October Board Meeting

001um for I forget how long now but we have been starting our meetings uh part of starting our meetings is uh the mission statement and we rotate which board member addresses the mission statement and has wise counsel and comments regarding that vice president Vic >> I like how you looked at me with wise counsel I'll do my best mission statement Midway ISD will maximize ize individual potential within a learner centered and supportive environment to prepare students to excel in a global society. I want to tie our mission statement into the current bond that is on the ballot this November 4th and it's also early voting. But what I think it takes for us to fulfill our mission statement is to have the funds to take care of all of our facilities to make sure we

002have a learner center and supportive environment for the students and everything is operating in excellent condition and the buildings are good. So the kids feel safe and the temperatures are right and they're able to focus on their studies and what the teachers are telling them instead of being hot or bothered in the classroom. To prepare our students to excel globally and again have a learner centered education, I think we must have top-notch technology to help them achieve this goal. So that is updating our servers, our iPads and our infrastructure everywhere on our campuses to make it work seamlessly for the students. So once again they just go on >> uh we start our recognition uh each month now with recognition days by Dr. Allen. Yes, sir. October is a busy month. It is fentanyl poisoning

003awareness month. We've done some messaging on that. It's kind of an important thing for us to be aware of and talk about. National Bullying Prevention Month and Cyber Security Awareness Month. In addition to that, October 2nd was was c school custodian appreciation day. The 5th was World Teachers Day. We'll hear a little bit more about that later. National Coaches Day was October 6. Texas Education HR Day under the leadership of Dr. Kudson was October 8th. October 13 was Indigenous People's Day, the week of the 13th through the 17th, National School Lunch Week, as well as Digital Citizenship Week. October 16 was National Bosses Day. October 19th through 25 is America's Safe Schools Week. And then the 23rd through the 31st is Red Ribbon Week. >> Thank you, sir. >> Yes, sir. >> Principal. >> Next

004up, we have Where is she? Alison's There you are. Hiding right over there. Plain sight. our principal from the high school, Allison Smith, who's got a number of resolutions by Representative Pat Curry, who's with us this evening. We appreciate that. And Miss Vic will, as we do, whoever does the mission statement is also the board member that helps with recognition. Alison, >> thank you. Um, tonight we're honored to celebrate several recognitions that highlight the excellence, leadership, and pride found across Midway ISD from the classroom to the state capital. We'll begin with special recognitions from Texas House of Representatives honoring class as these proclamations highlight not only the team's incredible athletic accomplishments but also the dedication, sportsmanship, and community spirit that define Panther athletics. Congratulations again. [Applause] [Music] And I'm still going. So, >> moving on

005to more student recognitions. Tonight, we're proud to recognize seven Midway High School students named 2025 National Merit Commened Scholars, more than double last year's total. Students, will you please join us up at the front as I call your name? and Katie Egleston. Yeah. Emma Hercamp, Stella Romano, Ian Song, and then we had three that weren't here just a while ago when we checked in. if they're here and snuck in the back door. Everett Bowden, Dylan Doss, and also Valerie Owens are also our scholars for tonight. These outstanding students are recognized nationally for their exceptional academic performance on the PSAT NMSQT and represent the very best of Midway academics. Commended scholars are students who score among the top 50,000 of all entrance in the National Merit Scholarship Program. Nationally, these students represent the top 2 to

0063% of all test takers. Congratulations to these scholars, their families, and the educators who have supported their journey. Congratulations. >> Good job. >> All right. Next up on our recognition, Dr. Ashley Kudson is going to talk to us about the Texas Teachers Day Proclamation. >> Okay. Hey, good evening. Uh, tonight the board of trustees will proudly adopt a proclamation honoring the dedication, compassion, and excellence of Midway teachers, the heart of every classroom and the driving force behind our district's success. At Midway ISD, excellence isn't an accident. It's built daily through the passion, innovation, and perseverance of our educators. Because of our teachers, Midway students consistently rank among the top in the state, achieving a 97% college, career, and military readiness rate and a 99.7% graduation rate. Their commitment extends far beyond academics, helping students build

007confidence, character, and curiosity that lasts a lifetime. I'd like to read a proclamation at this time, so bear with me. There's a bunch of where's here for Texas teachers day a resolution whereas teachers are the foundation of our communities shaping the minds and hearts of the next generation of Texans and whereas the more than 370,000 370,000 teachers across Texas dedicate themselves to fostering curiosity, critical thinking, and resilience, ensuring that students in every community have the knowledge and skills to succeed. And whereas the state of Texas is celebrating Texas Teachers Day celebrated on October 5th, joining together as one to recognize the immeasurable impact educators have on our shared future. And whereas teachers in Midway ISD go above and beyond to meet the unique needs of their students, offering encouragement, guidance, and inspiration in the classroom

008and beyond. And whereas the statewide teachers can initiative and its more than 150 partner organizations invite communities to honor the work of our educators by lighting buildings blue, sharing stories of teacher impact, and creating public displays of appreciation. And whereas it is fitting to set aside a day to honor these dedicated individuals and express our profound gratitude for their service. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Midway ISD school board joins #teers can and its partnering entities across Texas in celebrating the inaugural Texas Teachers Day, proclaiming October 5th, 2025 to be Midway ISD Teachers Day. So to all of our teachers, thank you so much for your unwavering dedication and the difference that you make every single day. Thank you. [Applause] And last but not least, Dr. Allen. >> Yes, sir. >> Principles. >> So,

009I did not mention that it was National Principal Month earlier because I knew we were going to do this now. October is National Principal Month. Uh, as such, we recognize the exceptional leaders who guide our campuses each and every day. Principles, please come to the front when I call your name so you can stand here awkwardly while we talk about it. from Midway High School. Allison Smith, [Applause] River Valley Middle School, Dr. Heather Mezer, [Applause] Midway Middle School. Kayla Brown, Hu Elementary School. Christy Watley, Castleman Creek, Dr. Clint Glazeman, South Bosski Elementary, the very brave Sher Burns, Spigville Elementary School. Mandy Bronstat, Chapel Park Elementary School. Kim Hawkins from Woodway Elementary School. Dr. Nicole Greger, Spring Valley Elementary School, Kathy Edwards. And from Park Hill Elementary, Dr. Chelsea Lippy in Midway ISD. Our principles do

010more than manage buildings. They build cultures. They are the visionaries who turn goals into results. Leading with heart, purpose, and high expectations. Their leadership drives the success that continues to define Midway, a district ranked number two in the state among peers and performance. And schools that consistently are ranked among the best in Texas and the nation by US News and World Report. Our principles are problem solvers, encouraers, and champions of both students and staff. Whether it's fostering academic excellence, celebrating the whole child development through leader me framework, or creating opportunities for innovation and collaboration, they embody what it means to be allin every day. Behind every great classroom, every success story, and every proud midway moment, there's a principle leading with courage and care. And I would add parathetically an underappreciated principle. And I say

011that not only because of the nature of the job, but because of legislation that decided to give everybody in our district pay raise except for categories of employees that included the principal ship. And I just don't understand why people who are leaders of the state of Texas don't have a greater appreciation for the leaders of our campuses. Tonight, we honor these leaders for the difference they make in shaping both the future of our young people, but the futures of our communities. Damply Italian restaurant has expressed their generosity and continued support of Midway ISD by helping us honor principal appreciation month. Dampley has donated 11 gift cards at a value of $100 each to treat our principles uh to a night out. This is an incredible gesture and one that we meet with great appreciation. Their

012thoughtfulness reminds us and our staff of how valued they are in our community. Decamples has been a dedicated partner of Midway ISD since 2021, investing in our schools in many ways, including sponsorship of our showcase of stars program. Owner Masimo Dampley, married to a Midway graduate Kristen Dampley, has made it a priority to give back to the district in meaningful ways. We are so grateful for partners like Dampley, whose generosity makes midway stronger and reminds all of us that community is what truly makes Midway great. Their support not only encourages our staff, but it also ensures that we can continue to build a thriving school community together. Jennifer Douglas is here on behalf of Damp Police to present the gift cards. I I did present I'm I'm behind the action here to each of our

013principles. Thank you very much to the camples for helping us find ways to express appreciation to our principles we might not otherwise be able to do. And thank you principles very much for your hard work and coming up here tonight to let us say thank you. [Applause] Okay, we have one more recognition of the whole board. Brad has said his surgery. He's doing really good. >> Pete, would you come forward [Music] and the end? We just want to recognize Pete Res, our 20 year president at his next his last meeting before he goes on to be judge of the district 73rd board. >> 74. >> So anyway, Pete Wowers just expressed a little bit how we all feel about you and I just start crying. It's not your last meeting, but um thankful to you

014and all your service for Midway all these years. Awesome. >> I give you a hug. Is it okay if I lie to my wife and tell her I bought this? Just asking for a friend. >> No, you don't want to say anything. They want me to say that promised pause is here. Recognition is over. That's what they want to hear, right? >> But I'm going to say one thing. I'm going to say one thing. the long-term success of this district, there's one constant for the last 30 years that's been a part. I mean, there's probably some others, too. But at this level, there's only one, and it's this guy. And and you know, you can't take all the credit, but I'm going to give him a lot of it >> for his leadership. You guys

015do not realize how much of a secret weapon he is for Midway sitting up there in that seat. So I I'm personally thankful for him. I know all the rest of my fellow as well. Thank you. Well, what I tell everybody just very very briefly is I couldn't do this what I do without having six people. These six are different than what I started with in 1996, but there's not been a single person among the six that's ever been here for any other reason. The same reason I've been here all about students. Real briefly, I would like to say that that was done by the students at Midway High School. >> Jess Wheeler helped us pull that together and worked with those kiddos to make sure that this was done. So, this is this is

016student work. It's kind of appropriate given what you said. >> It is 100%. Well, and just like the recognition and I mean athletes, >> the four year olds, [Music] >> the scholars. >> Yes, sir. >> The principles. Yeah. Those are the people that do the real work. >> Thank you. >> That promised pause, folks. You are welcome to stay. It's um we got some good stuff. >> And the exit begins. >> Yeah. >> Did you catch >> I just want to note that was not actually on the agenda. So is that is that a problem? Mr. President. >> I'm just saying >> we could have Yeah, people may have wanted to come and speak against >> they may wanted to speak on that. That's That's actually true. >> She goes by Jenny. >> We talked

017before we >> Okay, information items. We've got a number of information items >> and if any board member has a question on any of the information items or wants to talk about them, we'll take them up. But if not, we're going to let Dr. Roima start with our beginning of the year progress monitoring data which is a mouthful. Questions on information items Pam. >> Oh shoot. It was um I wanted just just to give a shout out to this new course advanced culinary arts and I I thought I've had it in my notes but it didn't transfer well. Um I want to take this class. Can I can I take it? >> Sure. There was a section where as part of the TIGS they're going to learn and since I don't have it in front

018of me it's some kind of conservation sustainability uh best practice in terms of clean living recyclability I'm not saying it correctly but can somebody any anyway I was just really intrigued that the course was as comprehensive as it was it wasn't just about baking and vegetables and spices it was a much broader sphere than that I was just really impressed using food that's in using food that's in season by way of um that that's a way to maintain sustainability that kind of thing. Yes, ma'am. >> There was an eye to the our footprint and and using our resources wisely. I was just impressed. >> Very much so. >> In that same vein, let me just note on the teacher incentive aotment. I'm going to put Dr. Kenson on the spot. out of our entire teacher

019population approximately what percentage of them have TIA because the number is like 233 now that she has >> you want to include a recent submission. >> Yeah, the most recent submission there's 203 teachers out of 550 560 >> we have close to 600. So other teachers >> Yeah, that's impressive. >> The numbers are are incredible. >> Yeah. So very good is consistently looking for additional opportunities for >> and that ties right into beginning of year, middle of year, end of year, doesn't it? >> It does. >> There you go. >> That that growth is directly related. >> Your segue, ma'am. >> Okay. Excellent. Well, tonight we start our presentations with our academic progress report here. Um, we also are tying in the endofear um, progress measure because we didn't do that at the end of

020the year last year because we reported star scores. So, we're going to um, have both of those here tonight in our data. Um, the assessments that we use to measure this, we map test, which we've used for several years now. So, that's um, the same report you're accustomed to seeing that measures with the RIT score. It's a nationally assessment that's adaptive in nature. Um, we use that K through uh 10th grade for our uh students for RLA. And then we use Tango Lion for our math assessment. It's also an adaptive test. It's a little bit different. Has a little bit different readout um that you'll see in our assessment scores. It tests skills that they have they will be taught for the school year and measures what they they currently know. So, it's a little

021bit different measure of what they know. Um, and then we've also begun using IXL this year. So, so you'll see a little bit different data capture on some of these, and I'll point that out as we get to those. Um, the neat thing about is that it's not only a screener that shows us what students know, it also creates adaptive lessons based on what students know. So, we're able to move forward with um personalized learning plans for students. So, it gives us more than just the assessment of the students and what they know. So, um, more more information to move forward with for teachers and for students. So, as far as reading goes, the thing I'll point out here so you have some kind of context as to where we are is that, um, the

022turquoise bar like four bars in was our, um, previous year's data. And then in that first fall section, the navy bar on the far right would be this current BOI data. So, you'll see that it's hanging very close to what our uh, previous year's data looks like. Um, but if you move all the way to the far right, that's end of year data in the spring that you didn't see from the previous year. The lighter blue color on the far left of all of these sections is the national norm. So, what I'd like to show you in this um kindergarten graphic is that the national norm shows about a 14 point growth over time for kindergarten. Midway experiences a 16point growth over time for kindergarten. And notice that we start at a 3.8 um differential

023in the beginning and then we end up with a 5.9 differential in the end. So most of the time in most of these graphs what you'll see is that we start higher than the national norm accelerate more than the national norm. So we end up significantly higher in the end than the national norm. So um in most of these cases where we're averaging for our BOI for this year is very similar if not a tick higher than where we started last year. But also um there's a couple of areas where we excelled last year in our spring end of end of year exams which is also why we saw some significant teacher incentive a lotment gains last year as well because these are the these are many of the assessments that we use to measure

024that. So this is kindergarten. We saw some great gains in first grade RLA as well. Um a 13.6 gain overall for Midway, outpacing the state. We saw a huge gain in the entire year last year. Um and then we're also started out at an even higher mark for our beginning of year for this fall. Um overall the national average, the national gain over time last year was 12 points, 12 writ points, which is great. But midway um second grade paced at 17.4 gain points. So that's huge for our second grade and we definitely saw that in our teacher incentive a lotment for growth. Um in the next grade level we averaged out as a little flatter. We made some gains from the previous year. We're a little bit under with our third graders for our

025BOI, but um I anticipate we'll make up for those scores with our third grade because our third grade uh reading scores were on target last year. Fourth grade also very similar. We had some great gains. We're kind of parallel to the national norm, but we're above it when we start out. So, we end up above that as well. We had some good BOI data come in in this. So, you see us ahead of um last year's data. Um huge growth in fifth grade. Um over the year last year, um the national average had a four-point gain and we had an 8.2 gain. So, we're outpacing the national average significantly as far as growth goes. in sixth grade. This was one of those years um you see our data for um beginning of year to end

026of year for last year, but you don't see new data because this is one of the grade levels that we switch to the LL um assessment for reading. So, we see moderate gains here. One of the reasons we're switching assessments is because we don't get the greatest data from our middle school students from this assessment. And when we do get the data, we want to have better things to do with it. So, we've got more personalized plans coming um from this information. So, um, we're about the the national average as far as gains go, but we start out higher and end higher. But what we have now is, um, a reading similar to what we see with Tango Lion when we have the EXL. So, um, the reading that you'll see here moving forward, and

027again, this is just BOI for one year. So, we don't have anything to compare to, but what you see here is students that are above level. So, that would be like a M's level. On level would be like meets for STAR, and then Bubble would be approaches. So, we'll continue to track that throughout the school this year and then you'll see um those comparison charts as we move forward. So, this was seventh grade reading using the old um MAP test. So, seventh grade had uh modest gains over the year, still above the national average, but one of those that we also switched to the LL assessment. So, masters meets and approaches is what we're looking at here. So, we'll continue to track that data um really um drilling down to what this assessment can do

028for us and help with specific personalized lessons for students and specific lesson plans for teachers. Um eighth grade, same kind of thing. Modest gains um in using this assessment. So, using we've got some targeted um lessons for our students that we look to to use this year. This is our ninth grade assessment. So, same kind of thing. Um, some gains here and we look to have even better gains using this piece. 10th grade um is is interesting because the middle school grades and nth grade kind of flatten out, but our 10th grade teachers wanted to see some gains from their students and they worked and like nobody sees gains in 10th grade nationally. It's a flat 0% gain from beginning to end year except for at Midway High School. and our 10th grade teachers got

029a 3.5% gain from beginning of year to end of year. And so we see that routinely because they really invest in this assessment. So we look forward to seeing what else um our our teachers will do with this assessment. So um we're excited to see the results of this this uh new screener and the the data that will come from that and the the personalized lessons that will come from that as well for our students. >> Becky, I know I'm sorry for the first three columns in the graph. So why what does below level mean if we're not using that or >> below level would be the students that are not at a passing rate at this time. >> Okay. So okay those are just really high. So I just >> Yeah. >> which is

030where those personalized lessons are going to kick in for us. That'll be very helpful. >> Okay. >> So our math assessment uses Tango Lion. So again what you're tracking here we've got on track and offtrack. The ontrack count all three of those groups. Actually, I think it counts two of those groups, but what we're looking at is the above level, the at level, and the bubble. So, that would be your masters, your meets, and your approaches. And then below level, like Miss Vic Vic referred to earlier, would be the the did not meet if you were looking at um the star assessment. Again, Tango Lion is measuring all of the the TEICs that might be taught in that grade level, and students at this point in the school year have not been exposed to all

031of that content. So it's going to be lower on the BOI for kindergarten. We're measuring students who've not been in school yet. So it's a little bit different. So you'll see higher scores here and then you'll see it drop as we get into the other grades. So here's the drop. So when you see the above level and then the at level and the bubble, this is just kind of a it's a measure that we normally see. You can see the the trend lines there um moving forward. So, as we cover more material, we'll see this move more toward the the above level and the at level and less of the the bubble and the below, but our trends match pretty closely with where we expect them to be. Um, in some areas, our above level

032is higher than it's been in the past. So, that's exciting. Fourth grade in particular is a good one to look at for that. So, as we move um fifth grade is the the last that we use Tango Lion. There's a mix of Tango Lion and EXL as we start to go through sixth grade as well as seventh grade and eighth grade. And again, we'll have more of those personalized lessons as we begin to to merge into EXL um with these grade levels. So, I think this graphic is interesting. Um if you look at the center area that's the 2024 2025 school year and let me point to this this side. So in this column you have the change from the previous year to 2024 2025. So if we look at growth from the previous year

033to this year then this is just um tango for that year. you see growth, significant growth in first grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, and then that's the overall growth that we saw. So, we did see growth over time. Um, we can't look at that for BOI, MOI, EOI with the data that we're looking at now for BOI, but know that over time last year, we did see some significant um growth, which was also reflected in our TIA pieces. We don't see that growth yet in 2025, 2026 because we've only taken the BOI. So that's uh partial data shown there. >> So just as a reminder >> question real quick. So for >> I know one of the challenges in middle school for this is that kids start to get into advanced math or

034something else. So what >> do we sixth grader in an advanced math class? Are they taking the seventh grade or are they taking the sixth grade for this? Like >> trying to get a sense of is it is it apples to apples as you go forward or we do we have some kids testing up that maybe hurts us in some ways. They would they would take the assessment that goes with the course that they're taking. >> Yeah. So, some of that you're right. A a seventh grader in an advanced course would take the one with the advanced course which might be an eighth grade label and it might skew both the seventh grade and the eighth grade numbers as a result. Okay. >> That's right. >> Yeah. >> That's right. >> So, just as a

035reminder, um these scores put us on track with where we've we've been in the past and um last year's outcomes compared to the previous year's outcomes. We know that um as far as compared to national norms, we outpace the state and the county by 10 to 12 points in overall approaches by by 15 to 17 points in overall meets and then we outpaced the state and the county by 14 to 15 points in the mast's level. So right now we're trending in the same direction that we did the previous year and um we'll continue to move move forward because we know we want those numbers higher by the end of this year because we've set a pretty high standard for oursel with masters. So that's the target. What questions do you have for us? >>

036I have one just curious. So when we say beginning of the year, when do we do these assessments? And do we do them districtwide on the same day or do we stagger them in any regard? >> There's a window of time because every campus can't do it the same day and we can't put reading on top of math. We have to spread it out so the kids have a little bit of time. So we work with um Kim Johnson works with the campuses and the testing coordinators on each of the campuses but there is a window um sometime started beginning of October. Where's Kim? >> Yeah it starts in August. >> Okay >> goes through the beginning of September. >> Okay September year is >> middle year we do some in December most are in

037January. >> Okay. And then end of year >> it gets tricky >> because of state assessments in April. >> Star test. >> Yes. >> Okay. Other questions from the board. >> If we scroll back to the middle school, seventh and eighth grade reading scores. I'm noticing it looks like middle midyear and end of year are either holding steady or maybe just a a smidge of a dip. Is is there anything we need to be paying attention to there? Let's see. Like um >> what's your question again? >> Like eighth eighth grade reading scores 2425. We're at 2190 winter and 21830 spring. Is that indicative of something? >> Oh, because it went down or it's flat basically >> for the reading scores for eighth grade. Are you looking at the state assessment at the very end

038or this the one I have on the screen now? >> NW I'm looking at winter is 20 2190 and spring is 21830. >> Oh, okay. >> She's looking at that one. >> Gotcha. >> Yeah. Um it's I mean it's it's declined. It's eighth graders in the spring is the best um explanation of that. >> That's a reasonable explanation. I was just curious. >> You wouldn't anticipate that. Um and eighth grade is pretty flat on gains um for the national norm too. So there's not a lot of there's not a lot of gains in that room or room for gains in that that area that we see nationally. There should be um and it's it's a target for us for sure. Yeah. Because you did see a bump. You saw 217 to 219 and then back

039down to 218. So there's overall gain from beginning of year to end >> thing or a middle school thing or It's always a spring thing and a middle school thing. Absolutely. Both of those things are huge factors. Absolutely. Um the nice thing and this is one of those that um we'll work with and so when it becomes more personalized um and we have individual goals set, this is also where leader and me comes into play too. when we're setting personalized academic goals, then maybe you maybe you invest a little more in your personal academic goal um toward the end of the year and there these scores have a little more value. >> They certainly do for our elementary students and they do personal academic portfolios where they present >> their their goals and their growth

040to um leadership on their campus and to their parents. And so when we start doing that in our middle school grades, um I think we're going to see probably more investment in these types of assessments because they can track their growth. >> I think this also shows I mean that that class was fairly consistent and they they got better and went down just a little bit. I think it it's an example of how hard it is for teachers every year because every class is different. They're sometimes on just on a different level than the class the year before them >> because different set of kids. Well, at some point if you're almost maxing out on your achievement, it's it's hard to move farther. Treat that too. Yeah. >> I mean, it's >> Go ahead. >>

041I was just going to say I think I think this is it's really useful to look at sort of in the aggregate and I'm I'm assuming that there's breakdowns by campus that you work with different principles on and different teachers and things. But I mean ultimately too, one of the goals here is to work you each of these is an individual, right? So what are we how is this used with parents? Is there is there followup? Is there an effort to sort of help parents whose kids might be struggling understand what this means and how to apply this and and and targets and goals moving forward? Like how how do we use this individually, not just in the aggregate? >> Yeah. So there are parent reports that come from all of this information and so

042the campuses send those out. I'm not certain when BOI reports went out. Do we know a date? So, a couple of weeks ago should have been communicated from um campuses so we could get you the dates, but um it should be part of the planning process that they're using for building their academic portfolios, their leader and me notebooks at the elementary level and then also um they have planners at the middle school level. And so, it should be a piece of that information and that's something that they can talk with parents about. Um and they're tracking that data individually as well. So, it should be something they can talk with parents about anytime. Um, but it's also something that we can we can send home, but it is one of those things that the parent

043would necessarily have access to because it's inside our platform. So, we have to send it out, >> right? And I know you're right about that. You know, parents will look at hack and look at grades and things like that and that's important as well, but I'm just trying to get a sense of how does this >> sort of lay alongside that for parents to understand kind of a long-term, >> you know, getting from point A to point B and and right, you know, >> all of these platforms have parent information sheets with the scores that you can send out, but we have to send those out. >> Okay. >> What other questions? Those are great. But I think that's good because I was just sitting here and thinking especially when we get to the spring

044if the kids doing really well. So they already have 101 average but they may not feel inclined to work really hard to you know to do better in the spring maybe not realize how much important is to the district that we want things to always improve as we go for the end of the year because you know I had a child that was a little bit like that. Yeah. >> So, maybe more than one, but it's just we can convey to the parents how important it is to try to keep encouraging them to get a little better even at the end of the year. >> So, >> absolutely. >> Very good. Any thoughts on this one, folks? >> Did we successfully stump Becky? >> Excellent. We didn't know. >> She always seems calm, so we

045don't know. >> Yeah, it's true. >> Thank you, Becky. Instructional technology update. We have a person that has signed up to speak to this agenda item and so we're going to hear from her first. Uh Joy Cover. >> Yes. Miss Cover, we we have three minutes that we allocate to folks. Um can I trust you to stay within that time or do I need >> I did time myself several times. It's challenging but I think I can do it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um Okay. Thank you so much for having me here. I wanted to start off by saying my name is Joy Lynn Cover. I'm a mom to to three kids and I'm also a family medicine physician. Um, and I absolutely have been loving Midway. Um, had have had awesome experiences here,

046but I did um want to bring up the concern of having these personalized iPads and personalized screens for our children. I do feel like overall they are um detrimental at the younger ages um like particularly elementary school maybe even into middle school but just wanted to point out some issues one being that I feel like in you know just safety in terms of we all know that there's explicit content out there and I have had parents tell me about things that students are able to find and look up and that's extremely concerning to me and you know what I saw in my clinic and um just what you see in society. Um I do have a light speeded account for my kids. Um I just don't know that it's sufficient enough. Um so that's one

047consideration is just the safety. Secondly, I feel like overall screens have not been shown to be um highly effective at learning in education just from the information I know. And I am not someone that's in education, so I may be completely ignorant to all of this, but I what from what I could find, the evidence for the positive effects of screen time use with young children and learning um is is just heavily outweighed by the negative effects and what I've seen. Um and so and I do have the statement that we're not supposed to be encouraging any passive screen time. However, when I look at the screen time usage for my kids, I see uh quite a bit of a non-educational category that I was able to look at in the breakdown. And so, that

048was kind of concerning to me, too. And just kind of what I hear from my kids um in general. And I know that some of the teachers are working really hard to not have that passive screen time. I just think it's really hard to police. Um thirdly, I feel like um just for me as being being a physician, physical health has been, you know, is is negatively impacted by screens as well as mental health. Um really we're seeing a lot of anxiety and depression and ADHD symptoms um are worsened overall by screens whether it's educational or not. And um just in the grand scheme of things, I'm talking very very generally here. And not that education or technology doesn't have a place in education, but I think we need to be a little bit more

049careful in how we're presenting these to our very very youngest children. I did want to opt out actually out of iPad use at the very beginning years and years ago when my oldest was in kindergarten. Um I ran into trouble with that option. So that was a little disheartening. But I'm really interested in promoting student education, learning, uh, making them productive members of society. And, you know, um, I think if we could work on this a little bit, we as Midway could just look really innovative. So, thank you for your time. Do you all have questions or anything? >> Questions? >> I'm glad you're here tonight. I look forward to hearing what to see what you think about the presentation we're about to hear. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

050so much >> for you, ma'am. What grades are your children in now? >> Um, my oldest is in fifth grade and then I have a third grader and then I have a 2-year-old. So, he'll eventually get to midway, but he's not there yet. >> So, thank you for coming tonight. We appreciate you coming. >> Thank you so much for your time tonight. Thank you. >> All right, Dr. Ojima, the uh update. >> Nope. I think I see it's not just you. I I neglected Sarah. Sarah Collins Sarah. >> I could kick us off. I'll kick us off and then we'll go from there. Do we have a Excellent >> Good evening, Dr. Esset. Good evening, board. It's good good to see everybody. Hello. I'm Sarah Collins. I'm the director of professional learning. Um this evening,

051I'm pleased to have the opportunity to share with you about Midway ISD's approach to technology integration. when it was first mentioned to me that I'd have the opportunity to share with the board about our approach to technology integration um I took a minute and I thought back over the many many years we've been um actively integrating technology and I thought a little bit about you guys and our first iPad rollout and quite a few of you were here as board members many of you were here as parents and many of you were here as community members and when I thought about that I thought about thought about Adam Fine Susan Fletcher some of these names Dr. um Dr. Lancaster and all those who kind of laid the framework and the beginnings of being very intentional

052in how we brought a onetoone initiative into our district. Um and so I also want to start tonight with a very simple timeline I have up there for you and that is starting with 2012. That was the first year we rolled out one which was eight years before a lot of the United States rolled out in 2020 as a reaction to a pandemic. And we started this process early on and intentionally. Um, and it's very much so become a fundamental part of our culture. Very much so baked into what we do every day. And because it's so much part of our culture, I think we don't often stop and look back and reflect on um how well we're doing it and what's going on within instructional technology. So, I really appreciate the opportunity to visit

053with you right now um about it. When we look at the technology in our district and how we use it in classrooms, I've kind of broke it into three categories in our systematic approach. One is our environment, the other is instruction, and finally looking at the overall student experience. When we talk about environment, there's two key words that come to mind and that's going to be protected and curated. What I mean by that is when first of all with our internet content filtering, we've been blessed to have wonderful technology directors. Right now we have Jesse Garn prior to that Seth Hansen. Before that, Adam Fine who work diligently and hourly to really create a very safe environment for our students. is always at the forefront of our conversations of what are our filters doing, what

054does that look like? We also have a very limited app catalog for our students. I think a lot of times when people think iPads or they think iPhones, they envision the app catalog and all the things it has to offer. That is not what is offered here in Midway. We have a curated catalog. Whenever a teacher wants an application for students, it goes through a vetting process and then it's made available to students after it goes through that particular process. Um, we have monitoring systems, alert systems. You guys have heard about Bark before from Ann Marie and Jesse and how those particular systems work. When we want to work with a company, we have a 23-page data privacy agreement the company must sign before we interact with them and and create um accounts. We vet

055applications and have data encryption. So, that's just one layer of our environment. Another layer is just our transparency. I don't know if you guys remembered a few years after we rolled out iPads, we started looking at learning management systems and we vetted and we um piloted a number of them and we landed on Schooly and Seesaw. When we piloted them, we we narrowed down to two and the the determining factor on with Schooly was that it had a parent portal because we wanted parents to be able to look inside and see what was going on behind the screen. We wanted no surprises. And as a reference tonight, we also have the Lightseed parent portal. You'll see there a picture of my own kid, what's going on with hers. I every Sunday I get an email

056from Lightseek telling me what she's been up to. Um I can also at any time hop on and see what um her device how often it's hitting the internet and we also have screen time features set up on our iPad so any parent can have that turn on their student's iPad and if they would like we can email them screenshots of what's happening on the device. Um this is my child's screen time as well and fortunately it was a couple weeks ago when she was writing her essays for college. I would have thought she would have spent more time as a senior on her iPad. Um but it is what it is. So we'll see where she gets accepted or not. So transparency pro uh protection and curation are some of the key parts of

057our environment. The next piece I'd like to talk about is just engaging instruction. Over the last 13 years we've spent hours and hours and hours and sessions on training teachers on how to effectively integrate technology. And this started back actually in 2011 with Susan Fletcher. And the first model you see there is called the Samar model. And when we talk about models, these are research-based instructional technology models. And we sit down with teachers and we talk to them about are you using the iPad just as a substitution tool? Are you using it really to redefine what you're doing in your classroom? And so we trained on SAMR for years. And then Dr. Ojima became the director of innovation and learning. And we switched to a different model called TAC and we really focused on pedigogy

058and how does technology and pedigogy work together to have a successful experience for students. What are your high yield strategies and how do you use technology with those? And then just recently this year we've brought on a new model called pickrat and that's really asking are kids using iPads in a passive way in the classroom? Are they using it interactively? Are they using it creatively? How are we really using devices on the daily in our classrooms? Also, when you talk about professional learning, I just want to put a list up there of some of the things we've trained our teachers on this year. First off, innovative instruction, which was the pickatrap model I just shared with you. Becky talked about and adaptive platforms. We use quite a few of those. Our learning management systems like

059Schooly and Seesaw, which are pretty interactive. We have classroom management tools. Not only can teachers watch what the students are doing in their classrooms in real time, they can control what their students are doing in real time. They can force them into an app or out of an app depending on what they'd like to do. We have our Apple native apps and we also have Google formative assessment. And as you guys know, we've started to tip our toes into AI and what that might look like for our teachers and students here in Midway. And finally, I just want to talk shortly about the student experience because ultimately these two things lead to what's happening in our classroom. And our ultimate goal is that our students are prepared to excel NA global. >> Exactly right. That's

060what we're going. So when our students in our classroom, we want their experiences to be we want them to be interactive and meaningful. We want them to have immediate and actionable feedback. We want them to have the ability to explore beyond their classroom. We want them to have personalized learning experiences and opportunities to create, collaborate, think critically, communicate. What we talk about a lot is students looking at real world problems and being able to solve them with real world skills and tools. And so what does that look like? Well, it could be robotics. It could be using AI. But a lot of times, for example, um tomorrow, first grade at Woodway, there's going to be students authoring their first books themselves, using their own research and their own images, and then they're going to use

061their own voice inside this app explaining their book. Meanwhile, at Middle School, there are students using an AR app where they're exploring the the Alamo, and they're able to go through that. Over at River Valley later on this year, they're going to be developing the cover for their leader in me binders and portfolios. They're going to get printed in a print shop and given out to all the students in the district. high school English class. Kids are presenting a presentation that's gonna make mine look horrible. Like it's it's board ready presentation. They're going to do it for their class, but while they're doing it, they're going to use their own iPad. They're going to record themselves doing the presentation, watch it back at home while they're filling out a rubric saying, "Okay, well, I did

062this well or I was a little shaky on that or this was pretty good." And they report back to their teacher so they can be better at what they're doing. And all these things are possible because we are onetoone iPad. We're giving these kids these experience every day to solve real real world problems. Now, I don't want to be naive. We are aware of screen time. We are aware of the common of what's coming up now, the the text and the literature. And Dr. Ojima has been doing quite a bit of research on what is screen time, what does it look like, and I'm going to step back and let her share with you what she's been working on in those terms. >> Sarah, real quick, can you explain to me what's going on in

063that picture where we have a caption that reads, "Oh, the horror." >> When we have what? >> In the library. Oh, is it out in the library? >> The the picture on the far right hand side. >> Oh, >> that that was a early on Shark Tank project prior to the GTE one and they had developed a a it had to do with a leash. They had designed a walking leash for dogs and that that one was really about how they were doing a hands-on project, but they had written a a graphic, a digital presentation to talk about what they had created. It's really about the balance is what this slide was about, showing you the balance of we do hands-on and digital together. You can't do them separate. Were there any other questions on

064that part before I hand >> the caption over their heads kind of always smile? >> Oh, I'm so Oh, yes. That must have been in October. >> Sarah. Sarah, real quick. Yes, sir. From a more of a technology standpoint, what I know yesterday was a fun day for all of us that build things on AWS, including me. Um, what how did Schooly other things fair under that? What were the issues? >> I got I I did receive an alert or two on Schooly, but I by the end of the day, I think we were up and rolling. Is Mr. Garn here? I'll let him I'll let him talk about the back side of things. >> Yeah. >> Well, somebody >> Yeah. Right. And that's the so the cautionary tale there is that you know what

065our classrooms prepared to move on if the if the cloud says not today you know um so I think from what my kids said it was mostly good but you know I just didn't know what we're prepared to deal with there so >> it goes back to good pedigogy and good instruction always that's that's what wins the day thank you for your question >> while we're transitioning to Becky I would say that one of the elements included in the bomb programs a data center that would give us some redundancy. It doesn't specifically speak to the AWS issue, but there are a number of other things that can happen with data and um should the bomb pass, it would give us a layer of protection that we don't currently have. Thank you. So, when we talk

066about um screen time, this really does just give us an opportunity to highlight the things that we do and the things that we talk about. We're very pedigogy focused, which is the instructional strategies and how developmentally appropriate it is for us to talk about device usage and the ways in which we use these devices in the classroom. And so um just a neat key point to look at. We have um district walkthroughs that we collect every classroom, every principal, every campus. We walk in classrooms. There's um an option on our walkth through templates that says iPad in use or iPad not in use. This is a snapshot of walkthroughs up to what date? The beginning of October. >> Last week. >> Okay. So last week when principles walked in classroom principles assistant principles district overall

067only 35% of the time when they were in classrooms did they see a child using an iPad. In our elementary schools it was less than that. a quarter of the time they were in classrooms, they saw a student using an iPad. In secondary, it was about half of the time. So when you think about grand scheme of things, we're not using iPads all of the time. So if the AWS cloud goes down, we do have a plan because we're not completely dependent on the devices. Part of the reason of for that is because of the philosophy of screen time for students. So it's a unique opportunity for us to share this. Now kind of the the ground rules for this our best practices in technology integration is to focus on active engagement. So we want

068our tools to focus on creativity, collaboration, research, not passive use, which would be watching videos or doing worksheets. Something that Sarah referred to earlier as substitution. If I could do it on a piece of paper, but I've just created a digital version of it on my iPad. it's not really doing anything new for me. I might as well just use the pencil and paper and I can do that. Sometimes I need to do that. So find ways that this enhances um the instruction in order to use a tool. Otherwise, use something else. You don't have to use technology all of the time. And clearly we don't. Um and then we want a balance. You've got to have a balance of hands-on alongside the other meaningful technology integration. And then we don't have technology iPad free

069time. we need purposeful use um when we're using the iPad. So, we look through this um we look at this through the lens of what is developmentally appropriate at that age. It is less about minutes to me and more about meaningful learning. So, when we're talking about students that are in preK and K, they are barely going to use a device in their classroom. During the day, they might use it for 60 minutes. And this is not in one setting. This is I might come to it and record myself reading or interact with it in some type of um language type um program, but it is in small amounts of time because at my developmental stage in prek and kindergarten, pre-K students don't even have an individual device assigned to them. Kindergarters do. Um but

070it stays put away the majority of the time. The focus in that classroom is play-based learning. I don't need a device for that. Um, they're working on developing social skills and they're working on developing language skills. And so I don't need technology for the 450 minutes that I'm in school. So maybe up to 60 minutes I might use the device, but for the majority of the time I'm not. On occasion, all of the students in the classroom might need something read to them. And so the device is really helpful because if I'm a teacher of a kindergarten class and I have 22 children, I can't read individually to every single child. I could, but it would take ages. And then what are the other 20 doing while I'm reading to that one child? But if

071everybody can have the text read to them with their headphones, then everybody's got individualized instruction and personal personalized instruction. So it's helpful. But like at the developmental level, the their thinking level at that time, they're working on very specific skills for that age range. When I move up to grades one and two, we lengthen that time a little bit. Um, when it might be used within your 450 minute day, you might use it up to 90 minutes because you begin to have multiple subjects that you're learning. You might have language arts, you might have a little math, but at that stage, their developmental stage, we're talking about emerging self-regulation. So, I can use a device on my own for a little bit longer. It's mostly teacherdirected and adult-directed. I'm not doing lots of individualized tasks

072on my own, but I've also got some opportunities where I can do a little bit more peer collaboration. So, we might be working in pairs on an assignment. iPads are great for that because the teacher can track what's going on and we can work on projects together. So developmentally, I'm doing some of the recall thinking, that's the remember pieces, but I can put those initial rope memory recall type remember level of thinking pieces with the understanding because I can begin to put those building blocks of learning together and then I can use that to interact with my iPad a little bit more or with my lessons a little bit more. But I'm not doing it mostly on the technology. I do it a little on the technology. As I move up to the next grade

073levels, you'll see that the time extends for you back on the first grade. >> Yeah. >> Do we take any type of survey when kids get in first grade to see who has never seen an iPad before or who doesn't have any technology at home? Do we do we do any kind of data for that to know >> which of our kids don't have access to anything at home and this might be all new learning for them. Do we do anything? >> We've never done anything like that. >> I just wondered I'm not sure that's ever been a stumbling block. >> I don't know if there'd be a stumbling block. I I just thought it might be interesting data to have to in the very beginning when the kids first come to our district if

074or because kindergarten they're not >> like you said they're not really using it. >> But >> just as a curiosity to to know with our socioeconomic um >> status and all our different kids, >> what playing field are they coming in? >> Sure. >> At level. And then that's one of the things we want to introduce to the kids that don't have it at home, right? They do get to that. >> Well, and even if they have it at home, have they used it in a way that they interact with it in an academic manner? Correct. >> Or have I only watched a video >> on a device, >> right? I didn't know if we tracked that. >> Using it for learning and using it for passive use is very different. >> Two different things

075>> for sure. >> So I move into third grade. Parent interactions are huge. So I can begin to do that group work. I'm learning social skills. I can focus on longer tasks so I can begin to work on projects. My time is lengthening a little bit because I have multiple subjects. So we're starting to change classes between third and fifth grade. So I've got a reading class and a math class and possibly a science class and maybe a social studies class. So I'm going to need a little bit of time in those classes. But in my 450 minute day still, it may only be up to 120 minutes that I might use the device. It's probably less than that. But I'm able to begin applying logical rules. So my brain is developing a little bit

076more so that I have these opportunities to do a little bit longer task and I can do multiple steps of a task. I can organize. I can do more sophisticated things. So it's appropriate at that point. By the time I get to sixth through 8th grade, I can use application of the skills that I know and I'm getting to the point where I can do abstract thinking and I've got this growing autonomy. So I can begin to make decisions about information. So my cognitive thinking I'm I'm approaching the analysis level of thinking because I can make decisions and decide what does this mean and I can measure against what I know already. So I can apply these like systematic and hypothetical reasoning skills. So there's more that I can do on my own and with

077others. And so it's appropriate for me to have these individualized projects so I can have individualized learning and the iPad is a great tool to allow me to do that because there's I begin to have more and more freedom which is working us into what we do in high school. So by the time we get to high school, this says 180 minutes. There may be more than that. Notice there is a disclaimer there because if you have advanced coursework and many of you have had children that are in AP classes and you know that you may have 45 minutes of class but you also have some homework outside of that because you're writing or doing some uh math work outside of class as homework. So you may spend some more time because we do submit

078a lot of that information through our platforms. Um, so there may be more time, but you've got the skills to be able to do that and to process that. So you can think critically and systematically. You can solve problems. You can think abstractly and you're able to track your projects. You can um control and manage your abilities. You know what you are capable of and you can you can process what you need to in these classes. And then you've got five to eight classes a day. So that time may need to be broken up because you've got a management system that you're logging into. You may have assignments in different classes. So you're going to spend a more significant amount of time on a device at these levels, but you're at a maturity level where

079you can manage that. Still, you're at school 450 minutes. So we're not on a device every minute of the day. I think the most important thing for us to remember is that what we want to focus on is the appropriate use of the device and not the amount of minutes of the device. Because what we ultimately want to focus on is the developmental stage of the student and what's best for them at that level of thinking and how we bring information and instruction to them. that's going to be the most appropriate thing for their success at the cognitive and developmental level they are at the time. So the information comes from um child development researchers. It comes from American Academy of Ped pediatrics, World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control. They have recommendations of time

080not specific to education. Nobody really steps into the education world with time limits, but they do have recommendations on developmental stages and that's where some of these time components are developed. But um most of our time recommendations are based on what we believe is developmentally appropriate because of where they are in that developmental stage. What questions do you have for us? >> I have just another quick question. Um, when we had the intermediate schools, I know the elementary school students did not take their iPads home. >> Right. >> Now that fifth grade has gone back down to elementary school. Is that still the case for uh K through five? Do they keep their iPads at school all the time? >> Okay. I just didn't know. Right. >> So, okay. >> When we're getting to upper

081elementary and middle school, you talk about lengthening the use of time. Are are the tasks they're working on lengthy enough that that it's helping develop their attention span so they're not flitting from activity to activity like they they might be in front of it completing something where they're using technology that requires them to focus for you know a length of time. >> Does that make sense? >> Yeah, they do have more projects with multi-steps. We had teacher leader academy last week and they were showing some um projects that they had made. They'd used the pickrat model and had um students use a a rubric they had given them and then they were finding um picture representations to build out resources within different countries. And so there were multiple steps that the students were responsible for.

082And so they'd given them parts of the class period to collect the re to research the resources, find representations of the resources, put the resources into their own design on Canvas or Canva, and then load that into the class platform so that they could do a presentation on it for the class in the next space. So they were sixth graders. So yes, they can follow multi-steps and then follow through that process and then they're they're responsible for completing those tasks and then representing their thought process and how they came to find all that information to their classmates later on. >> Clearly there's a huge difference between being on a screen where you're clicking all the time and being on a screen where your attention is focused because you are task oriented trying to complete specific

083steps. >> Right. >> Absolutely. So um and I I know we're talking about the one to one uh usage here but in the professional world still most of the world deals in PCs >> are know do we still have traditional computer labs are there some coursework that's still done you know in the PC world >> we have a lab or two at the high school because there is some software specific to some programs we have four five nine we have nine labs at the high school. >> Okay. >> Because they have uh program specific or software specific to a a PC. >> Yeah. >> Other questions from the board. >> I I I'm not going to be here in the future. >> Really? >> What? >> But I'm curious. Say it again. >> No, I'm

084agreeing with this thing. >> Yeah. What' you say? >> Brought it in. >> One of the things that I know that that we have done over time and appropriately so when we're looking at student academic performance, we compare ourselves to other peer districts. I'd be curious going forward as part of that comparison process to know how many of our peer districts that we're really looking to to compare ourselves, not just the state, >> not just in Mlennon County, but truly >> comparable size districts, comparable socioeconomic makeup, etc., etc. >> How many of those have one to one initiatives? How many don't? And what do their numbers look like? Um, and and is this level of one to one and how we use it, is it elevating us above districts that don't have it >> or

085are we below districts that don't have it and they're doing better than we are? And I'd be curious what those numbers look like. >> Yeah, >> absolutely. >> As I said, I won't be here. Yeah, >> these folks might want to these folks might want >> We'll let you email in your questions. >> Be here for the public comments. >> So, I uh my question I guess is a little bit and it's appropriate that that Sarah Collins was presented as well on this. Um it's a little bit of a professional development question too because I think that um the we will be most effective in how we use the devices with students if the teachers are taught well how to use the devices with students, right? And not and it's not just >> let's don't

086just give them free time or let's don't just engage in something passive, right? But but how do we really use it well with those students? And I know that you my own kids over the years have had great experiences with teachers that they felt like, you know, didn't just say use the iPad because it's there, but they actually walked them through some pretty pretty cool stuff. >> Um, and then teachers who, >> you know, it it's it's five weeks in and they still haven't learned how to use parent square. So I think what >> you know, how has over the last you said since 2012, right, we've come out with this. How have we sort of seen teachers adopt this and come along best practices and what you know what do we do to the

087new teacher that comes to the district that says right >> I I don't I don't know these platforms we don't do this right so how right >> what do we have in place to do that >> so we have new teacher uh training days there's three days before the rest of the teachers come back and there's an instructional technology day embedded into that day combined with some other things because we do the classroom management plan and our curriculum day and other things. So there's a hybrid of all of that. So we have those days for them to learn the basic platforms and how to use the device because now everybody's coming from a onetoone because co everybody went onetoone but they didn't all go the same device and they didn't all do it the same

088way we do it um or have the training that our teachers were accustomed to having or the expectation that you use it in the way we use it. Um so we do have that. I think the biggest help is that we have learning coaches that can come alongside and continue the training because the best professional learning doesn't happen one time at the beginning of the year. It's embedded throughout the school year just in time by professionals on your campus or by your team and it's embedded with your current content so that you know how to use it and can turn around and use it in your classroom the next day. And so our learning coaches help do that on campuses throughout the school year. So, you've also got a campus mentor. So, somebody that's with

089you. So, if you get stuck in a program, you can go across the hall and talk to your campus mentor who can help you get through the grade book or something along those lines or help you post something in Schooly. But, you've also got that learning coach on your campus or around your campus that can facilitate that. And then we're going to work to help with those professional learning days throughout the school year. That's why we put them in our calendar when we do so that we continue to touch on that again and again. We're also working with the teacher leader academy. So I've got 35 teacher leaders now that like one of the projects that they worked on in this last um session was to bring back an example that they had used Picrat.

090So they're using this technology model. They're um bringing examples, artifacts, things that they've done in their classroom. The expectation is they're sharing that on campus. So we're building in technology leaders in the teachers as well to help model and help along the way. Um, COVID was tough. Um, and we didn't start stepping out of our box as much as we had prior to that with maybe some innovative ideas because we did some things to get through. Um, but we're coming out of that now and we're doing more creative and innovative things again. Um, and I I think we're at a time where we can encourage more creative and innovative things with iPads where for a while we were nervous to ask anybody to do anything extra because we didn't want to push more than we

091needed to because we felt like teachers were overburdened with everything. But, um, we're ready. Um, and I think we're in a really good place to start moving forward and ask a little more um, of that innovative and creative piece. So, um, we've got lots of people who can help train on it. We've got teacher leaders who can help on it. And we plan to embed those professional learning components throughout the school year. So, it's not a one-time, um, offering that we never go back in touch again. >> I think that's great. Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Do do you screen for that technology aptitude in the hiring process? Does that come up? >> We don't. I mean, I know we're just trying to find teachers >> if only >> to a high degree, but Yeah.

092>> Yeah. No, but we can train them. So, >> as long as they're willing. >> Some people are easier to train. >> As long as they're willing. Yeah, we can do it. As long as we're willing. Yeah. >> I just I want to compliment our district since we started the one onetoone with Adam and then like you said, Seth and now Jess. It's impressive how the how hard and diligent everyone's worked to stay a top of the digital world to to find new programs to monitor the kids because when we first got those I couldn't see how much screen time my kid had had on the computer. I couldn't see I couldn't pop in and see what they were doing. So, it's very impressive that we've stayed in front of the curve because we care

093about >> um what the kids are doing on those devices and we wanted to be education focused. So y'all, we've worked so hard over these years when things come out the different ways to to monitor and to parent and for the parents to be involved and to see everything that their kids are doing and then to take the time to come up with this screen time and learn how much time is good for a student in a day based on their developmental level. It just shows, I think, how hard and diligent and concerned we are with what the kids are doing on their devices. Is it educational? Is it beneficial? Is it extra? >> Absolutely. >> And I think it's just >> when you've been here as long as I have and you see how

094far we've come with this and we've all we haven't just kind of had our heads down and this is how we do it. We're always going to do it this way. >> We're always trying to keep it safer, keep it, you know, just just stay on top of it. try to stay ahead of the students as well and then just do a I just think it's amazing what we've done if you look back over all these years and all the programs and things we have changed and adapt to give parents more access control to know what the students are doing it's just I was sitting here thinking about that you know >> absolutely >> well probably since the chalkboard there's never been anything as disruptive to education right I mean you say all these years

095>> a decade is such a short period of time >> you're right >> and it's amazing what what we're doing now in classrooms versus a decade ago. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> It's going to be totally different a decade from now, you know. >> Yeah. >> We're kind of circling back to what Sarah said about being prepared for a global society. And I'm tracking back to a presentation you did and it was worldwide >> world economic form report. >> Yeah. World econom report. >> Yeah. about the the integration of and the role technology is going to play in the careers that these students are being prepared for right >> now. They're they're going to need to know how to work a job where they use these resources and have this experience >> and that's going

096to continue to increase. So I I love that we're getting them ready. It's it's amazing to me how much that has shifted as we saw. Absolutely. >> A good thing to look up if you're interested what they're going to need to know when they get out into the workforce, >> right? Because not all people have access to this at home and the districts that aren't can't provide it to all their students, >> right? >> Is not helping those students to have a foot up when they when they do get out of school, >> right? And I think one of the reasons too when you get in the high school level maybe some of the minutes are more is because you also have group projects and maybe some people don't have access at home and so

097they have their they ask their group to do it at school you know before they leave. They're just lots of >> small little minutia details that we don't all know about that but it's just brings us >> we want all of our kids to have the same advantages and the same excellence. Absolutely. So I think it's awesome. >> Very good. So, why we fought for it in the first place. And >> I want to I want to show y'all something real quick that I shared with a group last week. Um that that's kind of hard to can you go ahead and hit a slideshow on that, Miss W. So, it's a little bigger. Thank you. I just want to point something out to you and it kind of speaks to what Mr. Russ's getting at,

098but not directly. So, you see the percent masters. That's number of our students scoring at the mast's level on the last round of assessments. And then to the column exactly to the right, that's percent of students are ecodis. And the group you're looking at is districts with 5 to 10,000 students enrollment and an eco an eco dis number of 40% or lower. Okay. If you'll look at Midway ISD, 35% of our students are scoring at the M's level and we have the highest percentage of students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds of any other school district on that page. What I want to highlight is that clearly there are others who are getting higher levels of mast's performance than we are and that's why we've set the target at 60. We're going to go catch

099Carol. >> But what I would point out to you is look at their percent of eco discs. >> Yep. >> And so we were there's been a little discussion about who has computers versus who doesn't and that sort of deal. And I I can I would feel very confident telling you most of the kids coming from those homes have some sort of device in their in their household. But what's really really interesting is if you look at the districts below us on this chart, Dripping Springs 34% Masters, 7.5% Ecois. I'm not I mean gosh, one of my best friends in this business is Soup and Dripping Springs. But when we talk about is technology helping or hurting our kids, is it acting as a force multiplier or is it dragging us down? Are we seeing

100that the ability to make sure that our students have uh devices closing the equity gap or making it broader? Look at uh district I I mean pick any of them. The closest one in Ecodis to us is Barber's Hill. I mean I'm sorry, New Brothel's at the bottom at 36.1%. Their masters rate 21%. >> Mhm. And so what this data demonstrates is that Midway I I would argue that Midway ISD is one of the greatest values in the entire state of Texas because we are outperforming our demographics. Our demographics suggest we should be performing much lower. And yet we're still achieving a 35% masters level while having a 37.4% ecois population. And that number is growing by the way. >> And that 35% is going to grow. >> Yeah. And so, um, we do have

101ambitious goals, but it's because we're already breaking the education model with the success we're having. I'm not going to tell anybody that it's all because of technology. It's because of great teachers, great PD, a fantastic teaching and learning department. I've already bragged on the principles tonight. It takes a whole system to be able to do this. But kind of to the point that we've been making kind of roundabout, there there is no one thing that makes the difference when you're trying to accomplish the numbers that we're trying to accomplish. But we've been having this conversation tonight about academic data and growth in the gain year of middle year. What are we doing with C with data and how do we respond to it? How are we measuring and what adjustments do we make? What are

102the tools we're using in the classroom? I think it's fair for someone to say, are we being successful? And if we are being successful, what's the order of magnitude? And I feel like this is interesting data to try and try and answer that question in particular. So, I I thought that that might be an interesting slide to kind of wrap up the overall conversation about what's going on in Midway. >> I have two comments to make with regard to that. Dr. Allen, not just you, but but the topic and then other folks have questions, comments, take those up, too. But to Dr. Proteima's comment about the pandemic. Um Ron White, great comedian, paraphrasing him, nobody wanted to be in the pandemic. They got thrown into the pandemic. >> Right. >> And and my point there

103is is that I think all those districts that had to scramble around, use literally billions of federal dollars to buy into the one to one, but had no preparation for it. You can't compare what they've done in the period of time to what we did. And I know there's there's probably a lot of districts that technically have one to one that are our peers right now. So my question before might not be quite as relevant as it might have appeared, but what I would say is they use the federal dollars to fund that and we're five years into it. And I won't ask Mr. Garn to talk about what 5-year-old technology and where that is and are they going to continue to fund it because that's one of the things that this board committed to

104in 2012. And it's not an insignificant financial commitment. And everybody that's paid any attention knows how tight school district finances are. And where are you going to come with the money to replace 51:1 technology that the federal money paid for back then when >> that is long since run out. So those are my comments. >> Anybody else? Thank you, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> And to leave on a financial note that I did uh Wesley the monthly finance report. >> Okay. Uh good evening, President Russ, members of the board. Um on page 8 uh3, I'm sorry. Yeah, page 83 of your board packet, you'll see the beginning of our financial report for the month ended September 30th. Um if you'll go down a few slides to page um 87, we'll take a look um at

105our um enrollment. On the left hand side there, um you'll see uh three graphs that show um our enrollment compared to snapshot date uh over the past several years. Of course, snapshot date is usually the end of October. We haven't reached that yet. Uh but the 2526 numbers are what uh we currently have for enrollment. Um so you can see there a comparison by um grade level and campus. Um our current enrollment is 8,726. So about um 98 students less than last year's snapshot uh which was about 25 students less than the previous year's snapshot. We're really um about the same enrollment as the 22 23 school year. um at this point. Um and the reason we're looking at enrollment and our financial report is because um as you know enrollment is a good indicator

106of our weighted average daily attendance and that dictates um our tier one entitlement and our state aid. So on the right hand side there you can see the chart of our average daily attendance um and WADA. Um you can see the last two columns there what we budgeted for ADA and WADA and what we're projecting. So we budgeted 8,199 in ADA. Um and the projection um is based off so we have only our first 6 weeks of ADA data in and so our first six weeks ADA was 8,247. Uh but what I do is compare the last several years the first six weeks ADA where we were and compare that to how we finished the year. And so usually from the first six weeks to how we finish the year there's a drop um in

107our ADA. Um and so we're projecting um it's going to change a lot. Still five six weeks to go. Uh projecting 8,157 uh for our ADA. Um however, and that's 41 less than what we budgeted. However, our WADA, you can see a couple lines down there. We're projecting 11,98 [Music] which is higher than actually what we budgeted. Um and this data is really consistent what we've seen the last several years. Even though we've had a slight drop in enrollment the last few years and in ADA the last few years, we've seen our WADA actually hold strong or even increase. Um and a lot of that um is due to um our special ed weighted FTE. So if you look down about halfway or um down that um that chart on the right is the specialed

108weighted FTEEs. Uh for this year, we're projecting,414 uh which you can see is more than what we budgeted and also more than uh you know the last several years. And so um we're seeing that number increase. So our W is increasing. So our state aid will increase um accordingly. Um now there's reason why um special ed students um have weighted funding because they usually require more resources um smaller class sizes, specialists um things of that nature. And and really it's it's really kind of what we're seeing across the state from I hear from other districts um the having declining enrollment but um but higher um special ed um student counts. Now, not in the situation where we actually make up for it in funding. Um that's kind of unique to us, but um that's kind

109of where we stand um for our ADA after the first six weeks. Of course, I'll keep you posted as we progress throughout the year. Any questions on enrollment? Okay. Um I did include um a couple slides since it is um we are coming up on our bond election here. Early voting has started. Um uh I wanted to take a look at our long-term outstanding debt. Uh I had a couple charts here that was provided by EO BK Financial uh securities. Um and you can see here um this is a comparison of districts that fall um into a few categories here. Uh student enrollment is 7500 to 10,000 students. Enrollment growth over the last 5 years. So I just mentioned we've dropped the last couple years, but over the last five years we still have experienced

110enrollment growth. So any districts um with uh that enrollment span any enrollment growth over the past five years and that also have $und00 million of outstanding debt. So there's 21 districts in the state that fall into these three categories. Um and so you can see we're on the far right there. Our total outstanding debt currently is $146 million. Um if the bond were to pass and we issued 84 million additional dollars and we'd still be um the lowest on this chart at 230 million of outstanding debt. Um, so I think that just shows kind of where we compare other districts um that are similar to us um and just to kind of show that um we do have um you know very low levels of debt uh according to our to our size. And the

111next um the next chart um as you know our INS tax rate um is what services our long-term debt. Um this is the same group of districts here uh and our INS tax rate you can see is there is 24 cents. Uh Barbber's Hill is actually 23.94. almost identical to us. Um after that there's a 5, you know, increase and it goes up from there. Um actually the the last five districts on the chart are at 50 cents which is the highest INX tax rate that you can um legally have um for a school district in the state of Texas. >> Any questions on these uh debt charts? >> I I have question. What's the uh and I know it's not necessarily related to this, but what's the current uh with the existing bonds? What's

112the current payoff assuming no defeasance? What's the current timeline on payoff >> of the of the the bonds we're about to issue or you're just saying of ourund >> of our 146? >> 146 if we paid off everything? >> Oh, I don't know. That's a good question. Jonathan, are you asking about date we would have it paid off? >> Our last bond was in 2020 and we issued 20-year >> bonds. So, >> 2040, >> I would say 2040. >> Mhm. >> Assuming no defeat. sending notifications from probably >> which well but again that's a credit to this board and its leadership in in the sense that it is very common across the state of Texas for districts to to they typically take 30 or 40year bonds district has historically tried to keep ours at 20

113on the long end and so that's part of why this this the leadership of this board over the years has been able to keep these debt numbers so low is because there there's there's a difference between debt and the responsible debt And these these numbers suggest that one could easily make the argument that we're not carrying nearly as much debt as our comparison districts. We have the second low lowest INS of our comparison districts and we uh amortize that over a much shorter period of time >> and getting paid them off and we get >> much many of them paid off early. >> Yes. The fees early and often. >> Yeah. I'd like to see the chart of how much interest we've saved the taxpayers. Um 11.4 million in early retired debt is what I

114think we communicated somewhere somehow. >> Yes. On the the bond fact sheet from the 2020 bond we saved over five in the past five years I've saved over 5 million in interest costs. >> Woohoo us. >> That's awesome. >> And I think our INS rate is lower than what it was 5 years ago. So since 2018 the INS rate in this district has dropped from 28 to24. And what's remarkable about that is if you think about how much work the district did since 2018 to improve and add to our facilities while consistently lowering the INS tax rate. Since 2018 we've gone down 38 pennies. Some of that through tax compression for sure, but uh some of that also through the leadership of this board consistently lowering the INS tax rate while making sure that the

115needs of the students are being met. >> And we're living in the great state of Texas and in uh in the part of our city that has some of the best growth in >> property values of anywhere in Mlennon County. Yes, >> there's a lot there's some things in our control and we're making decisions with them and there's some things that we should be very thankful that are happening >> outside of our control. >> Hey, so if we uh to circle back to the the actual some of the enrollment data and the WADA numbers, if we if we land the plane there at that 11098, >> it's about 90 WADA above budget. Is that around 600,000? Is that how that >> Oh, yes. And I did meant to mention that. So, um, we adopted a

116three and a half million deficit. Um, if we finished projecting here, then we'd have several hundred,000 more, you know, better than what we had budgeted. So, yes, that's about that's >> okay. >> Doesn't solve the budget deficit, but it helps. >> Let's make sales. >> Better than the other one. >> Yeah, that's right. >> Absolutely. >> Other questions for Wesley or comments on the monthly finance report? If not, uh, discussion of process to appoint new Midway ISD trustee. Dr. Allen, are you talking about that? >> Well, I'll kick this off. Um, and in the, um, the action sheet here is a little bit incorrect to be honest with you. So, what this is intended to do is to give the board an opportunity to discuss uh, the process that would be used to appoint a

117new trustee given the fact that we have a pending vacancy. And so it's not to talk about candidates or reorgan the board and all that all that would be appropriate for close session. This is really just an open discussion where if the board wanted to point administration to begin to work on task for example make sure we have a website that can receive applications for those who are interested. I have provided for you at the dis um sample questions that have been submitted by individuals um like I I gave y'all some to think about. Miss Vic responded with some that she kind of liked. Uh Mr. Whit responded with some that he kind of liked. And then Miss Whites gave us a page of questions. Um and so if y'all want to look at those

118at all and give um administration direction on how we can assist with the process. Um because it has been a question like what are we going to do and how are we going to fill it? And I've said well the board has to to determine that. Um there there there had been some discussion about there being an an interview process and uh the ability to take some applications maybe with written submission to questions. And so this really just give the board a time to clarify what their expectations of administration are so that we make sure we're prepared to um serve the interest of the board and the community as we go through this very sad time. >> Yes. Very sad time. Regretfully so we asked you to do these things. >> Yeah. Um, >> yes,

119I think I do believe also the website already has a little statement on it that we will >> under construction >> be doing giving the administration more direction, but I think we need to talk about do we want to, like you said, I want us to be transparent. I would like it to as many people that are interested in filling that seat to have an opportunity to to put their hat in the ring. And so I like the idea of having this place on the website, one to get the application and then two to have questions that they need to submit to us and then like you said then we would pick what three or four I don't know pick a number and then have some interviews >> and then we want to try to

120point the person where maybe by the end of the year I don't remember by January ended into end of December but anyway those are kind of my thoughts I don't remember timeline. >> Yeah just remind us again Mr. President Russ um your honor to be um what is it? December 1 is your official date to taking the oath. Is that right? >> Yes, sir. Yes. >> Okay. So, we would be we would be on track with what Miss Vick said to try to try to identify someone to be able to be sworn in in December potentially. >> Absolutely. >> But we don't Yeah. We don't have to wait till he's sworn in to get the process. >> No. No. Right. But but to to set an end date and then work back from there, >>

121have him sworn in by then. But if there's another way y'all want to do, we need to talk about if there's any another way anyone wants to do it or if everybody's on board doing any that way and then do we need to talk about these questions and tonight give you all the questions we want to to use or >> that's at the discretion of the board. Y'all could y'all could kind of point me in the direction of some or having seen these if >> Well, since we still have the advantage of him for a second. >> Yeah. you've dealt with a lot of other boards that have done this process. Are there any best practices that we should uh or lessons learned? Are there things that you know of or applications that you've seen

122other districts use that that were topnotch? >> Good question. What I would suggest to the board is that that you be very very clear as far as what the expectation is from anybody that wants to apply so that you have a chance to compare apples to apples and you don't get somebody that applies but they really don't give you the same quality or quantity of information that somebody else is giving and it's real hard then to compare. So, y'all should be very specific and and directive as far as what you want from the applicants, right? And and so, and then the board just needs to y'all could you don't have to take board action right now because you're going to have to call those meetings. every interview that you would conduct. I mean, you can

123conduct multiple interviews in a called meeting, but you can't interview without it being a board meeting, >> right? >> So, you don't have to take any action tonight to decide when that is, >> but it's certainly appropriate now, as M. Vick said, to get up on the website what you want the application document to look like. If if you're going to have a CV or a resume from folks, what you want that to address, do you want them to answer these questions online or do you want to have the people come prepared to answer these kind of questions at an interview? >> Decision points and and either way is good, right? But but y'all all know what we did in hiring a superintendent, right? in that process and what that looked like. And one of

124the key pieces of that was making sure that everybody that we did interview that they had the same opportunity to be asked the same kind of question so we could be comparing them on a on a similar basis and we certainly expected the same thing from them in the behind the scenes paperwork and what they provided there. And I would just say that same process even though it's a board member and not a superintendent. >> Sure. >> And then then I think depending on the qu the number and the quality of the applications I' I'd be looking to interview at least three. Once you get up, y'all y'all know from superintendent interviews, man, once you get up where you're interviewing five people, you start to fog over in terms of remembering what people said and

125everything. So, three, four, five people, six at the most if you've got six really top-notch applications. >> Is is there a timeline that would be normal to have the application open? Like, is that something we is there by law? There has to be a certain amount of time. Do we we do like two weeks because then we have to set our our >> that how y'all run the appointment process is strictly up to y'all. Y'all could post a meeting to take action to appoint somebody and just appoint somebody without talking to anybody >> there. There is no legal requirement that you go through any particular period of time. You know, running elections is a real different matter. Is Miss Win hiding behind that really, really outstanding student created? >> Can we just pick and appoint

126someone even if they don't apply? Because that could go really quick. We >> Yeah. Yeah. And and they could they could say thanks but no thanks. What do you What in the world are you thinking? >> No, but but truly the the the appointment process is it's what y'all want to make it as a board. um including the timelines. >> So, we could put a couple questions on the application and then if we wanted to and then decide to have a couple questions off of these, ask them in person. >> Yeah, I I actually like that idea of having some some some more basic open-ended questions to start with and then get some more targeted questions for an interview. I think that's great. >> To that point, the questions that that I submitted um earlier

127this week and they they could be uh used online or or maybe even more appropriately interview. I wanted to let you all know um that shared with Dr. Allen these questions were generated from content from the presentation I created with my leadership TASBY research team for a presentation we did called new board member onboarding and induction how to hit the ground running when you don't know what you don't know and that was something we spent about six months in discussion and research and creating a presentation and we offered it to new board members at summer leadership institute last summer. So, these reflect months of research and group discussion inspired by a lot of if only we knew then what we know now insights. We we discussed at length things that we wish potential board member

128candidates knew coming in. And so, we have an opportunity on the front end here to to question, interview, have discussions with potential new board members that target some of those. We really hope that you know this before you accept this position conversations. So just wanted to point that out to you all. That was substantive and very productive discussion we had. >> So and it was uh uh nine trustees from all over the state of Texas representing all kinds of district sizes and backgrounds and whatnot. So >> So Pete, if we don't decide questions tonight, how do we do that? Is that something we can just do online? we can all be sent out and then I don't >> in terms of deciding the questions I mean I I think it's fine for what I would

129suggest just so that it's it's all above board and clear if y'all want to get this rolling and you want the board as a board to decide what questions y'all got it down here you can decide tonight or I would call a short special call meeting for the board to to do that because I I don't think it's appropriate to be doing that >> right here >> outside. Well, it's it's a it's >> I don't have any issue with it, you know, because >> deciding what the questions are going to be tonight is but doing that without there being a called meeting. >> Yeah, >> I'm concerned about that. >> No, no, that makes sense. That's what I was asking. >> Yeah. So, the agenda item that we have posted is sufficient for us to

130>> Yeah. to process >> on that or timeline or anything if we wanted to. Y'all are not taking substantive action by >> deciding we want to ask these questions and we want these questions to be the ones that you know are >> as it were >> at any of the interviewer and then do you have an application drawn up like does it have the CV request on the resume on there we haven't >> nothing's live yet all of that >> I mean that you created not live >> do we have a template that we are that we don't We don't necessarily have to build something from scratch. >> No. If if you will, like if you were to tell us tonight, we want people to submit a resume or CV. Here are the questions we

131want asked. We want it submitted electronically and we want every question to have a 500 word count. Like to your point about spec or 250 word, >> we'd be ready to roll and have that up live. If not first thing tomorrow, certainly by the end of the day, you feel good about that anyway? >> Yes. because we've been kind of putting some shells together in anticipation of this so that we could move expeditiously if the board chose to. >> And and just to be clear, back to your question, Colin, when I say decide the questions, I'm talking about y'all decide the questions that everybody then knows are going to be online, >> right? >> Y'all hold the call on the ones that you're going to, you know, so that nobody knows until they come in.

132>> Yeah. I was really just asking if we're sufficiently noticed to give that direction because it's on here this way. It's it's it's vague discussion of process. If that's sufficient notice for us to say to the superintendent, go make this process start. >> I'm comfortable y'all can tell administration, we want y'all to start that because it's not actually the board doing anything, right? You having the administration kick the ball off. And I appreciate Susan's comments about the transparency, right? Because this is very transparent. >> Yes. >> Anybody that's watching it or here or wants to go back watch the recording, they know exactly what the board's going to do. >> But I do think it would be good to be able to review these prior to or at the very latest at our November meeting

133so that we can make decisions about who to interview. So, I think from a timeline standpoint, if we can work back from there, you know, when when do we want the submission deadline to be? I'm assuming those could all flow to all of us to see so we'd be prepared to discuss maybe during a close session at that November meeting. >> Well, we need to remember timeline. There's Thanksgiving in November. Take a week off so that we lose a you know, we would lose a week in November to be able to enter, you know, in the process. I don't know. Should the application be online for two weeks? I have no clue. Should we start there? How long? We want y'all to put an application online. Is that correct? So when everybody >> Emily's nodding

134when you said two two weeks is sufficient. >> Is that too long? I don't know. It's not too long. Okay. Is that long enough? Two weeks. What is that? >> If nobody applies, it's not long enough. >> Yeah, that's exactly right. >> Well, that's a good point. You can always extend the time. >> Yeah, that's true. >> You can't Yeah, there's nothing >> because people who want to do it, they're going to >> do it right away. Yes, I know. I know. Should we just do it a week? Week doesn't seem very long. two weeks. >> Two weeks. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, we want to be >> trans working backwards. When do we need to have this application site live? >> I mean, if we can have it done by the four by the

135end of this week, then that that would give us through Friday, November 7th at 5:00 pm as like a deadline and then we could have the ability to review and figure out is there a special called for us to decide who we interview or do we tack that on to our November meeting to decide who to interview? I think we want to have a special call meeting because of the timeline and we want to have time to set up meetings, >> right? >> And then and then have them sworn in in December at this board meeting in December, >> which is December >> uh 17th 18th. >> Yeah. >> 16. I rather just kind of get it get it done. >> And when's the November meeting? >> 18th 18th. >> Throwing these dates around. >>

136Yeah. Um, so I think by the end of the week sounds everybody think that's good. We have it up in live by the end of the week >> and due by due by November 7th. >> That's two weeks and a couple of days essentially. >> Yeah. You like the Friday. Is that why you're picking? >> I just think a Friday. >> Okay. >> It's a reasonable thing to say Friday by 5:00 p.m. >> Okay. >> Are we working that Friday? We're not going to cause staff to have to be here when they're not. Yeah, we are. It's the 31st that we're off for. Okay. Yeah. And do we want a resume submitted or CD submitted with application? I would think so. >> Doesn't hurt. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Do we ask something like your

137midway involvement? >> Well, that's Chris thought provokers. If you look at questions on that list, >> I've always found that the best predictor of future performance is past performance. So, I would focus on questions that we'll get some of that the resume, but why do you want to serve? Uh just I would leave it pretty wide open and see where they go with it. >> That's a good open questions Dr. Allen that that you know some of these questions that have been submitted. Why do you want to serve as a trustee? What does being a trustee mean to you? what experiences and abilities have prepared and qualified you. Uh you know that the questions in front of us I think are are are pretty good uh >> for the application >> application questions and looking

138at that and and reviewing the ones that I submitted >> um those the ones that that I brought forward would be I think more appropriate as interview questions. >> Yes. >> That would lend themselves to face to face discussion >> and I think I think that's true for the ones I submitted too. I think they're they're maybe better to couch in terms of a conversation. >> I think the ones that Chris and I would agree with Susan 1, three and four as far I mean if you think of it as like screener questions is kind of the way I look at it. They send a resume or CV and you know some screener questions to see is this person even somebody we want to bring in and then we really dig in more with like

139your questions or Pam's questions, >> you know, kind of like with this superintendent process. I think Chris's questions are great screener questions to at least get a sense for what's what's their motivation, what's their their background, what are they thinking when it comes to serving on the board, and then we can really dig in, you know, sink our teeth into it, so to speak, with the interview questions. So, agree. >> I like the resume, CV, some screener questions, get us an idea, and then figure out who we're going to interview. >> Maybe your experience in mid midway involvement. >> Yep. For sure. I think it's >> CV. Okay. >> Ask for references. >> Oh, that's a good one. >> So, we'll we'll give instructions that when submitting the resume or CV, include references, professional references,

140personal references, or just say references and see what we get. >> Both. Just >> Yeah. Because the unique thing about what we're doing as opposed to hiring someone, this person has to turn around and run at some point, run for an office. >> And they need to be electable. I wouldn't put in the qualifier for any CV or resume we ask for because if it were someone like me applying I have not held a professional career where my my resume would look different but that might list >> involved in community it needs to not certainly not be limited to professional 9 toive job kind of activities. >> We don't want someone to feel like they haven't had held a job they can't f turn in a resume. So maybe maybe you word it. >> I

141would also say we we don't want to limit ourselves uh to the what's the best way to put this the college class, >> right? >> Uh there are there are plenty of highly qualified people >> who never you didn't go to college and never put together uh you know I mean a resume of sorts have great experience. Yeah. Yeah. >> So maybe there's a way we just, you know, >> word it, >> say, you know, >> even some kind of >> tell us what your experience is, your professional or where your work, your career experience has been, either with a with a CV or a resume or just write it out or something. You know, >> here's an interesting thought and I throw it out to see what y'all think because one of the things

142we all have to do when we uh take our board seat is to submit a bio that's on the website that describes each one of us. I'm going to say someone who's not worked outside of the house. That was a bit of a struggle for me. But we all have it. Could it not look like something like that? >> Do your little bio. >> Yeah. Well, if if you were to write your own board bio using, you know, going by what the other board members have online, what would your what would yours look like? >> It's just a thought. >> Should we ask them to list all their social media uh handles and uh personas? Uh, >> well, it's a given that we're going to look them up, right? I mean, that's kind of No,

143hey, I I was actually going to say, so really the qualifications for this are 18 years of age, reside in the district, registered to vote. >> Yeah, >> it's pretty much the same as anyone else. So, >> I think it might be interesting if, you know, if we do get some folks that fit Mr. Tulles' description and we might even get someone who's a senior at Midway High School who wants to apply for this. >> I've seen it happen. In fact, my school board president, Marble Falls, first got on the board immediately after graduating from high school >> and was one of our most tenured board members at 30 years old. >> That's crazy. >> When we were at delegate assembly back in September, the young man sitting behind me is on the board of

144Waco ISD and he is a 2013 Midway graduate. >> Yep. >> Which I was really intrigued. on references. I would say you ought to specify a minimum number of reference and a maximum number, right? Because otherwise, >> you know, if if you don't do that, >> you're you're you're likely to get somebody that's they're going to give you way way too many. And if anybody's going to actually check them. >> Yeah. Three three to five would be >> to four. >> Two to five. >> Yeah. someone who's gone through an application process recently, you may have some insight on >> how the at least the state of Texas does it. So, >> yeah. Well, >> so am I hearing in in lie of a resume, a bio that includes personal professional experiences >> is is

145acceptable. >> Okay. >> Acceptable. >> Okay. So, resume or >> is that what we're saying? And or >> I think that's does that sound fair? Yeah. >> Okay. And then we and include between three and five references. Um, we we had there's been some discussion about the the questions that that I sort of gave youall to get your kind of thoughts going and I've heard the quote unquote Chris questions which is five and I've also heard I really liked one, three, and four. Do you like all five of them or or do you want to zero in on one, three, and four and then additional questions can be asked in person? >> That's my understand. >> I think one, three, and four I am at least on everybody else. >> Got it. Do you what

146would you like your preferred word count to be on those questions again to create a bit of a level playing field? 500 250 >> 500's great >> max 500 >> that seems like a lot isn't it? But okay, >> trust me I was limited to a hundred words on answering 10 questions on the judicial questionnaire and to substantively answer in only a 100 words. So 500 is not that many. >> Okay, >> trust me. Okay, >> you you English teachers out there, >> you can get to 500 pretty quick. >> This application have on there, of course, when this board meets >> and the have the requirements they need to meet to be on the board. >> We'll put that >> a link to it or something so they can see that. >> Okay. >>

147Because you don't want someone to apply and they they work, you know, they they they couldn't even make a meeting. >> Uh we need to create a portion of that that says general obligations. >> Yeah, there you go. There it is. Yeah, >> there you go. and general requirements to serve. >> Okay, >> so let me let me recap and see if I I know what I'm doing. We're we're and you know I'm saying we while looking at Emily a whole lot, but we're going to have we're going to have something on our website that will allow folks to submit an application to serve as a trustee with Midway Independent School District. That application will include a resume or um biography um that would include professional personal experiences. is they'll have at least three to

148five um between three and five references. We'll have on that same page a general description of obligations as well as what you have to qualify to serve as a board member. It's pretty wide open. They'll be asked to answer three questions online. I want to make sure I'm tracking with you on this. >> And it'd be the one, three, and four from the questions that I suggested with a 500 word count max. >> Yes. And then as those applications come in, we'd be able to shoot them to you digitally so you can start reviewing them. >> Okay. >> Then I also think it needs to be on there that your this position would only be good through May and you would have to run for election in May. So they would know the the term

149>> general obligations really. >> Yeah. Well, somewhere. >> Yeah. >> It's that's how long they obligated. >> And I think the way we'll do that, Miss Vick, to be super clear, is you would be required to run in the spring. You would need to file by X date. >> Yeah, because that that's coming >> and the elections on Y date and you're kind of campaigning. Okay. >> Some they may not realize that >> by and obviously the timeline. We would need to put information on there about the deadline, but also an expectation of when the board would >> consider applications and when the board expects to name a >> have interviews and then >> Yeah. I mean, I think I don't think we can tell them when the interviews would be, but I think we

150could tell them we expect to to name a trustee at the December meeting. >> Yes, sir. >> Sounds like you could have an entire timeline section >> regarding all any number of things here, >> but but leave that pretty open-ended in terms of the interviews because I think that's going to be dependent on the number there will be interviews, >> right? >> So, if it's agreeable, it'll be our intent to get this built >> um ASAP >> and then shoot it to the board for review. before the link goes live, shoot it to you so you can look at it. And when we do, I'll text you and say, "Check your emails and you can look at it." Okay? >> And then pending feedback, make adjustments, and then we'll get that thing live later than

151end of business Friday. Can we do that? >> And you'll advertise it on our different >> platforms that is available. >> Well, yeah, that's a good point, too. I think I think it's worth saying an open meeting for for the seven of us too that you know our our commitment to the process is hey people call us and say they're interested we send them to the website we we do that and not sort of have a >> I I don't want people to think that oh I can talk to this board member and sort of get get in their pocket or something right that it's it's an open process >> directed to the website >> sending everyone through through this yeah so >> agree agre >> good comment colleague Um, thinking back to other processes

152that I've seen happen, uh, for community, uh, do we want to allow community members to write a letter of reference? >> I think we said professional personal. Is that what you're saying? >> No, no, no, no. Them listing references, but like a lot of times I know >> people run, you know, trying to get appointed to city council, right? >> They send >> Yeah. A lot a lot of people will send >> letters of support >> or emails of support >> to the uh to the council members and I mean we may get those unsolicited. I don't know if we want to create a methodology for that as well or just let go >> because because he's right people will >> I mean people are going to >> I mean from my sense I would

153say are we should use our best efforts to focus on what's been submitted through the actual application knowing that people will do that but maybe if we come up with those three to six candidates to talk to maybe we tell them in preparation for your interview if you want to have >> you know some of your references submit a who are the refues you've already told us, you know, then that could be considered >> and and the reason that becomes important is the electability piece. >> Yeah. >> Right. You you want to see what kind of community support that person has in their, >> you know, their ability to get reelected. I think maybe a good practice would be if we get individual letters of recommendation or reference or whatever is if we can just

154try and forward it to the other board members. Like if I was going to get one from whoever and for some candidate >> and I see that I'm the only one that got sent to like forward it to the just so we have >> Right. What I would suggest, Jonathan, is is have on the website tell them don't send stuff to individual board members. Send it in so the administration then can send it to so that all the board members get the same thing at the same time. >> Send it to the superintendent. >> And if someone sent something to you, just order it to me and then I would package it in something that went out. >> Yeah. >> I just don't want to create, you know, login forum or whatever. >> Yeah. >>

155Nope. But the scenario could present itself that someone who's not going to the website and following directions might send an email just to Rick, >> in which case >> you don't follow directions. >> I I Well, but if you're not an applicant, you might not be going to the website and seeing what the process is, right? >> You might just say, "Well, my friend is interested and I'm going to email, right, >> Susan or whatever." But at least for the folks that are interested in applying, they're reading it and hopefully if they are soliciting people to show support, they can communicate to them that the way to show support is send it in >> to the district. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Um in this in this process, I know there's some some nepotism rules

156or is there are there nepotism rules when it comes to this process? >> No. Okay. >> What What does that look like when you say that? >> Well, just if your if your spouse works in the district >> or >> No, that's the rule of continuity, I believe. >> Okay. >> Con Well, the one where if you're already >> Oh, no, no, no. You you you I'm sorry. You're I was I was thinking about the relationship level by marriage or consuity, but you're 100% right. If you already work for the district, >> then you already work for the district. If you are employed by the district and hired by the district and then you come on the board, you're fine. If it's the other way around, we have to worry about constantly. >> But when

157you say you come on the board, not the employee coming on the board, right? >> Cuz you can't be an employee of the district and get on the board. >> Right. >> But we can and your spouse if you're on the board can't get hired freshly or >> but if they're already working here, they're not right. >> They can stay. Yeah. >> Okay. So just one clarif just just like I mean somebody without regard if the board wasn't going to look at this appointment process go forward with it >> you could have a spouse of a board member or a daughter or son or parent grandparent or whatever the relationship is to an employee they can run for the board and get elected and that person still works for the district they get to do

158that. So to clarify what you said though, a current a current current district employee is not eligible to be elected or appointed as a trustee. >> No, they can, but then they've got to resign their position of employment. They can't they can't be an employee and be elected. But there's no prohibition on them trying to be appointed or get elected, but they're going to have to resign from their employment because they can't do both. >> Same thing if you were a judge of the 74th District Court. It's it's it's similar resign that it's not the same. >> Okay. Well, in similar question, can they be a reference? Can a district employee, active employee be a reference? >> It's a I mean, >> I would think so. I just But I could Yeah, >> legally there's

159certainly not a prohibition. >> Yeah. Great. I know a few of our employees have, you know, opinions about things. They might want to weigh in. >> Maybe. Maybe. Okay, great. I think I've got my marching orders. We will execute. Give them what we've been told. We will send you a like to better term a draft version of that to make sure that what I think I'm hearing is meeting expectation before we go live. >> Okay. >> All good. >> All in. >> Thank you. >> Everyone. >> Thank you. >> And and just so we're also clear on it, don't send it to me. >> I won't. >> Thank you. cuz >> I'll rub it in. >> No, no, no. It's It's not that. I I I don't want anybody to think that I'm involved in

160picking somebody as a successor cuz I I I won't be. Right. >> Right. That's not appropriate. >> All right. So, we're going to take up the consent agenda. Are we going to go into close session or what's our orders here with our real estate? >> So my my recommendation would be is that we go ahead and deal with consent agenda and um and deal with personnel and then go into closed under real estate. Okay. To end the night. >> Very good. >> Kind of per our custom. >> Sounds good. >> Outstanding. So consent agenda. We have minutes from our September regular meeting, October special meeting, a couple of early graduation requests. Real early in the year for those. our recommended library materials, out of state trip, our new engineering course that we talked about, the

161teacher pro teacher day proclamation, and attendance credits. Does any board member wish to remove any item from the consent agenda? And if not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Can I pull number four, please? >> Absolutely. Uh so a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented except number four on library materials. >> So moved. >> Motion by Miss Vic. >> Second by Miss Watts. All in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? That motion carries. Uh library materials. Pam. I just pulled it to make a comment because I did actually do some due diligence on that very long list and our librarians have done their homework and I was just really impressed. So, it is possible to to screen such things and ask questions and find out that

162everything we're ordering is exactly what we should be doing. So, >> duly noted. I'm taking your your comments to be a motion to approve. >> So moved. Can Can I ask Can I ask a question on this before we actually vote on that? What remind me again what when we think the next round of this happens for the library books. Is it in the spring? >> There'll be another list >> to vote on in December. >> No, there'll be two in the spring. >> Okay. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Li here tonight as well. >> Yes. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. >> I hope I didn't make you nervous. I just wanted to give you a shout out. >> Hey, and I I have a question and and maybe a challenge

163to the seven of us sitting up here as well. So, uh, when we were at a constituent meeting, related to the bond a month or so ago, I talked to one of the librarians at that campus who >> I don't think she's here, but, um, I understand there's quite a few classroom teachers that have classroom books that are still sitting aside or covered up and unable to be used because >> the state has set us busy work of entering them into a system. I'm sorry. I'll just say that that's what I think it is. Um, and I asked if we could volunteer to come enter those books for some of those teachers. And so I'm planning to try to do that with as many campuses as I can. Maybe just one classroom at each campus.

164But it's something we can do. If you like me are a little upset that the state feels like we have to micromanage all of this. Um, we can actually come and help. So >> there's a challenge. >> Let me know when you're doing it and um help. >> All right. Sorry. That was a good point. >> Hey, >> one thing on future lists, uh it just this is probably just a me thing, but uh if get it if we could get it in an Excel spreadsheet, it's a lot easier to sort and manage it as I'm looking through stuff. >> Collins is nodding yes. >> Okay, that'd be awesome. >> All right, motion by Miss Watts. Is there a second? >> Second by Mr. Wit. All in favor say I. >> Any opposed? That motion

165also carries unanimously. Uh personnel, we have two different individuals. >> Yes, sir. >> Unfortunately, um who wants to be the uh the heavy and um read the motion because as y'all will recall, it requires very specific wording. >> Are we this I'm sorry just so we're clear on this we have no personnel matters to take up we other than we are on B4 uh on the back my my my agenda in front of me it's it's nine as consideration items B is personnel and four is resignation and possible action regarding notifications excuse me three and four thank you three again for consideration and possible action regarding contract abandonment. I'm going to paraphrase and notification to tea of contract abandonment. It requires two separate motions for each individuals and we've got two individuals. >> Remind us

166which teacher is Mr. Ekenro and which teacher was Miss Bolan. >> Mr. Einro is high school science biology and uh AP environmental science specifically. Uh Miss Bolan is River Valley Middle School Spanish for high school credit and a local cultures class. >> And also just by way of reminder, Dr. Kenudson, >> what do we when do we do these things just briefly as opposed to when we don't have these come in front of the board? >> Yes, sir. We um typically provide language uh in receipt of a resignation that indicates that we will consider accepting resignation if a suitable replacement is found. Um we also consider the reason for resignation and um would consider things of good cause uh for example moving out of town uh due to a spouse's job or if there's severe

167medical condition that's justified and supported with medical um documentation. So neither of these employees has provided that sufficient documentation or is um leaving education completely. They're leaving education completely. >> They're what I'm sorry. >> They're leaving education. >> Leaving education completely. >> Okay. >> Leaving us without giving us time to find a suitable replacement. >> That's correct. >> Okay. >> How long have both of these individuals been with us? >> Um well, Mr. Ekenro worked for us previously for a year or two. um was an intern and an employee, left for a few years and had just rejoined our staff this fall. Miss Bolan just joined our staff this fall. >> So, >> anybody care to start you, Mr. Green? You would like >> I'll start with Miss Bowling because I promised someone I would

168>> uh I move that we issue a finding in accordance with Texas Education Code section 21.210. 2110 C2 and 19 Texas Administr Administrative Code section 249.14J that good cause did not exist for Sandra Bolan to abandon her employment contract with Midway ISD and her actions failed to comply with Texas Education Code provisions regarding resignations. >> All right, you heard the motion. Is there a second to that motion? >> Second. >> Uh second by Miss Vic. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Mr. Green, can I impose upon you to continue? >> Of course. Uh, I move that we authorize the superintendent to send a letter to the Texas Education Agency seeking sanctions against Sandra Bolan's educator certification for abandonment of her teacher contract with Midway ISD. >> All

169right, you've heard that motion. Is there a second? >> Second by Mr. Tullis. All in favor say I. I. >> I. Any opposed? That motion also carries unanimously. Um, >> I'll I'll do it. >> Thank you for >> Absolutely. >> I move that we issue a finding in accordance with Texas Education Code section 21.210C2 and 19 Texas Administrative Code section 249.14J that good cause did not exist for Thomas Echenro to abandon his employment contract with Midway ISD and his actions failed to comply with Texas Education Code provisions regarding resignations. >> And I'll second that motion. All in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed? That motion also carries unanimously. >> I move that we authorize the superintendent to send a letter to the Texas Education Agency seeking sanctions against Thomas Echenroad's Educator Certification for abandonment

170of his teacher contract with Midway ISD. >> Is there a second to that motion? >> Second by Miss Watts. All in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? That motion also carries unanimously. Hey, just briefly for those here and those that might be watching this or watch it later on, this is a matter that this board takes very seriously and this is our third time to do this or fourth >> at least. >> Yeah. So, um we need people when they commit to come to stay unless they've got a really good reason for leaving us mid year is the point. >> The beginning of the year. Yeah. Well, yeah. And and as as Colin said, I mean, you know, what this does to the students is just >> I didn't even ask. Usually I ask

171how many students are inconvenience now. >> I was surprised you >> because of Well, I was about to ask, you know, >> it's kind of gotten old because the answer is always >> if if the answer was one, it would be enough for us to do what we just did. But the answer is usually hundreds because I know that the teacher that left Midway Middle, it didn't just affect that those classrooms. It affected several hundred other kids whose schedules were changed and got moved around as well. So, >> it has a big domino effect. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> All right. Um, anything else other than superintendent's communications and then we're going to stay in close session. >> No, sir. >> All right. You're up. Um, I'm going to keep these communications late. I would just

172simply say that one of the most important and fundamental rights that we have Americans is the right to vote. And if I've said it once, I've said it a h 100 times. It drives me a little nuts how many people are willing to voice dissatisfaction with whatever it is that's going on in the country or their community, but the voter turnout is still so low. And so we need people to vote. And clearly we have a bond referendum on this. But y'all, I was saying this in the last election and I was saying in the election before that and before that and before that, we have many, many, many responsibilities as educators. But one of those is to help young people engage in the civic process so that they might fully appreciate it. And in

173fully appreciating it, they really learn what it means to be a patriot in the United States of America. You've been given certain rights and responsibilities. And one of those is to have a voice at the ballot box. We have to exercise that voice. And and even if we should lose the bond election, if we have 98% voter turnout, when we lose it, at least we know what the will to people is. But it's difficult to feel like you have a referendum to do much of anything that you can stand on. You get very low voter turnout. And so my plea to anyone and everyone listening is vote early and often not in one election. That's illegal. But like don't like vote in primaries, vote in regular elections. Vote in March, vote in November, vote for

174state elections, vote for national elections. If you're if you're not voting, um it is it is horribly disrespectful to those who've worked so hard to make sure that you continue to get to have that right. And so it just it's very meaningful to me that we encourage people to get out and vote. All right, >> I make the point. >> Enough of Dr. Allen preaching. When we initially got the the iPads the one on one one to1 initiative in in 2013 that bond passed by 61 votes >> out of 3100 not expect you know hoping this won't be that I don't know what our numbers will be this time around but every vote counted absolutely every vote counted >> very good well said both of you u we're going to go into close session under

175551.072 072. Uh we will not be taking any action when we come out of close session, but you're welcome to wait. Please tell >> but to see us adjourn if you want to. >> Come on. [Music] In the name of