you have a yes or no answer. Uh there's other ones that um have passing pass fail plus a score. Um there were some this year that was some indicators that were not scored but as you'll see we ended up with a 94 and that was superior. The goals of the school's first uh system uh primarily are to achieve

022qu quality performance in the management of school districts financial resources and then supplemental goals are to measure a district's financial management performance using uniform indicators and then also to improve financial management and transparency. Uh changes to the system are made periodically by the commissioner of education. This year's uh system has 20 indicators in the areas of critical solveny and financial competence. There are three of those 20 that are not being scored this year even though some points were awarded even though they weren't scored. Um and the final rating was released on November 3rd. Each year we get a preliminary rating and then about a month or two later the final rating is released. The districts are required to prepare to prepare an annual report and the report has to include the district's performance on the

023indicators and then comparisons to previous year's ratings. And then it also has to include a copy of the superintendent's current employment contract and other information. Also, a summary schedule for the fiscal year that has uh certain reimbursements that are received by the superintendent and each board member. gifts that are valued at $250 or more that are received from vendors and even competing vendors that are not awarded. Uh also received by board members, the superintendent, executive officers, and their immediate families. Business transactions between board members in the school district are also reported. And then we can include other descriptive information in the rating worksheet. uh you can receive or the district can receive an A, B, C, or F. There are ratings on each critical indicator and those are the important ones and that's a yes

024or no answer. If you receive a no on any one of those four, you're it's an automatic F for the year. The ratings on the remaining indicators have ceilings which are a pass fail and uh then point scores as well. uh they're uh maximum of five to 10 points each and the maximum score available is 100 points and of course as other standard rating systems superior achievement or an A is 90 to 100 a B is 80 to 89 and as you see uh below 70 or a no to the critical indicators would be an F or substandard achievement as I mentioned there are some pass fail uh score and ceilings uh if you fail an indicator such as number six, which I'll go over later. Uh the maximum score a district can receive at

025that point is an 89. So you automatically um cannot get an A. So you're automatically a B or less. Uh the critical indicators, there are five of those. One of them was not scored this year. The first one is uh whether or not our annual financial report and the data uh that's related to it was submitted to TEA on time which we did and whether there was an unmodified opinion or a clean opinion on the financial statements which we did have. Uh indicator three uh measures whether the school district was in compliance with payment terms on all debt agreements which we were. Uh and then number four is whether or not we made timely payments to the TRS, the TWWC, uh IRS, and other governmental agencies. And we did that. And then indicator five is

026the one that was not scored, but it deals with unrestricted net position that's reported in our financial statements. As I mentioned, there are several different categories of indicators. First of all, the solveny indicators measure the district's ability to meet debt and other obligations. Indicators 6 through 12 are the the solveny indicators. Uh and I'll I'll uh pick a couple of those. Number eight measured the uh current assets to liabilities ratio, which is also referred to as a quick ratio. The targeted uh ratio for TEA is three or more and Lamar's ratio is 5.45. Indicator 11 is the ratio of long-term liabilities to total assets. Uh that measures the financial leverage of the district and what portion of our assets are financed from long-term debt. The ratio needs to be less than one and ours is

027uh 0.9576. There's also uh the TEA allows a fast growth exception. If our enrollment growth exceeds 7% or more over five years, uh we automatically pass that and ours our growth over the last five years has been almost 18 and a half%. The next group are the financial competence indicators. These measure the district's skills, knowledge, and data quality, and that would be indicators 13 through 20. Indicator 16 uh measures whether or not the data that we submit to PEMS is within a a tolerable ratio. Uh it has to be less than 3% variation and were way less than 1% as you'll see there. Indicator 18 is whether the uh annual financial report was free of any instances of material non-compliance with grants, contracts, and laws related to local, state, or federal funds. And we had

028no instances of that. So, we passed that indicator. Uh, with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. All right. No questions from the boards. This is a public hearing. Uh, are there any comments from the audience? All right. I'd like to thank you, Miss Ledwig, and the entire finance department. That's a big achievement that we've done this 20 years in a row now. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] All right, we'll close the public hearing at 6:56 p.m. At this time, we will open the public hearing to discuss District of Innovation at 6:56 p.m. We'll first have a presentation. Good evening, board of trust, President Hunt, board of trustees, and Dr. Nonsens. I'm here to share information tonight regarding the um committee to develop a district of innovation plan. I want to start by just

029reminding everyone where we are in this process. So the district of innovation is a concept that was passed by the 84th legislature with house bill 81 1842 and this gives traditional school districts opportunities for flexibility um flexibilities that are provided to charter schools um and Texas open enrollment schools. The potential benefits of becoming a district of innovation are that we have local control to decide which flexibilities best suit our district's needs. We have freedom in customizing an innovation plan that fits our district needs. And we have autonomy in that plan and that it requires board approval but does not require TEA approval. I want to just take a moment to remind everyone that um as Dr. Dr. Nans mentioned earlier the Texas Education Code Chapter 21 um chapter 25 and chapter 37 a whole chapter

030a whole book full of uh laws and rules that guide school districts um with the uh information passed down by the state legislature. So chapter 21 protects educator rights contract rights that Dr. alternates mentioned earlier, things like duty-free lunch, uh 450 minutes of conference time and so on. Educator contract rights. Chapter 25 deals with issues of admission, um attendance, transfers, things that would fall under chapter 25 would be um calendar, so the start and end date, the number of instructional minutes in a school year, and so on. And then chapter 37 is discipline and law and order in the school district. And the reason I mentioned these three chapters specifically is most of the opportunities for flexibility allowed within the guidance provided for district of innovation by TEA fall within these chapters. Okay. So anything

031that is included in our plan um anything that isn't included in our plan is automatically educators are protected by Texas education code. Okay. So, we want to make a commitment from the beginning that these are items that we will not consider for our plan. Okay. We will not eliminate teacher contracts. We are committed to that. We will not decrease the number of educational minutes in a year. So, TEA requires 75,600 minutes and we are committed to providing those minutes of instruction. We will not reduce teacher compensation. We are not cutting teacher salaries. We will not eliminate duty-free lunch. Every teacher is protected with their 30 minutes of duty-free lunch. And we will not reduce or eliminate teacher planning time. So, TEA, I'm sorry, Texas Education Code requires at least 450 minutes of planning time within

032a two-eek period. And we will not um um shorten that or eliminate teacher planning time. Our district of innovation committee will u is presented to you all as an action item tonight as the district's district-wide student improvement council. Okay. And so that is led by chairperson Sarah Ryan. Sarah is a teacher at Ardondo Elementary and her right hand is her secretary, DSIC secretary Heather Trici. And both of these individuals were elected into these offices by the DSIC membership. And Heather is a teacher up at Fulshire High School. I have in our presentation, I'm not going to read these names line by line, but you can see these are teacher representatives. We have 67 teacher representatives on DSIC. So we have a number of slides that are just teacher representatives. Then we have a group of

033representatives that are non-instructional staff and those include um GT facilitators, assistant principles, counselors, uh instructional coaches, athletic trainers and so on. And then uh we have two district level members elected to DSIC. Dr. Casey Lazar who's in charge of CTE and then myself. We also have dis community representation and that involves parents, business members and community representatives. And so this is the committee altogether. There are 91 committee members uh that make up DSIC. What we are proposing is that we move forward with the DSIC as a district of innovation committee. If that is approved by you all this evening, then on January 10th that the DSIC will gather and hold a public meeting where they will determine what is included in the district of innovation plan. So they will meet and discuss. They will decide

034what if anything is included in the DOI plan. The dis the DSIC will then bring that plan to district leadership for public posting. And the public posting would be at the end of that week that DSIC meets giving us time to pull the document together. It would be posted online for public comment for 30 days beginning on January 12th. We would bring that plan to you all as a future action item at the January board meeting on January 17th. It would come back as an action item on February 21st to be voted on by you all. If it passed by a twothirds majority, then our plan would be post, our district plan would be posted to the website, district website, and we would notify tea that we are moving forward as a district of innovation

035with the plan. I'd be glad to answer any questions you have, Mr. Welch. Yeah, I have several things and I'm we have a this topic can come up several times tonight, so I'm not really sure how much of this to to go with right now, but um and and what I'm trying to do is I've dug into this and listening to a lot of comments from people emailing me and and sending me online. I'm trying to get as much information out there as possible and I know you guys are doing a great job with that, too. I appreciate your presentation tonight. Mhm. Um you said there's 91 members. Yes. Of the committee. Yes. So when you guys meet, how will we ensure that all 91 members have an adequate opportunity to speak into the process

036without uh without whoever is facilitating those meetings kind of moving it in the direction that person or that team wants to go. So there's a couple of different things, well lots of different things we're going to try to do to make sure that everybody's voice in the room is heard. We're going to start by giving um participants members an opportunity to feed into the conversation prior to the meeting. So when we return in January, uh we will be using a thought catcher, which I think some of you had experience with with the bond presentations where we're giving DSIC members an opportunity to submit potential innovations to be included in the plan or up for discussion prior to the start of the meeting. And then we're going to facilitate small groupoup conversations within the meeting to

037look at the innovations that have been proposed, look at any other innovations that we would like to have on the table. Uh Miss Ryan is going to facilitate those small groupoup conversations and then they'll bubble to the top. Ultimately, we will vote on innovations one by one. So we will take each innovation individually and vote on each separate innovation so nothing gets lost. The goal is that nothing gets lost in the process, that we don't um that there's nobody feels like something was slid in that they didn't have a voice for. And then we will share in full transparency before we leave all of those votes and make sure everybody feels confident before they leave the meeting that what's been decided in the room is the process. So our goal is to facilitate lots of

038small group conversation, come together as a whole group and vote on those items before we leave the day. So the group when they meet in January, are they bound to the seven items that you guys presented in November? Absolutely not. It could change and morph and it absolutely could and all of those could be off the table from the start of the meeting. Those were just potential innovations that were presented. The DSIC, if that is the committee that moves forward, will be the one to define the plan. So nothing is predetermined. Nothing is pre-selected. Those were examples of innovations that could or could not make the final plan based on the committee members decisions. At the January board meeting, uh we we are going to be presented with the plan that the committee has come

039up with to be voted on in February. Is that correct? That is correct. Yes. And we'll post it for 30 days for public opinion as well, public comment. So, it'll be posted on January 12th, open for public comment, linked to the district web page. We'll work with the communications department, community relations to make sure we get that word out that it's posted for public comment. It'll come to you all in January as future action and for vote in February. Kind of a point of clarification. U the the district is not going to facilitate any of this. uh you know the the committee can coordinate with communications about getting things posted but uh Miss Ryan is gonna is the chairperson and so it's her responsibility to facilitate all this get people to the meeting make sure

040people have conversations and h and have input and so that's why they elected a chairperson and a secretary and so even though Miss Martenna is on the committee as a district level person she she's just talking tonight she's not gonna facilitate anything all this would be done actually by Miss Ryan the chairperson gotcha appreciate Absolutely. So you said that there were 91 members of the committee. What percentage of those are teachers? I don't have a percentage but I do have numbers. So of those 91 67 are teacher teacher seats of the 91. So about twothirds a little bit more than 2/3. Okay. Um seven are non-eing campus professionals. That's like the instructional coaches, assistant principles, so on. two district level people, eight parents, three business representatives, and four community members. And how are those who

041have a big district, how are those teachers selected or elected? How do they get on the committee? Absolutely. That's a good question. So, uh, all of that is outlined in board policy and those are elected by campus staff. So a campus opens an election um and then nominations happen on that campus. The vote happens on that campus and then they are elected by their colleagues to serve on the DSIC. So every campus has two representatives or it varies by size of campus. So our elementary campuses have one, our high school campuses have three and then the others middle school, junior higher in the middle. Okay. So every campus has at least one representative that is advocating for what the teachers on that campus want. That is correct. All of these folks represent their campus. Okay.

042And so the folks that are in the DSIC ostensibly would be going to their campus, talking about District of Innovation, getting input from them, and then coming back. If something doesn't make it into the district of innovation plan, say the teachers that are on this DSIC decide that, you know, one of the points that was brought either a month or two ago, that was a proposal from the district. If the DSIC decides we don't want that particular bullet point, it is the administration going to add that back in and then come to the board with it? Absolutely not. The committee is building the plan. Okay. So whatever is voted on in that room by that committee is what makes the final plan. Part of Heather's responsibility in the meetings is to take meeting minutes. So

043she takes dubious notes and those notes are posted to the district website the next day. And so um all of the conversation, all of the decision-making process is captured. Those are also those minutes are also shared out with community members and then they can share them out with campus staff. So, uh, open dialogue, open communication. Ultimately, that committee, if they're decided on tonight, will build the P. Okay. Thank you. Can I want to clarify one thing, Mr. Hunt? Uh, the last meeting I was at, I discovered, uh, two people said they actually were not elected. They were appointed. And so, uh, when I heard that, everybody in the room kind of saw my face and I was like, wait, what? So, anyway, I, uh, talked to Dr. demos and I said th those folks either

044they need to be removed and either they are reelected by their campuses or the campus need to elect someone and so at this point I'm going to and I hadn't followed up at this point I'm going to assume that everyone that's going to show up in January has now been elected was only two people that I was made aware of but uh we made sure we had a conversation with principles about making sure you follow that process because let's line up in board policy make sure folks are elected to it and there were two that I know that were appointed and so if they show up again either I know um they were if they don't show up, I know they were not reelected. If they do show up, I know they were reelected, but

045everyone should now have been elected from their body to serve. And that's a good point. All of the names in the slide are current. So, we did have a couple of elections that happened after that November meeting and names that were swapped out. So you will notice that the names on the slide, there are a few names that are different than the names that were presented in the board book as the signatures for the petition because we did have some discrepancies on campuses. Um, are these meetings being recorded or live streamed or anything so that people can go back and see or just having the minutes and the information from the meetings will be transparent on the district website? So, normal DSIC meetings are not recorded and and normal minutes are taken. The meeting in

046January is a public meeting and so we will follow public notification requirements and that will be open to anyone to join that meeting and so uh that this particular DOI committee meeting because it is the DSIC serving as the DOI committee that meeting will be different but a normal DSIC meeting is not recorded. It is just the meeting minutes that are shared. And will the information be easy to find on the LCISD page? Will it be right on front where they could hit DOI and be able to link to all the information easily? Absolutely. Yes, we'll make that commitment for sure. Um, so with the people that were absent during the meeting, is it Miss Ryan's responsibility to reach out to them and make sure they're all on the same page or who is it,

047the districts or how does that work? So, Miss Ryan has been in contact. We also though recognized that we had especially community members and um business representatives that hadn't attended from a long time. So, we circled up with phone calls and actually replaced some of them because um they they just couldn't make the same commitment to to serving. So, we've reached out, we've helped Sarah's reached out by email, uh we've sent calendar invites. We've made sure that everybody understands the importance of being present on January 10th and the purpose for the meeting. We want to make sure everybody realize that this is the DOI meeting. And so if even if they can't attend the next meeting for whatever reason, they're able to give their input via our online I guess through the what did you

048call it? Thought exchange. Thought catcher. Thought exchange. Yeah. Oh, what's the thought catcher? So I thought you said thought catcher. If I did, I misunderstood. Miss mis I wrote it down. It is thought exchange. I do have a thought catcher, too, but that's different. The thought exchange. And so a thought exchange um is open. We send a link to just the community committee members and they uh put put forth a potential innovation and then other committee members have an opportunity to vote that up or down on the list of priority. And so it's just an it's a brainstorming tool where everybody has input um prior to the meeting. So it's an opportunity to start gathering thoughts before the meeting begins. Okay. So even if they for some reason they're absent, they do have an opportunity

049to give input. Absolutely. Okay. I appreciate it. It's exactly that's the same thing. Yes. Yes. It's what we use for the bond meetings. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. I had another question. Um is the we we put out uh potential calendars, three of them. Two of them are depending upon us becoming a DOI. And I think there's a little confusion and and I want to ask this for the administration to answer. Is the 7 a.m. proposed start time directly linked to being a DOI? It is not. So, so the first two calendars, the start date in August is linked to being a DOI, but not the 7 a.m. start time. And there's a I think there's a lot of confusion out there in the public with parents, business owners, and and some of the staff about that.

050So, we could say no to the DOI and still start at 7 a.m. potentially. That is correct. Thank you. That's a really good point. I'm glad you brought that up. I I I think part of the confusion and is there there's a lot happening at once and there's reasons for it. And so, when we're talking about the earlier start times of the day, we've got a lot of comeback routes and the buses and stuff. And so I mean as a community we just need to decide what do we want to live with more comeback routes and kids getting home later from the bus or earlier start times and uh changing the bus tier. So that's why we need so much input from the community which which we're doing through January 6th. Any other questions or

051comments from the board? Um, y'all asked questions that were straight out of my mouth as well about just making sure that what is presented to us is from the group. And so I've received a lot of comments and concerns about that kind of stuff that it's not pushed from here out, it's pushed from the community and all that. So I do appreciate y'all asking that and then also your response of that what we will see and what we will vote on is from the community. So that's again just publicly say that that's I do appreciate that. Um and then also I mean this is like like you just mentioned it's a lot of change right now at once. So just want to be conscious about all that whenever we've been we've also grown really fast

052also. So yeah we have to do something I do have one more question. So I know that there were some examples thrown out when we started talking about DOI and then but the committee doesn't have to use any of them can use them all that kind of thing. If for example say I think one of them was a French teacher is that right? So say examp for example if um we need French teacher we need a or French teachers I don't know what the exact number is but and we decide not to do a DOI to where we can hire an expert in that field is it if the if the district does not I guess I'm a little bit lost now because if the district doesn't propose a few things that and areas that

053we would need to be innovative How does the committee know what to where to be innovative? You know what I'm saying? If it's not partially driven by the administration saying, "Here are some reasons why we would want to because for example, if we need to have a French expert because we can't find French teachers, there's just no French talk class taught." So I guess the ramifications of not doing it are those expressed as well. Does that make sense? Yes. And so a couple of sides to that. One, that's the reason why the examples were shared. These are issues we're facing as a district. We also have team members on the committee that are dealing with that every day. And so our hope is that those committee members will speak into it. U for example, uh

054LO falls under my umbrella and I'm part of the committee. CTE. Dr. Lazar happens to be on the committee as well. We also have foreign language lo teachers in the room. We have fine arts teachers. We have CTE teachers in the room. And so, uh, they also speak into that. And so, the reason those innovations were shared, it was because they directly, um, relate to issues we're facing as a district. Okay? And so, those will be part of the conversation. I have no doubt just based on who's in the room, we'll make sure that that happens. But nothing is set in stone and nothing is decided. It's it's where it lands with the committee. I would guess as part of that conversation, if you know part of the decision-making process is if we don't do

055this, here's the like I said ramifications of not having that, right? So that's all thought through during those discussions, right? The pros and cons of each innovation. Yes. Perfect. Thank you. All right. This is a uh public hearing just like the one that we last did. So although the next item on the agenda is public comment and I understand that there are a number of people here that have come to give public comment, some may be on this topic. Um this being a public hearing, you can speak during this portion before we close the public hearing. So if you'd like to speak on DOI during the public hearing, uh you can come forward now. Or you or you could speak during public comment. Okay. If they fill a card, if you filled out a card,

056you could speak during public comment, but anybody could speak on DOI during the public hearing. All right. Not seeing anybody uh not us not having any more comments. Um we'll close the public hearing at 7:19 p.m. All right. Mrs. Johnson, are there any public comments? If you wish to address the board, you must fill out a card and submit it before the presiding officer calls the meeting to order. While speakers generally have five minutes to address the board, the presiding officer may establish an overall time limit for public comment 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. While the board values

057hearing from members of the public, trustees may not respond to comments as they are prohibited by law from discussing or deciding any subject that is not on the board's publicly noticed agenda. Speakers having complaints against individual district employees or trustees may only address the board after filing a complaint form and in the manner pro provided for 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 or trustees during public comment will be directed by the presiding officers to stop addressing the board and will refer the speaker to the appropriate complaint policy. Please state your name when you come forward. Our first speaker is Lori Underwood. Good

058evening. My name is Lori Underwood. I am a mother of two. One who graduated last year from Fulshire High School and another who we opted to move to private school this year as a result of the decline in the quality of education he was receiving in LCISD. I'm here as a taxpayer in the district and a concerned citizen who will continue to be a voice for the youth in our community. I feel it is imperative for me to say that with the many issues desperately needing to be addressed in our district, such as discipline problems and kids not feeling like they are adequately learning the basics of academia, I and many others find it disconcerting that the district is instead choosing to focus time and resources on something comparatively unimportant and which has the potential

059to create a whole host of other problems down the road. We parents and community members would like to know who or what is pushing the district to become a district of innovation. What does the district stand to gain from becoming a DOI? We are also curious if Charles Butt and his Holdsworth Center or raise your hand Texas groups are behind this push for DOI. We see the Holdsworth concepts all over the district posts. I'm sure you all know that Charles But has been the key financial supporter for all of the uh drag queen story times uh for children in Texas. I asked myself, why on earth would our district align our district and members of our administration be aligning themselves with this man or any organization that he is a part of? LCISD has known

060that it would propose the DOI for some time now. However, we feel that the district has not been forthcoming with the parents, teachers, and citizens of LCISD. One can infer based on the innovation hints and references being rolled out on social media that it is in fact happening. Whether or not the district is being disingenuous in their methodology, it sure has that appearance and the optics are extremely poor. Aside from how dissemination of information is being handled, I will discuss the main reasons why I feel we should not go down this path. While a district can start off with seemingly harmless amendments to the Texas Education Code, such as starting before the third Monday in August, it could eventually transform a district into something that doesn't even resemble what it was or what it should

061be. Special agenda groups, lobbyists, or anyone with ulterior motives could use it for their own personal agendas. It happens all the time. The Texas Education Code has been in place and is there to protect. Additionally, people like to tout the calendar can be changed. As you can see from the survey results and responses, very few are interested in these types of changes. Some proponents also like to throw out statistics about how many school districts in Texas have gone to DOI as if it's a justification uh to follow suit. However, I find it no coincidence that as of 2022, and while more Texas districts have become districts of innovation, Texas is now ranked 43rd in the US for educational quality. That's seven spots from rock bottom and certainly not something we should emulate in LCISD. Many

062teachers, staff, and parents are concerned about becoming a DOI. Did the administration sit down and talk with them about what was being planned ahead of time and get their feedback? Do their opinions and feelings carry any weight regarding the matter? I know I I heard some that there will be some here in the in the future, some discussion, but it seems like such a short amount of time. Even if there had been ample time for feedback, many of your staff have have expressed fear of telling how they feel without anonymity because of the retaliation that they have seen others endure for expressing their true sentiments on certain in on certain issues. It seems minds are made up, our opinions are inconsequential, and now the intent is to jam it through with little or no time

063for a public discussion. The solution to this precarious situation is to slow down the process and table it for now. Give the administration, staff, and parents time to do more due diligence and then discuss their concerns. There should be no rush to action when clearly many are not comfortable with this move. Please give a tangible demonstration that you can that you care about how we and your staff feel and place the process on hold until a later date and after some time after such time as the public and district employees have had time to do more research and have open and honest discussion. Thanks. Our next speaker is Katherine Kaminsky. Hello, my name is Katherine Kaminsky, better known as Miss K. Um, I am a former LCISD board member. It was much easier sitting there

064than up here for me. Anyway, um I've always had a reputation for asking questions and I too am very curious as to why you are interested in getting designated as a a district of innovation. This was passed in 2015 and I never heard it mentioned in the eight years that I served on the board. I am curious as to how many of you were aware of the DOI while you have been on the board. I found out and curiously it's not new. It's been in effect for over seven years. In five years, it's supposed to be renewed or re re uh visited. And I wondered or I would like to see a report of this five-year have the have school districts dropped What did they experience? Some type of backup for how it helped them.

065But as I read over the plan, excuse me, I kept saying to myself, the district is already doing most of the things. Why would you want to lower your standards to match the charter schools? They may be getting the same funding with less restrictions. But I think we are obligated to our families to do better. Why not check the programs in the district and see how innovative our district has been? We has we have always been ahead of the game in innovation. We have calendar choice. We have waiverss to increase child teacher ratios. We have breaks at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, early release, state, federal holidays, which amount to more than four weeks. We have non-certified teachers. We have student test modifications, just to name a few. Parent and community involvement has always been an important

066part of our allegiance to the children. When I was reading this, they said innovation, community, and parents, but y'all have been doing a good job. Challenges are meant to be hard, and Lamar Consolidated has always taken pride in meeting them head on. Making your job easier by not having to follow the annoying TEA requests doesn't make it better for the education of our children. You have a reputation of going above and beyond state guidelines without a designation that wasn't even recognizable for the past seven years. This district is already an innovative district. Do you really need to spend the time to make a plan for something that is already in place? Then I just wanted to close and say keep up the good work. I miss everybody and I wish all of you a very

067merry Christmas along to all of the employees in this great district. Thank you. Our next speaker is Shannon Savanua. Hello, my name is Shannon Stavinoa. I am a proud mom of one more student in the district. I am also a proud alumni of Lamar Consolidated High School, class of 1994. I am also a proud daughter of two retired teachers from our district. and I'm also the executive director of Parks Youth Ranch, which LCISD currently has 13 students in the district at our shelter. I am here to talk to you about mental health. Um, and I know that this sounds crazy, but it's mental health in regards to start times. I work with and am surrounded by mostly teenagers in my world. And teenagers, I don't know if you know, are grumpy. And um they're grumpy

068a lot. They're grumpy because they're hungry. They're grumpy because they're tired. They're grumpy because you looked at them wrong. Uh they're grumpy because something smells. And so what happens when you have teenagers who are grumpy because they are tired? We see incidents of depression. We see higher risk behaviors. We see less engagement in afterchool activities, less engagement in advanced placement or dual credit courses. We see less engagement from teenagers. The um American Pediatric Association says that teenagers, and these are these 13 to 18 year olds, need anywhere between 8 and 10 hours of sleep a night. But the other part too is when you start looking at brain development and sleep studies, teenagers don't hit that circadian rhythm rhythm where they're tired until 11 p.m. at night. That's just brain development and science by much

069smarter people than me, right? Um, and so when you talk about a teenager who's not even getting tired until 11:00 p.m., asking them to be re up and ready and able to engage with curriculum, especially like my daughter, uh, who is a junior at Lamar Consolidated High School, she has AP English for first period, y'all. If you ask her to engage with AP English at 700 a.m., I can guarantee you because she hasn't gone to bed till after 11, she hasn't gotten the 8 to 10 hours of sleep that she needs to get, she's not going to engage. And we're going to see test scores fall. We're going to see mental health challenges rise. And right now for our kids, especially our teenagers, their mental health has to be the our focus. We want them

070to be successful. We want them to be able to engage. We want them to learn in our classrooms, not just the curriculum being presented, but the social things happening in the hallway, the healthy touch, the healthy engagement with their teachers and their peers, right? And if we have those situations where they don't feel safe, where they are too tired, they are not going to be able to achieve and accomplish at the level we know that every one of these kids can do. So I'm asking as you consider start times and listen as a again as an alumni from Lamar Consolidated I remember when they built that school Terry High School all the way across town and I thought my gosh they have to go all the way over there. You got to be kidding me.

071I remember that. And so I know how fast because I'm not the um this district has grown and I see how fast it is. So, I understand that you've got to make changes and address the challenges of getting people to school and from school and you've got to be able to support staff. So, I understand the need to go to a four tier bus system and those four start times. I'm not saying that that's not a great answer to the challenge. I'm asking you, begging on behalf of the teenagers, all of them who have texted me and said, "Please, Miss Shannon, to not have our teenagers be the first that 7:00 a.m. or 7:15 or whatever start time. Um to put those teenagers last so that they can do things and be ready hopefully with

072more sleep um with more engagement, but they can also support their families in taking younger siblings to school so we can take reduce the load so we can support our elementary families so that they don't have to have be both before school and after school support or care for their children. Um so put those teenagers last with the latest start time. um so that they can get the rest that they need, continue to engage and uh hopefully get their mental health right. So, and not be scrumpy. Anyway, so thank you so much for your time. Um merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy new year, and thank you for all that you do. That is all, Mr. President. All right. Thank you. At this time, we'll take action on the consent agenda. Are there any items that

073the board would like to pull at this time? May I have a motion to approve the current consent agenda? I'll make a motion. Miss Danziger makes a motion. Miss Williams seconds. Any discussion? Alex. Oh, I got a question. Yeah, I I didn't think it was worth pulling, but I do have a question on item 10M as an Eminem. We got this packet, as everybody can see, Friday night, and tonight's Tuesday. Uh, and there are 469 pages of u specifications for design and construction that I flipped through, but I did not go through with the fine tooth comb. So, I have a very simple question. Is there are there any major changes on this document that from what I understand we're going to approve for the next five years from what we're currently doing? Mr. Welch,

074I would I would definitely say there's no major changes. Um what TEA requires us to do is every 5 years we're required to update and revise our education on our technical specifications. TEA by law also requires us that when we hire an architect to go to a building or remodel, we have to provide them with an educational spec and a technical spec for them to design off of. Um, we spent quite a bit of time working with our instructional staff to uh revise the educational specs to meet what we're currently doing. So, as technology changes and as we change things within our classroom, that's when we revise our educational specs. For instance, if we add our Prometheium boards and we go from four drops to five drops, technology drops within the classroom, that has to

075be in our educational specs. So, it's that type of thing that we've updated to what we're currently doing so that it matches the specification. So, when we provide it to the architect, they're that's a contractual document that they now have that they're required to design our schools based on our education uh specs that we have for within our facilities and our technical specs. So, for instance, if we have a specific type of water fountains that we we like with the bottle fillers and filters and things of that nature, they're part of our technical specs. So, knowing when they build our buildings, they meet the current specs that we're wanting for our facilities. Appreciate it. Any further discussion? All right. Hearing none, I call for the vote. All those in favor, please raise your hand and

076say, "I." I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. And I'd like to acknowledge that there were six items on the consent agenda that were part of the 2020 bond inflation coverage from uh or I'm sorry, yes, from bond 2022, Proposition A. So, I'd like to thank everybody in the administration uh for moving quickly on completing those projects from a couple years ago that now the district is able to uh get started on and to uh complete for the benefit of our students. All right. Um at this time, we'll take action uh on our action items starting with 11A back to District of Innovation. So, President Hunt, we we did the presentation earlier during the uh u public hearing portion, and so if there are any other questions, we need to address for the for

077the board. But at this moment, we're just asking the board u um to approve the committee to move forward with starting the conversation to create the plan. Are you asking for a motion? Yes, Miss Dansson. I'll make the motion that the board approve the committee develop a district of innovation plan that they will eventually bring back to us. Is there a second? Second. Miss Bronzel's got it. M Miss Bronzel seconds. any discussion? I'm I' I've really been on the fence on this for a long time, guys, and I and I I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about it, but I think Miss Kay summarized it pretty good when she made her public comments that we've already been an award-winning district without this. Uh, and so I'm not going to support that tonight. just if

078there's any other comments, but but I think that would it be good to kind of table this, maybe talk about it throughout the spring and possibly bring it back for the next school year. I know that might be a little late as far as adjusting the calendar start times, but I think that was probably the best course of action right now. I um I'm sorry. Well, I was just going to say I was just going to clarify this is not passing District of Innovation. This is the board approving a committee, the DSIC, to investigate whether they would like to provide a proposal to the school board for a district of innovation. Mr. Glamber, what I was going to say was that um I can vote right now yes to allow our teachers to so we

079can hear our teachers voice and so we can hear what their thoughts are, what their feelings are, what their they have the expertise in leading and teaching in the classroom. So um for this to be a conversation for us to start that that's where I can vote yes for now. um just as we learn and this is an opportunity for us to hear from our our teachers that are doing the day-to-day and our community members and our the auxiliary staff that are on there as well. Um I'm kind of the same way. I'm eager to hear what the committee comes up with. I feel like this is an open opportunity. If teachers from each school do have concerns, they meet with their representative and bring those information back. We can't tell what everyone's thinking or

080doing unless we at least start the process. Doesn't mean that what they bring or what they come up with we approve or disapprove, but at least the conversation's starting. And I we have to start somewhere or we should start somewhere. So, I' I've received a lot of emails and had a lot of conversations about this as well. Um, and Dr. Nonsens, you and I have had a lot of conversations about it, too. And I've just been trying to understand District of Innovation. This is something that comes up from time to time. Um, I I guess I understand we are an award-winning district. I think what happens in what happened and is happening in the community is that we get um folks here, District of Innovation and all of this other information from other districts and

081lobbying groups and advocacy groups and outside groups comes in and says, "Well, in this district that I heard about, they suspended all of the Chapter 21 protections and their teachers didn't have contracts anymore. And then in this district, they took away their lunch periods. In this district, the teachers didn't have any planning time at all. So it's created district of innovation in from what it seems like is on paper an opportunity for us to have more localized independent control that benefits our district the way we narrowly see it needs to get fixed into every other district has all of the bad things that district of innovation has become in those other districts. And so I'm going to support the idea of allowing teachers, the DSIC, which is a group that is led by the president

082of the Lamar uh classroom teachers association and is a group of about 75% of teachers to allow them to tell us whether they think that this is in the district's best interest. I think that the teachers deserve to have that voice and I think that the teachers are going to be the ones on the ground doing the work are going to be able to tell us whether this is a a good idea or not. And I'm I'm going to respect uh the opinion of those teachers. So, I don't think that it hurts us at all to investigate it, give it a try, uh see what our teachers have to say, and then revisit it then. Any other discussion? All right. Uh, hearing none, call for the vote. All those in favor, please say raise your

083hand and say I. I. I. Opposed, raise your hand and say no. Nope. Okay. Motion carries 6 to one. Next up, we have 11B, considering approval of the Gray Elementary School attendance boundary committee and draft zoning options. Trustees, I have Miss Miss Co Hamilton and Mr. Buchanan at the microphone and we will talk about uh zoning options for Gray Elementary School. Thank you, Dr. Nonsens. Um, in addition, we also are joined by our demographer, Dr. Stacy Tapera, who will be on site to answer any questions you may have. So there we go. As you all are aware, uh, Adrien Grey Elementary is slated to open in August of 2023. And whenever we open a new campus, the district will need to reszone in order to create the population of students who will attend that campus.

084So right now, you all know that we are one of the fastest scoring growing school districts in the state of Texas. We are in fact the fastest of our size. And so a large number of residential developments are under construction or are in the planning stages all throughout our community. Um in a growing school system, it is inevitable that our school attendance boundaries will change to accommodate such growth. And that's why we're discussing this item this evening. So our goal in resoning is to more evenly distribute enrollment across our elementary schools. Currently one-third of our elementary schools are over capacity while we have some that are well under their enrollment caps. And so our goal is by resoning that all impacted students can receive an improved learning experience as we better distribute students across our

085campuses. Our current process is that our demographers will develop at least three options for your consideration. The board will view and vet and approve for the attendance boundary committee to review and provide feedback on these options. The district will open a survey targeting the areas potentially impacted by resoning. The district will establish an attendance boundary committee, we call that our ABC, to review and consider survey results as well as the three options. The committee will rank the options and make a recommendation to the board of trustees. And the administration will present those rankings to the board and a recommendation for potential approval. And then the board will select and approve the zoning plans. The attendance boundary committee will provide community and parent involvement in redrawing attendance boundaries to accommodate new growths or shifts in our

086population. Membership of the ABC will consist of at least two representatives from each potentially impacted campuses and the campus administrator will select those representatives. If the ABC creates an additional option, administration will send an information item to the impacted campuses. And in addition, we will hold a public hearing at the January meeting prior to presenting the committee's ranking of options. So before your before you this evening, trustees, it is to approve the ABC. Before you on the screen are the campus selected representatives. Um in selecting a representative to serve on the ABC, we ask principles to consider potentially impacted neighborhoods. And so the names you see before you are the parents who said they are willing to serve on the committee and or they um reside in a potent directly reside in a potentially impacted

087neighborhood. Our timeline um in October cabinet reviewed the options. In November we presented the options to impacted principles so they were able to identify which neighborhoods would be impacted and so they could think through who they could nominate for the ABC. In November we brought this item to you as a future action item regarding the process. Right now, um the principles have selected their ABC and have notified um potential candidates. This evening, we are presenting this as an action item to you to determine the options as well as to confirm members of the ABC. Um at the conclusion of this meeting and later this week, we will launch a survey directly to the potentially impacted campuses. In January, we'll hold our ABC meetings and then in January, we'll bring this to you as a board

088action item. At this time, I am going to shift so I can turn over to my colleague, Mr. Buchanan, so he can walk us through the current options and I will take any notes and feedback that you have. Good evening again, board president, board members, and Dr. Nons. Just want to slowly walk through all these uh maps that you have in front of you. So, this is our current um attendance zones that we have for Meyers and Culver Elementary School. also the projected enrollment for those campuses currently without any kind of reszoning or opening of any additional campuses. So option one um as you see is is Gray Elementary is located on Power Line Road. These are our two options sitting side by side. Um so what it does is it takes a portion of

089Culver Elementary and a portion of Meyers and it moves them and creates uh Gray Elementary School Zone. The other area that you'll see is and that is west of 36 south of 59. That uh one neighborhood area where the fairgrounds epicenter is and that one neighborhood shifts over to Meyer. Um again if you will look at the attendance zones projections goes from 11 thou 1,171 and 26 to 757. Culver would go from 1,528 to 1,16 and the gray attended zone has a capacity of 850 and it would at uh 2026 it gets to 836. Are there any questions about option one before we dive into the other two options? So, let me get this straight. Some of Meyer will go to Gray and some of Culver will go to Meyer. That is correct. On option

090one. Yes. In part of Culver, that that southern southeast section of Culver, it is uh east of 36. That portion, if you'll notice on the current, would shift over to Gray Elementary as well. Okay. All right. I I would remind the board as we look at this, the elementary school 38 is the next elementary school that would affect this area and right now it's potentially not supposed to come online until 2026. So that's why these numbers go out to 2026 is because that's the next year we would do any kind of impacting this area with any new campus openings. And that was going to be my next question. Is there another elementary school coming into this area? And there isn't after three years. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Um it looks like no neighborhoods would be impacted

091for um if Culver and option one, right? I mean uh as far as the N 59 and 36 divide because if it if it if Culver pushes up all the way there, it wouldn't divide any neighborhoods. Right. That is correct. The only there's only one neighborhood that shifts over in this option and it goes from Culver to Meyer other than the southeast section which shifts to Gray. Okay. Thank you. Okay, there's no more questions about option two. Here is option three. And if you'll notice that um we looked op excuse me option two. Option two um we started expanding what that looks like and it takes in Ray Elementary. So, as we put the two maps side by side, currently Ray Elementary is well north. Myers goes north of 36 and uh 59, excuse me,

09259. What we're looking at is that intersection is becoming busier and busier as more things hit that intersection. Um, so this option was developed looking at transportation, keeping traffic from having to go from one side of 59 to the other through that intersection. It looks right now where the bottom south of 59 stays the same. What it does is Ray Elementary comes down south. And if you'll notice, Myers Elementary will go from 1,171 to the 716. Ray uh elementary capacity, if you'll notice, it jumps up by 23, but by 26 it's down to 526 because even with the expansion of this area, um they're looking at a declining enrollment at Ray Elementary through this resoning. Are there any questions about option two for gray? Is it on this option? It looks like does it it

093does not change. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Our third option is looking at um adding Buoy to the mix because that's the closest elementary school to this area as well. If you'll notice what it does when we put the two sidebyside options, there is a um large section on the west side of Culver attendance zone and it's south of 59. As you look at that, there's not a lot of students. So, if you look at the difference between 2026, there's a slight bit of growth there. It goes from 502 to 735. But again, the section that you look at in this that's that would go from Buoy would go from Culver to Buouie in this option would be an area that we would probably have to reszone potentially in 2026 with this option when

094that next elementary school would come online because it would it comes online further down 59 in this area. So that area that could be potentially impacted by 2026 when we look at option three. Wait, which part would that be? The buoy part. Yes, ma'am. The green buoy that is south of 6959, the more rural area that that's starting to develop some, but it's really not had no major development come into that area. that section has the potential, not saying that it would or would not, but has the potential to possibly be impacted by another elementary school on that side of town. It it would it would just depend. It may impact parts of Culver on the south side, you know, further south of that attendant zone. It depends on what if a neighborhood grows in

095that area quicker than what we anticipate in the near future. There are um representatives from the Buouie campus on the committee. Is that correct? That's correct. There's there's representatives from Buoie, Ray, Meyer, Culver. There's not any from Gray because Gray doesn't exist yet, but we do have representatives from that section of the map. Um at this time, does Buoie have uh portables? and they're the ones that the bus has issues with. So, um have we um sometime somewhere in my mind I heard I thought about that uh Beasley was getting full that we might have to move some kids from Beasley to Buouie. Is that still an issue or current? Currently, right now, we have a campus capacity committee that monitors our enrollment right now. With the adjust resoning that we did last year, it

096seems to have kept us fairly steady in those those campuses as of right now. Um, again, we think that we would have been addressed that when we open elementary 38, which is near the Beasley attendance zone. Okay. Because I see, you know, buoy capacity is 584 and if we option three really jumps them up over Yes, ma'am. So then they would have to be in the mix for another school eventually. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Wow. Do I need to go back and look at revisit any of the options um for transportation purposes? Will there be a new bus barn in that area at some point too that will help if we're have trying to keep 59 as dividing line for transportation? Will there be will they all be coming from our bus barn? Uh yes, Mr.

097Lambert. We've we've actually closed on our transportation number three site. It is across the from the Fort Bing County Fairgrounds off of 36. So it is south of 59 just north of Meyers. And we're in the process of selecting architect to be able to design that facility as well. And one thing that we discussed at the last meeting when we were talking about future action items was the ability of the committee to present a fourth or maybe even fifth or sixth option. Is that outlined what the ABC would be able to provide to us? Is that outlined in here? In terms of what we shared earlier, yes, they would have an opportunity to create a fourth option um should they should they choose um for you all to consider. We would notify the rest of

098the parents that a fourth option was created and we would send that only to the directly back to the campuses. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? I have. So option three is the only one that unless I'm reading this wrong gives Culver enough relief. Yes, Miss Williams. That's why we that's why we were looking at option three is trying to get our elementary schools as level as we can during this process. Um, another thing that uh we mentioned about that campus capacity committee is if Buoie does grow faster than what we anticipate, that would be a an chance that we would have to cap that campus and move that enrollment instead of letting that campus continue to grow. If if that were to happen. Okay. Thank you. One more uh just for asking in

099public and since this is shared um at what point or has already been shared with the schools impacted that this is happening as like whether it's in the newsletters or whether it's in all that as of right now we've only communicated with the campus principles. Um after tonight, we wanted the trustees to see the option, but after tonight, the rest of the campus would be aware um whether they're impacted and what options they would have they would have consideration. And could we see again when they the community from these schools would be able to give their uh input after the committee makes their choice. if the community wants to uh to so the order Oh, there it is. So, the order is not it's it's reversed. So, after the board decides what the options are,

100we're going to then launch the survey to the impacted campuses. That way, the committee can consider the feedback from the larger body before they make the recommendation to the trustees and provide their ranking. Okay. Yeah, I I just want to say that uh you know I I asked the trustees to do an awful lot and uh not only we talking about everything else we talked about earlier but also you know reszoning we call it the ugly rword and so because we have quite a few of our campuses that are that are over capacity and we have some that are capacity. And so this resoning will allow us to be able to uh our stu our CLA our campuses that are not as utilized as they should be start putting more students in there so now

101we can level the playing field across the entire district. And so I just want to say that publicly that you know the Marcisd school board right now they're doing a lot more things especially a lot more things that are controversial um than other schools other school districts because we're in the middle of just all this growth and all this change that has that has happened and that will continue to come. And so I just want to say I I appreciate the trustees for for um volunteering your time to take the public beaten that you're taking uh to continue to move forward. And so again, resoning is going to be a part of Lamarcisd for at least the next 10 to 15 years uh because we will probably be around 78 79,000 students at that time.

102So but anyway, I just want the public to say that. All right. Is there a motion to approve the Gray Elementary School attendance boundary committee and draft zoning options one, two, and three? I'll make it. Mr. Welch moves. I'll second it. Mr. Lambert seconds. Any further discussion? Hearing none, call for the vote. All those in favor raise your hand and say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We have um two information items remaining. We're going to take a quick five minute break. It is 8:02 p.m. [Music] We good? We're good. All right, we are back in uh open session. It's 8:08 p.m. Dr. Nven, we have some information items. Yes, sir. We have our proposed options for bus tiers as information item and school start school hours update. Uh Mr. Buchanan. Good evening, President Hunt, board

103members, and Dr. Neans. Um now it'll be me and then followed by Miss Co Hamilton will be our co-presenter on this one. Um so you know it's not only Lamar CSD but the nation we are facing a driver shortage. Um we are also increasing in uh participation within our transportation system. Um we're transporting 3,000 more students now than we did this time last year. And one of the main things that we're looking at of trying to remedy uh is the comeback routes. We have a lot of students that are having to come back and they're waiting anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour before another bus after dismissal to pick up. and it's a strain on our staff, our students, and our parents. Um, so when we looked at this, looking at solutions, we looked

104at our surrounding districts to see what they were doing and how they were taring. And a tiering basically means different start times because it allows buses to run multiple locations because of the different starts. If you'll notice, majority of our districts surrounding us and half our size are running at least a three- tier, if not up to a five tier system. We're currently running a two- series system and we're again expansively larger than what they are geographically which in itself puts some challenges. So one of the options we we were exploring was how do we eliminate the comeback routes with the route the drivers that we currently have and anticipating our growth for next year um by leaving these two um tiers that we currently have. It would require us to eliminate 36 elementary school

105routes and 79 secondary routes. Um, looking at this with our transportation department, this would extend our half mile um, walk zone or non-transportation zone right now to at at least in most cases three to five miles. So, we could have campuses with students up to five miles away that we would not be able to transport without having to have some kind of comeback route um to be able to support those students. The next tier that we looked at was, okay, if we go to a three- tier system, what does that look like? What it allows us to do is our middle school junior high splits those into different levels. Again, we would be able to to need to eliminate 29 uh secondary routes. We think that by looking at our numbers and our routing systems

106and being able to do some rerouting and be able to increase our efficiency within our transportation department by splitting those two, we we believe we can address the secondary without eliminating. But again, our elementary schools is 36 elementary school routes because they're on a tier level by themselves. So then that led us to a a four- tier option. What that would do is split our elementary schools into two different start times, our middle school, junior high, and our high schools. This would not eliminate any routes and current services that we have or the anticipated growth of students that would be participating in our transportation department next school year. This would also include not cutting any of our transfer or routes that we have for staffs between campuses for both secondary to elementary and vice versa,

107elementary to secondary. Um, the parameters that we would need for this to be able to to work is a 40m minute start time between our secondary routes and the next start time and a 30-minute window between our elementary routes and the next start time. Um, again, we would have to split our color tracks in half for our elementary schools. Uh, a prime example is Lindsay and Tamaron. They're they're very close adjacent to each other. A bus will be able to run Lindsay's elementary school route, drop off, and then go to Tamaron and run their route and drop off. So, that bus would be able to run the Lindsay area to a high school route, then run the Lindy attendance zone, then run the Tamaron attendance zone, and then go back to the Lindsay area and

108run the the Roberts Layman. So, that one bus is now transporting a significant number of students versus what we have now. It basically doubled the the capacity that we have within our transportation department moving to this type of system. Before I turn it over to Miss Coamer, are there any questions about our three tier options? So, let me get this straight. If you were doing like you said with the two elementaryaries, would they start at different times then? That is correct. Okay. So, it's not by color, it's by Okay. So within a color track, we would have to have two different start times for elementaryaries because of proximity of the buses. For me to I can't run a bus from Lindsay and then go down and run Frost and then get back. I can't the

109travel time between that with traffic and the size of our district. We'd have to really consider those within the color track itself. And I guess it doesn't help that Roberts is now going to be somewhere else. Well, one thing that we've looked at, especially with this, is we would split. Roberts would have its own buses. So at this point in time with us having to relocate them temporarily to Terrell, Roberts will have their own buses. The bus routes will be a little longer, but they will be sixth graders only on those buses. Okay? And then seventh and eighth for Layman because of the the location of the two campuses being separate versus being adjacent to each other. Um, we talked about this. I think it was last month. You said uh that going from two

110to three would not necessarily help the district, but so that's why you're recommending we bump to four tiers. Is that that? That is correct. Uh and in what you just offered here in the three tier system, uh we would require to eliminate the students. So what is the what is the zone right now, I guess, is what I should try to say. What is it within one mile of the school? We don't transport students. Typically right now it's half a mile if it doesn't have or they're crossing a major thoroughare. So we have some that are within a half mile of of a elementary school campus but because it's crossing Mason or if it's crossing 59 or something like that 36 we don't we provide transportation for those students to get back to the campus.

111there's no so if we if we went to a three- tier system we'd have to expand that from a half mile to two miles where we are not providing even within two miles we only get 16 of the 36 so the other 20 are going to have to be greater than two miles so that's why I'm saying some of those we may have to go out to three maybe four miles to be able to get to the 36 number there so are you going to talk about the times start times okay so I don't know maybe my question is better saved for after your presentation but I wanted to throw out the question of is it possible to um hearing the feedback from community members about earlier start times. Is it possible just to increase

112the radius without adjusting the tier times? Just making it a where possible a three to five radius without changing the times just not offering transportation. Yes ma'am. That's that's why we have option one is if we stay with our current system, we would just have to eliminate routes depending on the number of drivers we have to drive them. And so that that is the only one that does not change the times. That is correct. If we stay with a two-tier system, which we're currently running, yes, ma'am, we would have to eliminate a significant amount of routes. Um that 79 that we're looking at looking at transportation, that's a little more or it's a little less than half of every color track routes. So it'd be half of the secondary blue tracks routes would have to

113go away. Half of the red tracks would have to go away. Half of the gold, half of the purple, all tracks would lose about half of their secondary services. But those would be within that radius would be with within what we have to be between five miles in the campus. And those are secondary campuses for the five miles. The the elementary at 36, we would probably have to go out to four. We're thinking four to maybe even five on those as well. So I know that like one of the points was and I I guess taking into consideration you talked about crossing like 36 crossing different major roads would be if the neighborhoods don't have sidewalks as well. Is that something that we take in consideration or is that at this point in time we

114would have to look at it. If if we can't provide service without a comeback route, then those type of considerations, we would have to continue to go out until we could provide service with the drivers that we have or we just continue with all our comeback routes that we currently are running. But our comeback routes because of our increased participation that we anticipate gaining next year. Yeah. Um we we anticipate those comeback routes to being a lot more than what we have currently. Maybe I didn't ask it right. Maybe I'm just not understand. So So say we stayed with option one. We didn't change any of the times, right? We just eliminated routes. It's it wouldn't be I mean every route would be considered if they had like sidewalk if it was a walkable route

115per se like if they had sidewalks or if it crossed the major thoroughare that kind of thing. So each one would be those would be eliminated as well. Those would be eliminated also. So, is it possible to have those as part of the consideration, I guess, is what I'm saying. So, it wouldn't be a one-sizefits-all. If you're then, but there's no possible way for them to like some like my neighborhood has the sidewalks, right? Some of them are older. They just don't weren't built with sidewalks kind of thing. So, that wouldn't it wouldn't be one sizefits all if we eliminated them. Is that possible to take that into consider eliminate a lot of the more condensed neighborhoods would be the ones we would look at first, but again, that doesn't get us there. That only

116gets us 16 of the 36 20 of the routes. We're going to have to go significantly uh further away from the school. So, there may be some schools that only have sped buses run the routes and they have zero bus service to elementary schools. So, even past the five miles, you're saying? Yes, ma'am. We have we have to continue to go until we we have enough bus drivers to drive those routes. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Some elementary schools though, they're all of the houses are within a five mile radius. So some elementary school campuses under option one wouldn't have any transportation at all. Right. Other than special education. Are spread buses required by law to transport those fed students? I would say for um my district and the area that I represent, there are very

117few sidewalks and very few safe walkable routes because we have streets and we have drainage ditches. This is the only place I've ever lived that I don't know why they did that. That's a lot of questions I have for some other city leaders that I plan on having. So, there we go. Um, but the the walkable communities just on some in some of our areas just don't exist at all. So that it's concerning because we were asking our students to walk uh with no street lights at 6:00 a.m. all that. I'm just again saying that I I live in a pretty walkable community though and I'm my question is at what age are you like okay go to school or the parents drive. Right. Right. Yeah. But I mean, if we're looking at a mile

118walk, your fir you're gonna tell your first grader to go walk to school. I don't think so. I mean, but yeah, like I guess what I mean by walking like obviously like some of them a couple miles or even a half a mile, I guess, whatever it is, parents would just be need to drive them. But some of them even the half a mile is not even a walkable option. I guess that's more what I was leaning towards. Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. As of right now, what's the earliest some children are being picked up and what's the latest that they're being dropped off? Do you have any idea on our tier that we're doing right now? Currently, right now, the the earliest that we pick up an elementary school kid right now is anywhere

119between 5:45 and 5:50. The reason being is 7:30 start time. We have to get them there by 7 o'clock. and we have some long routes, especially in the Kendleton area, the Thompson area, things of that nature. We're having to pick those kids up and it's it's a little it's almost an hour on a school bus to able to get those kids to those campuses so they can eat breakfast. And then right now, um, our buses are clearing anywhere between 6:00 to 6:45 at night. So that means our bus drivers are not getting back. So we're dropping off our kids as late as 6:00 to 6:30 in the evening. And those are those are not students who are involved in activities after school. Those are That is correct. Those are reg those are regular regular education

120kids that got out at the normal dismissal. But because of the long comebacks that are having to wait there anywhere between some of them as as much as an hour an hour and 15 minutes for that bus to return to the campus and then go back to the neighborhood to be able to transport those students. I have a question on options one and two. say we decided not to go. It seems like option three, although it causes start time issues, it it solves more of the um comeback issues and the trans it solves the transportation issues. If we choose option one or option two though and we're adding thousands of students every year, is it are options one and two are we eventually going to outgrow those as well? So my we're looking at it

121right now, we've already outgrown option one and two because we're having to eliminate route services to be able to transport with the number of drivers that we currently have. All that's going to do is keep expanding that zone further and further away from our schools unless for some reason we have a great influx of bus drivers, which would mean the economy would have to turn considerably for us to be able to get that influx. This will bleed into the the next uh conversation on this. So, if we're currently picking up some elementary students at 5:45 a.m. Is that correct? Is that what you said? That's correct. And we we start some schools at 7 a.m., then we're going to be picking up some elementary students at 5:15 in the morning. Is that is that a

122reasonable if elementary were the first start time? That's correct. So for a 5:15 pickup, that child would have to get out of bed at That's correct. 4:15 4:30. Well, if you bump it back 30 minutes, yeah, they would go from 5:45 to 5:15. That would be when the pickup is, though. 5:15. For that child to get out of bed and to eat and to get dressed correct would have to bump into the 4 a.m. hour. That's correct. Thanks. Is that because those are rural areas and you're wanting to fill up the bus and so they're having they're having to be on the road a lot more. That is correct because a lot of our rural areas the students are so far spread out um to get what we we try to average around uh 30

123kids. We'd love to have 30 to 40 kids as far as efficiency goes for routing. Um so when you talk about 30 kids in a very rural area, there may be 10 or 15 minutes between each stop. So because of that, you're running a vast area of the of the district and by the time you pick up your 30, then you start heading back. But again, those rural areas sometimes are 30 minutes away from their last stop to the time they get to the elementary school just because they're that far away from the school location. So I mean because what that situation is is concerning obviously. Um, but I don't know if we want to base our policy on the limited buses where that is actually an issue. So, how many buses are actually picking

124up students that early? And is there a way to solve that? Like maybe instead of having one route with a full bus, have two routes with half buses, but then the students don't have to get on so early. Is that a possibility? It is a possibility, but if we were to split those and start transporting less students, that has less drivers. So now I have to increase the number of routes we would eliminate to get those. But if we go to a four tier system, option three, that we're proposing and recommending to go to, those are things that we can't explore because we have more drivers to drive the same number of routes. So we can expand and look at those and try to narrow that time for some of those longer routes that we

125have. But right now from what we've looked at there they're there are a handful there less than 10 routes that that are impacted that way currently. And again as we continue to expand and put elementary schools in different areas again that affects those times as we continue to grow. So actually option three being a four tier and you can play with areas with almost minimal buses because they're moving around. you wouldn't have to start as early for some or they're getting to the schools quicker, right? So, what we would be able to do is it gives us more buses to transport the same number of students. So, then we have the flexibility to go in there and look at the routing more specifically to make sure our buses routes are are within a certain time.

126So, that that does give you more flexibility is what you're That's correct. I guess for me I don't like option three it wouldn't allow wouldn't eliminate any routes. I mean if we're short drivers then the families have to I mean we're going to have to ask parents to fill some of that responsibility to get their kids to school. Currently right now if they don't want to be on a comeback route that's what that's what parents options are. some of those comeback routes, some of those type things, our parents are having to supplement and pick up students at campuses. Currently, we do anticipate if we if once we implement a four tier option that our bus ridership will increase just because students will be getting home more efficiently. We we just anticipate that to to be

127an occurrence. But that will change the start times though. That is correct. The four tier system would change the current start times. I mean for me like I guess maybe Miss Hamilton should give her presentation and then we'll talk about the times. I'm g stop asking questions guys. Okay. So in taking the research um and the data that the transportation department put together we again looked at surrounding districts districts that already operate on more than two tiers. And so we looked at Ay, Fort Ben, Katy, and Scyfair just to get an idea of what it could look like for us to build our model. So what you're seeing on this screen is not what the current survey reflects, but it's what we started with. Okay, let's say we keep our current start time at 7:30.

128What would that look like with these three options? And option one has high school going first, then our two elementary splits, and then we um our fourth route would be middle and junior high. Option two would have our secondary campuses starting first and our elementaryaries um our last two times. In option three, we've got our elementary routes starting first and we're ending with secondary. So, if we use our current start time at 7:30 a.m., which is what time our elementary schools currently start, the last route um school would end, I'm sorry, for the last uh session at 4:45 on option one, 4:45 on option two, and 4:45 on option three. And so the team looked at those numbers and said we didn't think that our parents would go for students wanting to get home close

129to 5:00 with all the various activities that we have. So then what you see is the model that we have presented before the community for feedback and we bumped everything up 30 minutes. So if we start our day at 7 a.m. we could end our day at 4:15. And again, we we thought that 7 o'clock would be a good point just to put out for feedback because when we looked at surrounding districts, we saw they were starting at 7:10 7:15 and so we at least thought to put out 7 o'clock as a potential time. Um I will say that before launching the survey, which is currently live, we did present a draft of the instructional calendar as well as school options to a bevy of people. We realized this is a significant change for our

130community and our families. And so we talked to principles, we talked to assistant principles, we talked to central office leaders and we talked to the members of the DSIC and in full transparency, every group saw a different version because we took feedback in real time. Um, and we were moving dates in real time as far as the calendar goes between each of the presentations that we did share to uh these leaders. And so I want to talk about what's happening right now. So, right now, as far as community impact and voices survey is live, it went live December 1st and it closes January 6th. So far, we have received 14,31 responses total. And we're not even done yet, guys. Um, last year, we closed the school calendar survey with just 6,112 responses. So, to say

131that there's interest in this topic would be a severe understatement. Um, I will say that the encouragement from this board about ensuring that we get the word out has been a huge help. I mean, we've done social media. It's on the website. We've got backpack flyers. Some have gone out already. I saw a stack sitting on the Culver counter today. It's going out this week. And so, we truly have, you know, beat the bushes to let people know about the significant change we're making and how we do want sincere, authentic feedback. So, I'm showing you now the timeline as far as where we are right now. Like I said, the community survey is live. We're getting lots of feedback. When we come back after the break, we'll begin to look at that data to see,

132you know, what what is our committee what's our community what are the sentiments. Um and from there, we're going to present it back to the calendar committee for review and to refine refine the calendar as well as potential school hours if necessary. It is our intent to present this to you as a future action item in January, but to bring it to you for potential approval in March. Are there any questions? Go ahead. Well, I'll I'll tee it off with one question and then I'll come back. Um, a 7 a.m. start time greatly impacts families and not just uh of parents who send their kids to school, but of our staff who are parents themselves. And so my my first question is if we're going to go to a four tier system in the first

133level beginning at 7 a.m. when will those specific campuses be designated as a 7 a.m. start time and will that be before teachers sign their contracts for next year? We are bringing this to approval in March. What is the date for um teachers to sign their contracts? It'll be in March. April. Okay. Um, okay. So, if the board makes this decision in March and if we are moving to a four tier system and if we are starting at 7 a.m. immediately after the board meeting, we would need to determine and really actually prior to the board meeting design what it could look like, what the split could look like so that we could be prepared to notify which campuses will be at the 7 a.m. slot if that is in fact um something where the

134elementarymentaries are starting earlier. Right? So that that would be a significant uh thing to to put in place is to make sure that the the teachers at those campuses and the administrators of those campuses have a full warning to say, "Hey, this doesn't work for my family. Uh I'm going to sign a contract with the different district or something because, you know, they might not have the logistics to get their younger children uh to school if if they have to be at work at 6:30 in the morning and their their kids don't go till later. So, thank you. Can we go back to the slide that has the other school districts? So, as I was looking at this, other school districts are able to start later and end earlier than under our proposed options. Why

135is that? Um, the length of their school day differs from the length of our school day. Some surrounding districts go 7 hour 10 minutes, 7 hour 15 minutes. And I believe we're currently operating at a 7 hour and 25 minute day. And why why is that? Why are we different than their day? That was set up before before my time. But we did talk about um when the committee met whether or not we would consider shortening or adjusting our school day. And that would definitely require some some feedback um specifically directly from principles and teachers about how they structure their school day on many of our campuses. Belltobell minuteto minute is utilized. So we're going to take away any instructional time. That's not something we would do lightly. We really need to talk to our

136principles to see if that's even a topic we could broach. And so for our calendar committee, uh the CNI team recommended this time that we didn't touch the the constraints of the school day. that we tried to build a calendar and tried to create school hours within our current structure. Their days are shorter, but are they going longer? I mean more days in some cases, additional days in some cases, but they also have different holidays than we do. So, we would need to like just do a deep dive to really count out their holidays versus their instructional days to see how it compares to ours. This is treading to say this, but some of these campuses, some of these districts are DOI districts and they've they've lessened the number of minutes also. And so, um,

137that's also one of one of the things they're able to do. But I'd like Miss Martino to come up to the mic and talk about, you know, us extending the school day. And we talked about, um, intervention times and instructional time for students. And so I just want to provide a context as to why that may be why that may have happened in the past for us. Exactly like you just said. So um we have a required number of minutes by subject or a recommended number of minutes by subject to make sure that instruction happens across the board and then all of our campuses have a 30 minute built-in intervention time. And so we did that off the top of my head probably two or three years ago. And the reason we did that is

138because we felt like um our afterchool and before school tutorials were not as effective. One, getting kids there and attending and then um two, kids are tired at the end of the day. Um and teachers are tired at the end of the day. And so by building that intervention time into the day, it's intervention and enrichment. Every child in the building is touched by that. If it's part of our school day, it's part of what we do. We address kiddos where they are and those needs are met every day on campus. It's not in addition to the day. So, it's not an extra. I know it's I'm asking you to speculate on something, but do you think that it would have an academic impact if we were to adjust the school day? There's so many

139things that play into it, but I do think we've seen a very positive um impact of in built-in intervention time. And I like Miss Cole Hamilton said, I think we would really need to get some feedback from principles and teachers on what that would look like, but I do think it the the intervention time does positively impact. So I would say there's a strong possibility would be negatively impacted. I just want to note that as I asked that question as you were answering, there were about 10 different heads nodding up and down around the room. So, well, I remember when we went to this and that was one of the questions we asked was because there were so many like in elementary we had extended day and parents were having to keep their kids and

140they were staying till uh usually 4 4:30, right? And that was one of the questions I think we asked at that time. would this help eliminate that that we wouldn't have parents having to bring their kids in at 7:00 for like dyslexia program or staying after school for tutorials. So, and so you're saying that has been basically eliminated by doing the 30. It's cut way back on it. I do think we do still have some campuses that offer extension and enrichment and additional, but most of the intervention that's happening is happening during the school day. So the extra is more um supportive, you know, optional, not a necessity because they're getting that extra time during the day. But I do remember when we went to 7:30 to 3 what? 2:55. The the 30-minute intervention time

141is not part of the minutes counted towards every school day. As far as as far as it is, it is part of the minutes counted toward it's instructional minutes. Yes, sir. Is there any limit on how many minutes you can eliminate if you become a DOI from the 75,600? Isn't that the current number? Minimum. That is the current number. Is so does being a DOI allow you to reduce that to theoretically. Is there a minimum at So it's no sir any amount. It's correct. But y'all already guaranteed we would we would as a district leadership team, we would prefer not to cut any instructional minutes. Every minute of every day is important and has a positive impact on students. So when we the calendar committee looks at that and looks at start and end times,

142we count those minutes of every day. So our first step would be if we're going to shave minutes off, how many days does that add to the calendar? Right? instead of saying we're cutting back from that 75,600. But when you read your statement earlier, you said we will not. That's right. That's what we've committed as a team. But is Do you have any more? I was going to go. Yeah. Um it seems like they the the calendars presented except for the the the except for the third option, the other two get out before Memorial Day. That's correct. The DOI. So, uh what would be the harm to push that to the end of that week of Memorial Day? uh harm. I think that that there's two pieces to it. One, um state testing is done

143and so the motivation for students to attend school sometimes diminishes in that families might take that long weekend and their kiddos don't come back to school after Memorial Day. And so then you have an impact on attendance, an impact on instructional opportunities. whereas the more we can do prior to state testing, more instructional minutes prior to that, the more that we see that positive impact on the way that we're measured. But we could and and that would be our recommendation if we're shaving minutes off that those days get added to the end. Um, as it sits as of right now in December 2022, I'm going to recommend that we don't start at 7 a.m. that we push this to 7:15, 7:20 and then we take the hit on the back end of the school day.

144I think parents would be less angry if compared to putting their kid out at even earlier in the morning to catch a a bus to get them to school for a 7 a.m. start time. Could you put the slide back on option one, please? For the hours or the busiers? Busiers bus because this is all related. Yeah. Yeah. So this just to be clear. So this option does not affect the school hours. Option one. That is correct. So to me, I guess I I I if we can't find drivers, I mean, there's nothing then the parents are going to have to step step up even more and to get their kids and it's not a requirement by law that we transport anyone other than special ed students. That is correct. I would say that it's

145not that we can't find drivers. We can't find drivers at the volume that the kids are requesting transportation. that that that's kind of where the rub is. We're gaining ground as far as adding drivers, but we're gaining way more kids than we can offset it with the number of drivers that we're gaining. So, we can't keep up. That's correct. I'll say it like that then. We can't keep up with the drivers. So, that means the parents are going to have to supplement their kids to school. And it's not a requirement. So, it's something that we've done, but we've never been faced with these this dilemma before. That is correct. And it's not a dilemma that's going away at least probably within the next school year. I would say not in the next decade. I mean,

146if we're if we're gaining 3,000 additional riders or that every year, I mean, 3,000 additional riders is 100 routes per year that we're having to add. So, I guess my my point my point is that this is something new that no one really likes, but it is what it is. I mean, we can't create drivers out of the air, right? And so, we have to supplement the parents getting their kids to school. And so, if if there's negative impact on kids going earlier, we need to ask the parents to step up and get the kids to school. I mean, I that's if we choose option one, option option one or option two. Option three would adjust how we're using the resources that we currently have in order to continue to serve every, but we'd have

147to change the times, right? So, wait, can you do option two for me, please? So, option two will not change the times. So if you're looking at this example, it would eliminate. So for instance, if you look at example two where it has high school, middle school, junior high, and elementary, it would eliminate elementary school B. Yes. All elementary be one group because we'd have to eliminate those routes to get them into a single tier. So, we'd be impacting elementary transportation, not secondary transportation with a three- tiered system, but that's also with increasing the radius four to five miles for elementary. That's correct. So, students that live within four to five miles of the campus will not get transportation. There's a greater than likely chance that Yes, that is correct. So it changes their start

148time and eliminates routes, but nobody would have to start earlier. They would start later. So as a parent, we got home, we left Foster High School last night at 8:15 at night. So you school day, school day. I Yeah, but I don't want to hear the feedback. School day, soccer practice, FFA meeting. We left 8:15. Still got to get home, do what she needs to do at the house. Eat AP homework. not going to bed till 11. Same amount of sleep as if she'd get up earlier and get home earlier. See, you're you're saying you you like the earlier start time. Is that what I'm getting? The time we're using right now, it was fine for when we were a two high school district. We have a a serious transportation issue, right? We're not transporting

149kids the way we should. We're doubling, tripling on routes. Kids aren't getting picked up till hours after school is ended. We're not doing everyone a disservice by completely eliminating routes and telling parents all of a sudden now get your kid to school, get your kid picked up, we can no longer do it. I think a parent being able to adjust to a time change versus having to transport their kid every single day to and from school will be a lot easier as a parent. I guess that's where the survey comes in. True. Yeah. Um because I I mean I hear the opposite of what you're you know what I mean? And so I guess it it just Well, I mean I you know I live it my you know have a wife that's a teacher

150in the district. Yeah, my kid is very active within the district, right? You know, I sat in the school parking lot the other night after soccer game and the park I pulled in the parking lot. It's full. I'm like, why are all these cars here? Well, there was three other activities, four other activities going on. Two different sports and band something or another. The whole parking lot was full. Yeah, it's late. all these kids still have to go home. They all have homework and all that has to be done before they come to school the next morning. So, you know, if if if your concern is the amount of sleep that a child's going to get, there's going to be no different. I know that's a concern of the different people in the community. So,

151I'm just saying I for me I'm I'm waiting for the survey to come out, right? But my I guess my my point is we've we've we've become accustomed to having transportation, but we're in a major dilemma right now. And so since it's not required by law, it's been a it's been a I mean, it's been a I hate to say the word bonus, but it's been really nice, right? Because we could do it. And so if we literally cannot do it and people are concerned about the time, I don't know. It's it's a sticky one. I I definitely want to see the survey results too. My concern is that options one and two would an unintended consequence would be that it would disproportionately impact our economically disadvantaged students because you know students that have means

152hopefully their parents can figure out transportation but they're you know students that don't it's going to be really hard for them and and that that is going to be a major change and it's going to be difficult. So um That being said, um I also definitely have concerns about the 7 a.m. start time, too. Like, I think it's this is an information item. We're not voting on it, but my thoughts right now are I would have a hard time voting to switch high school and elementary school. I still based on what I've read in my you know I remember when we first joined the board um we I know you you did it we went on a bus route we did it separately right and I just remember uh in the morning the elementary school

153students just like bounding up the stairs and bouncing onto the bus and they were ready to go and then the secondary students are just kind of dragging and to flip the start times uh And especially with what we know, you know, with research and how students do in the morning, especially uh adolescents, teenagers, I would have a hard time with that. I'd also have have a really hard time with a 7 a.m. start time because of the impact that it would have on staff, um, and on parents as well. So hopefully there's a middle ground in there somewhere where we can figure out a solution. Maybe it's not 7:30, maybe it's not seven, maybe it's 7:20, maybe 10 minutes we can swallow, you know, we could deal with it. I don't know. But um that

154might we might need to try to get creative in the interim before, you know, once we get the survey results and until it comes back to the board. That's just my two cents. And um looking at I know there was a slide here where some of the other school districts, they're not as big as ours. So that does that's part of the impact of the minutes. They can start a little bit later, but I too I would have to think very hard about continue as a 7:00 kids in my classroom because then you're trying to get them to school early enough to have breakfast. So I guess you're opening the building at 6:30. That's right. So that's going to impact then the cafeteria people and nutrition and everyone else. But just a little throw out,

155if anyone has ever driven by any elementary school and probably secondary, too, at dismissal, you can't get close because of all the people that are picking up their kids. Now, I can't even get close to my subdivision because of the frost and all their uh the the cars. So, if we're asking more parents to drop off and pick up, it's going to I mean, I I see even a worse scenario coming down of where do all those cars stack and it's not easy having car pools anymore with little kids because everybody needs a car seat or a booster seat. So anyway, that's just my two cents worth that it's very hard and like you said the economic there's parents that if they didn't have bus service, I don't think their kids would be able to

156go to school. They just wouldn't be able to find a way to get them there and back. So I think we just need to really think very hard of what scenario and with some tweaking can work. If right now kids are at school till almost 5:00, even leaving at 4:45, they're coming home about the same time, but at least they didn't go to school at 7 a.m. and getting home at 5:00. So, you know, you're saying here 9:20 to 4:45. If it's a 7:30 start, I would not have a problem with that. But that's me. But maybe other parents would because their kids and a lot of those kids would probably be staying after school. I don't know in junior high if they stay after for other activities. But anyway, these are going to be

157hard questions to answer, but we're going to have to do something. Change is hard, but change is here. And that's my two cents worth. Again, I mentioned it earlier, but looking at the the areas, you know, where my house is currently, you know, there's just no walkable space even for my kids to go outside and play. Um, so when I look at our underresourced um communities and I look at um whether it's the city commission or the city council or other ways that we can even as a district advocate for safer, walkable, bikable space. Um, you walk by some of the schools. I remember us growing up, you know, there was bike racks for days because there was infrastructure that was in place that allowed that to take place. And here simply it just doesn't

158exist. Um we were in the news a couple months ago regarding no street lights and not a walkable space. And so that's a city infrastructure place that as leaders and representatives for our students and our babies, we got to advocate for. And so, I mean, if we're going to we're feeling this pressure of driving and buses and all that kind of stuff, we got to put pressure on our city leaders and planning and zoning and all that kind of stuff to create environments where it's safe for these babies to walk. Um, so I mean I have full intentions of attending city m city meetings in Richmond and Rosenberg just to advocate for our students and for our kids and for our community to have safer walker walking spaces so those ones that are in half

159a mile radius don't have to walk in the ditches. I drive up and down um Avenue I right here every day and um I see kids walking through the grass over here by the apartments when it's raining and so their pants are getting wet because there's no sidewalks. So, we got to put pressure on our city leaders and our county leaders just to create spaces where these babies can walk safe and not have to worry about getting hit on I Avenue Avenue I or down 90 or going under the bridge at the railroad right there. So, you got kids walking over the bridge where the trains are or they're trying to ride their bike down that underpass where it's two-lane where that's been stalled forever. So, um we got to advocate for that kind of

160stuff. So, in this meeting right now, it's like, okay, we can't something's got to change whether we create more opportunities here or take away opportunities. Um, there are districts that are doing away with transportation because they can't meet that uh that need or demand. So, I mean, I don't want to take away just say, okay, we're not doing it because we can't satisfy everyone. Um, but there's got to be flexibility from us. And also, I mean, we of course all want more parental responsibility as well. So, it's danged if you do, danged if you don't kind of thing. Um, but yeah, so advocate for safer walking space. My last comment about this is this is not a problem for next year. I mean, a solution for next year, but it could be a pro uh

161solution for Lamar going forward in the distant future. I think Lamar uh is is a potential candidate to split itself in two into two separate ISDs and going forward. Um and and there's lots of benefits to that. One of them would be the transportation issue. We're not covering 385 square miles. We'll save that for another day. Yeah. It's not it's not it's not going to solve next year's issue, but or the year after, but it could be as we think about the next decade. It's It's definitely worth toying with, I believe. All right. Any other discussion on this? All right. So, we need y'all to come up with a plan that we could start at the same time, end at the same time, keep some same number of minutes, and eliminate comeback routes. Yes, sir.

162We appreciate y'all. Thank you. Thank you for your feedback. Oh my word. All right. Uh the final information item is on operational audit update. Yes. Uh we have Miss Coington. This this will be really brief. Uh this operational update. Uh President Hunt asked about an operational update. Uh operational audit update. So Miss Coington will come and present something really quickly. Challenge speed talk. Okay. Hi guys. Okay. So, as part of the superintendent entry plan, um it's conducting informal and formal assessments of the district operations and departments. As you all know, managing the day-to-day operations um of the district as its administrative manager, including implementing and monitoring plans, procedures, programs, and systems to achieve clearly defined and desired results is a major area of focus and one of the major job duties of the superintendent. So

163the most recent comprehensive operational audit was conducted in 2017 by a single company and so for the updated assessments administration is breaking the audits up so that departments may seek audits by their respective third-party industry experts. So as we seek companies to conduct the audits we are considering cost, time frame and scope of service. And so given that we had to develop a plan to respond to our rapid growth as well as the information from our demographer, we realized that we would likely need to go out for a bond sooner than expected. So to ensure that we prepared for that process, we started with a formal thirdparty assessment of the bond office last year. Next, safety and security were naturally a top priority for formal review. And so given that we had a newly performed

164police force, it was necessary to conduct an assessment of the department to ensure that the expectations and best practices were implemented with urgency and fidelity. So now moving forward this month, we will put forth um an RFQ for a formal thirdparty assessment of our special education department as well as our curriculum and instruction team. We expect these audits to be conducted this spring so that we will have the results in time to implement potential recommendations for the next school year. Moving beyond that, in addition, we're researching potential cost estimates as well as time frames for formal assessments for the following: human resources, technology, communications, support services, a board policy audit, student services, and then finance. And just to note for your awareness, we are hearing from several companies that there is a wait list for

165such evaluations. And so, we are planning for these audits to at least start by the 23 24 school year, if not sooner. Are there any questions? I appreciate you putting together the information. It's been five years since our last operational audit and I know that um Dr. Nans, part of your entry plan as superintendent was to put together um some future audits. I think it makes sense to break it down so that way we've got experts in that particular area instead of asking for a generalist to come in. So appreciate that update and it looks like things are moving along. Yes. In uh in in the spring what we want to do if we make time I would like um uh for us to have an update on the bond office. I met with the

166bond office today and uh I just want to give them a shout out because my goodness they are doing a phenomenal job. And uh you know with two to with two to3 billion dollars worth of work uh that they're responsible for uh I told them today that I can sleep at night knowing that they're that they're doing it. They're doing a phenomenal job. And so I want to tell our bond office doing a phenomenal phenomenal job. [Applause] All right. Are there any items on the future consent agenda the trustees would like to pull for discussion at the January board meeting? Not a not poll, but just a um explanation of how we are surveying the the public or the parties involved, stakeholders for 14H, discussion of the Grey Elementary and Terrell Elementary mascot selection. And

167uh maybe include in that why we're going out for a mascot now for Terrell when Terrell Elementary will not be used for an elementary next year and there's probably great logic behind it just to I think 14H needs to be pulled right because we would need to vote on the mascots or or is there going to be a recommendation from the administration because right now as it sits I think there's a few options we discuss okay all So, we'll pull 14H. Any others? I wanted to on 14 I the Williams Elementary School parent drive. I just I wanted to at least see what it was going to look like. I don't necessarily need to discuss it, but are we going to get um a visual of that in our packet? Oh, what it looks like?

168We can. Okay. I just would like to see it. It's completed uh I believe. So just it's completed. So just I guess a rendering or aerial view of what that looks like. I can just drive over there as well. No, no, we'll have an aerial view. Okay. What? What did you say? What? He's just giving you a hard time. I don't know. It was fully complete. So now I know. Thank you, Joe. All right. It's 9:01 p.m. We're during adjourning to close session pursuant to Texas Government Code sections 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, and 551.082, the Open Meetings Act to discuss personnel, land acquisition, or consultation with our attorney. All right, we're now back in open session. It's 9:37 p.m. We have a quorum. Are there any motions to be made? I have a motion. Uh, Mr.

169President, I move that the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District adopt the resolution authorizing the use of its power of imminent domain to acquire both fee simple title and certain easement interests in approximately 173 acres of land located near the intersection of FM723, Rosenberg Foster Road and Belair Boulevard, Fulsure Gaston Road in Fort Ben County, Texas for future public school buildings. Is there a second? Mr. Dan Ziger seconds. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none and call for the vote. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? I'm going to abstain on that. Okay. All right. Motion carries. Is there another motion? Mr. President, I move that the board of trustees approve the hiring of the assistant principal for special sites as presented. Is there a second? I'll second. Mr. Walt seconds. Um, is there any

170discussion? All right, hearing none. Uh, call for the vote. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh Mr. Lambert, on the um previous motion, the eminent domain motion, uh will you please include the resolution in the official minutes for this meeting? We'll do. Okay. [Music] Are there any future agenda items the board would like to add? Miss Williams? Um, I would like to see if we could get an information item on how we plan to I don't know who I'm really looking at here, but uh Okay, there you um Mr. Bates, how we plan to facilitate our events such as soccer, football, band, track and field, our community events, etc. um with the aging trailer stadium turf that we have um what will that will look like going forward since we

171didn't the voters did not pass it in the bond and so yeah that's thank you any other is in his department do what is in his department any other agenda items are there any upcoming meetings or events Christmas. All right, meeting is adjourned. It is 9:40 [Music]