August Board Meeting

001so there is that i'd like to welcome everybody to our regular board meeting for the month of august appreciate being here uh we always start with the pledge of allegiance and i'm impressed we've got high school students here to lead us in the pledge so i would like to introduce to you guys the very first group of water polo captains that is now uil sport and they had their first big tournament this past weekend housed here at the y and it's very interesting if you've never seen water polo played it's actually very difficult to play yes meanwhile you're being drowned and throwing the ball and jumping out of the water and treading so very impressive so our team is here with us tonight um and the people we have clay crane we have courtney torres

002we have gracie triplett and will wright those are our four captains for tonight so very cool [Applause] so if you'll rise for the of the pledge states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all and just real quick we are the campus of the month for the month and so we have a few gifts for the board our water polo team is going to be giving you guys some water bottles [Laughter] good luck with the season yes yes he is right here thank you so much so far these are my favorites and uh recognition sir we'll be joined tonight by our board president mr pete russic for our recognitions that we are thrilled to have this evening thank you

003all for being here and a very very special night just as a reminder that the conclusion though of our recognitions you certainly are welcome to stay for our entire meeting but we will take a short break knowing many of you may need to leave and so just wanted you to know that little bit of housekeeping so i'd like to first start with uh recognition of some of our staff members and the first one i'd like to recognize is a very special award across the state of texas texas has a great uh partnership because of the generosity and philanthropic efforts of heb charles but does a wonderful job of supporting public ed throughout texas and they have an awards program called the heb excellence in education uh awards program and we had a principal of the

004year finalist this year so very proud to recognize mr wes conor mr conor would you come forward come around this way sir mr conoyer as you know it was uh the principal of woodgate intermediate school as you all know now chapel park elementary but now he is serving as the associate principal at midway high school um but he was selected as just one of five state finalists for the 2022 principal of the year award he was awarded this honoring outstanding public school professionals as some of the best in the state it certainly awards passion creativity innovation and hard work and their dedication and commitment to our school communities mr conoyer goes the extra mile he's certainly a team player for midway as you all can see very successful at the intermediate school and was ready

005to take a different challenge new challenge for us there at midway high school and i know he's going to make an impact in his new role we do look forward to his continued leadership in our school district so please join me once again in congratulating wes conor next i'd also like to recognize a very very special individual and this is dr valerie willis dr willis please come forward dr willis is being recognized tonight because she is the tassp region 12 high school principal of the year tassp is the texas association of secondary school principals they have chapters in all 20 regions across texas and they honor by naming principles of the year in the region and so she was nominated and recently named because of her work as our principal of our horizons program here

006at midway isd again another individual with exemplary performance outstanding leadership true vision she is uh leading the way for this new and innovative program that we're having for our for non-traditional students that want that uh environment there at horizon she's been part of the design team of the campus and of the programming and uh it's really been instrumental in its its initial success that we have so we're really really thrilled she will compete now for the state title of texas principal of the year and we're certainly thankful as i said for her impact that she has and her being a part of the midway team so dr willis thank you join me again and congratulating dr valerie and one more i have another administrator to recognize and this is the texas elementary uh principal and

007supervisors association and this is the region 12 tepson of the year and so i'd love to introduce to you miss christie watley come forward christie is a proud principal of hewitt elementary school and she is i said that region 12 tepson of the year nominated and selected by her peers in region 12. they honor as i said colleagues for their outstanding service and she was chosen for this recognition for her leadership and professional contributions she is a true asset and she has a love for for her students and staff there at hewitt elementary and has made certainly a huge impact and we look forward to your continued leadership in midway isd so please join me in congratulating christy watley all right the next now section of our awards are recognizing a very special program called

008the friends of midway uh friends of midway 2022. we're honoring five recipients this year each each year our district honors either companies and organizations individuals for their contributions commitments to to our school district for supporting our endeavors as educators in a number of different ways and they're also of course supporting ultimately the work of our teachers and staff in our in in on the benefit of our students so we're grateful because they volunteer their time their efforts expertise funding whatever it may be to improve the education as i said for all students and so i'd like to first start with our first um honoree tonight and that is rene maciel renee would you come forward please sir renee and the staff members of first baptist woodway consistently go above and beyond for the students and

009families and staff here at midway um during covet for example they establish mentorship programs for students on multiple campuses they then have help provide staff with appreciation in terms of meals indoor treats they certainly provide our students in need with clothing or christmas gifts financial support students and families any or even staff members that may be in need they host the chicken run benefiting the midway isd hunger free program they also those us that consistently mentor and pray for our teachers and staff and students there's not a need uh this last week they had a drive-through where they honored all of our teachers and staff with breakfast and it's in a very kind gift and of course their prayers for this coming school year they are true friends they're just up the hill from us

010if you will but their reach is beyond uh that their reaches throughout the entire midway isd and we appreciate your efforts and thank you from the bottom of our heart uh pastor maciel thank you so much please join me we will do a group photo you're right next thrilled to introduce to you tonight miss christy miller ms miller please come forward ms miller is certainly dedicated to midway isd because it's apparent in all the different roles that she serves uh say first and foremost if you you say the word pta it has to be synonymous with christie miller she's been a member of a pta of i won't say how many years but has three boys and and has been at many campuses throughout the district um she also said goes out out of her

011way she has then joined the ranks and and answered the call to serve on our foundation so she got involved in foundation she got involved with fundraising and all of the wonderful programs that we do through the midway education foundation but then got tapped to serve on the executive board and eventually was our president is just concluding her year as president of of it of our foundation she's an alumni alumni of midway isd so is her husband huge supporters of the school district and just wonderful representatives of just the quality of our school district and giving back to it and so we're honoring you tonight for your consistent dedication over all these years so thank please join me in honoring christy miller [Applause] next i'd like to honor philip and aaron prince they're here to

012cannot make it tonight but let me just tell you real quickly the princes four years ago came to the district i always have uh welcome to midway for new families to the district and kind of give a state of the district and just information to help folks that are new and they were there and after that became and it's helped uh sponsored by the midway education foundation and after that they then became huge supporters of the foundation uh they started giving generous donations from the prince family continue to do that year in and year out and uh certainly uh deserve this honor because of their consistent contributions and support and doing it in such an impactful and quick way of being new family to midway isd so we want to honor philip and aaron prince

013another honoree is lone star truck group and that is clay corley mr corley one of our trucking group owned by clay corley has been a faithful partner of the midway foundation since 2016 that provided the foundation with support support to supply grants and named in their honor uh we're grateful for their faithful support of our corporate sponsors like lone star trekking it benefits our schools benefits our kids benefits our staff and the key word again is consistent there's never a question asked lone star trucking is always there for us and consistently provides that financial support for our teachers and staff to write these innovative grants that they do through the foundation and so i can't thank you enough clay thank you so much and our final honor we couldn't be here tonight either but it's

014dr chris corey dr green recently retired from baylor university as the director of professional practice in the school of ed the school of education because of her work joined midway with professional development schools and we've had them for a number of years but she certainly had a an impact in uh being our liaison between baylor and midway we work very closely with her uh we are very thankful for that partnership because of our teaching assistants and student interns and the the support we receive and and information and uh from from baylor university and so without dr guri expanding the pds program and allowing midway to expand the number of campuses that are served uh we wouldn't be where we are without her so please join me in recognizing and thanking dr chris scorrie just real

015quickly each of the honorees that we were also did a special uh uh special visit to them and we did share another special gift which is really a unique blown glass uh red and blue uh midway bowl that is created by uh one of our coaches uh coach ryan niersen he's a tennis coach and art teacher there at midway middle school and there each one is unique and uh it's a very special gift to honor them as well because again all of their contributions that they give from them are very unique to the district and we want to just provide them something special on behalf of the district so again thank you all for all that y'all have done for us and we'll continue to do [Applause] thank you george and appreciate all your support

016again and congratulations to our other honorees tonight as dr k said if you've got someplace else to be now the over and under for when we would end tonight it's 8 42 so it's not going to be that late if you want to stay right so information items we've got the handbook if anyone has any questions about that we'll take those up if not we'll go on to our presentation discussion items first one of which of course is our monthly finance report to wesley all right good evening members of the board um take a look at our july financial report you can see our general fund revenues and expenditures here on the first page through july we've spent about 89 percent of our budgeted general fund expenditures a little higher than last year at this

017point 20 000 pages to get to your budget up to the i do the table condos but it won't go to the page on mine does it go to the page on yours yeah if you hit the box type the page number in that box i don't know what the page number is how do i type it oh page number is 85. okay go ahead wesley i'm there i'm sorry okay no problem uh so the the second page shows our general fund revenues local state and federal um our our taxes are looking good we're about a hundred percent of what we budgeted and pretty consistent with prior years on our projection for general fund revenues and expenditures you can see for uh for the fiscal year ending august of 2022 um projecting a deficit of

0181.8 million which is really close to our original budget of 1.89 million an improvement from last month a couple of those items increasing interest revenues our interest rates have climbed up some property taxes we've got a little more than projected and also just our expenditures we have a better idea of the end of the year of how we're going to finish up and all those expenditure categories and we had some favorable areas in some of those as well yes and then the next page is our update of our bond budget you can see that in toward the bottom there in yellow the total bond package that first column is the budget of course 148 million um those are the the proceeds we received in 2020 when the bonds were sold we've spent 95 million today

019projecting uh to spend another 54 for a projected total cost of 149 million i know that doesn't mean we've spent more than we received that's that's projected um plus if you also notice the interest income below that line of 2 million we've already actually that's what we've actually received so we'll even get a little more than that to balance that out and and just a reminder that a lot of the main drivers there the of course the technology data center originally had a 1.5 million budget to kind of fix the shell of the building and of course the scope of that drastically changed we got the data center and horizons um and then the scope of the middle school and the wood gate conversion were also a little more than i think originally planned but

020thankfully of course the cte or valley projects um were favorable variances there and so they are well under budget the next page shows our contingencies for the ongoing projects the total there is 6.3 million as dr case mentioned before we'll probably know for sure later in the fall as those projects close out the contingencies that will come back to the district any questions back when we started down this route we retained the services i believe her name's debbie townsend yes will there be any kind of final work up i hesitate to use the word audit but work up by her to check where we are on all these numbers uh yes good question i have received um a couple of those if they've they have been completing their work just the kind of overall summary

021of the scope of their work what they what they found but i can i can include that in a financial report um as we get those just to kind of give you all an update but everything has looked good they've been impressed with the work our contractors have done so what you said this fall for for looking at this too do you got any idea from the townsend group as well as from each of the contractors like when since we did ribbon cuttings you know we've completed five of those in the last few days uh are we close then to finishing up i mean in terms of the paying the bills and really seeing kind of where we should just look at the pay applications we're getting down to the end um i haven't discussed

022you know a specific date um but i would i would assume here in the next the next few months but yeah i'll start following up to kind of to get get an idea thank you questions yes middle school project are we have we approved the second phase um gmp on that are we so we're locked in at this now it's not going to go up more right okay the only thing that could change would be the f and e right sure sure okay very good thank you wesley bond construction update buddy it's uh i guess this is the last big month past this it'll be a very short update yes sir it will this this is a time that several of us have really been looking forward to uh it has been exciting though and

023i would like to say thank you for letting me oversee the bond projects i have thoroughly loved it enjoyed it that's always been a part of of the school administration that i was fond of and enjoyed doing so thank you for letting me do that yes we are nearing the end as y'all many of you have attended the ribbon cutting ceremonies we finished those up today i did drop the itc off of this report this month cte i mean we're done there's just there's punch list items on every job so there's going to be little things that that trickle through for several months but is back to your question that you asked wesley on the closing out of the projects you know we do hold five percent uh retainage on everybody's payouts and so they

024like to get things closed out as quickly as they can so they can get that money but to do that they have to fulfill all of the requirements that huckabee sets forth uh before they before huckabee will say okay we're done and you can release the teenage the retainage so we we will know we'll have a good idea shortly how much money we have left over because i know that's what's important to you to decide what what else we can do the middle school let's just i'll just go down through the list the cte like i said we're we're finished there there's some things with the locks uh we haven't gotten the right course for the for the doors yet but we worked out we had a meeting last week and worked out of a

025contingency plan for that uh access control where some of those things have been ordered for over a year and still can't get them but we have a contingency plan to take care of that uh river valley is pretty much finished we're doing trainings out there on on different uh parts of it there's an av training in the morning out there if any of you want to come join us at 8 o'clock but that's you know furniture is down to a punch list item on each campus so all the furniture there's some more furniture came in today i know at park hill and was set up so we we came down to the wire on a lot of it as we knew we would but but we we got there and we're going to have school

026in all of these campuses come thursday and and thank you for this meeting not being on the first day of school you know when one year that happened that was a really long day uh park hill there's some things still that we have to take care of there if if you noticed any hot rooms at park hill then you can pass those on to rick but he already knows what room numbers they are we're having a meeting in the morning with mandy and and the rest of the construction team to to go over some final items that we need to get taken care of there at park hill uh chapel park still it's it's going great you all saw it today it's beautiful that may be the biggest transformation of any of the jobs i

027mean it's that building is beautiful and it used to not be a beautiful building middle school uh right down to the wire but the the administrative parts finished uh the 300 hallway is finished those teachers are moving in the portable buildings they're moving in uh it was there was a lot of people doing a lot of work and working long hours to make that project come together several weekends were worked this summer uh masonic has stated that they may have over promised on that one but they they did come through and we're going to be ready to go on thursday the spring valley driveway project in the hewitt driveway project those are finished those look great i think that's going to make a really big difference at spring valley especially with the construction going on

028on the on the highway out front on spring valley road phase two of hvac project at the high school we're finishing up with punch list items on that too and that's we ended up getting all of the units in we thought we maybe we're going to be late on a couple but they came in uh you know initially we thought the the rooftop units for that project weren't going to come in until september but we got them in and and rick's group got them all installed and you know and it all hasn't it hasn't been without issues every project you have there are issues and you just simply work through them because when you're dealing with mechanical things and you're dealing with people you're going to have those things and and we just work through

029them and the best we can and do what we need to do and go on but we're going to have school in all of these places where these projects happened and thank you any questions memory on what will be housed in the portables at the middle school i believe that sixth grade okay so like main classes will be up there okay oh it's all sixth grade so right now we are in good shape for the first semester uh we had to take the old technology part down there and build a temporary wall in there and divide that into two classrooms well there's actually three classrooms down there where they were uh next semester we haven't gotten all the details worked out on that yet but the portables will be there all year right right with

030somebody in there yes and we feel good about security on those i mean i know portables there's some discussion going on with that uh right now uh if you want my opinion i'll share it with you if you don't i'll keep my mouth shut um but i mean they're behind a locked door just like you were when they were in the 100 and 200 hall and and they're gonna be there's a lot of activity going across that parking lot you know the trash truck has to come in there every day the food trucks have to come in there uh the custodians have to get to the dumpsters uh kids walk to athletics from there kids are gonna walk around behind that gym going to fine arts which they always did yes the middle school not

031an elementary school but we didn't we put it i'm not really concerned yeah then we put a fence where the door comes out of the building to the portables then we fence that little corner there's a fence around part of the portables to keep it from the construction part oh okay yeah not the other so we didn't like castleman didn't have it either the sidewalk that goes along the building right there where the 100 and 200 hallways come out going to the bus route you know that's open you can't fence that off this semester we're going to load buses over by taco casa but next semester we will move back over there and start loading and then and the construction trailer stuff will move over to the taco casa side very good since somebody brought

032me up i will say um it has been an unusual year with with us as well uh we're seeing about 30 failure on units from the factory which we usually see less than five percent so um it's i think it's one of the one of the uh terrible yeah just the whole global thing that's going on now and that's it's affected the quality from our manufacturers and then that in turn affects our ability to get parts so apologize that everything is ready to go but we're working through those issues and then uh the other thing he was trying nicely not to say the temporary natatorium that we installed at the high school i believe by the 22nd it's supposed to be everything's supposed to be done on the floor and and everything's ready to go

033so and capstone is a great company you all know that and we have a great working relationship with them we have a lot of projects going on with them right now and every time i call them i always get a favorable response bill thank you it's it's a team effort we have a lot of really good people that i work with i'm glad it was an enjoyable gig for you but it was also pleasing on this end month after month to hear things like on time under budget on time under budget you did a phenomenal job you and your team and all the workers that stayed late and weekends well i appreciate thank you now i i assure you i couldn't have done it without the good people that we have around us well especially

034this man these my balls emphasize being someone who's in this business year-round getting five projects to finish on time with a hard deadline as complex and diverse as we had i mean it was nothing short of a miracle yeah i i know there's lots of schools right now where people are going into temporary buildings that have temporary cos that aren't complete um anyway so the team did great the you know from the design team through the construction team the administrative team so good job i mean this really is an amazing feat to do what we did yeah in one year you know to finish right here yes what we did here [Applause] and all the ribbons are cut yes thank you buddy somebody's in anticipation here [Laughter] well i have a 35 minute presentation so

035i want to get going i'm just excellent well excellent we'll give you five of that 35. how's that we could do that challenge accepted well i i'm really excited this year i'm excited every year to present star scores but this year more than usual after everything that we've been through after all the challenges that we've had last few years i'm happy to report that we do have some good news so first and foremost midway has retained our a rating uh that we got back in 2019 absolutely uh and again just like we said uh with the construction projects going on a team effort there's definitely been a massive team effort over the last few years to get us to where we are so blue is good and that last column midway high school we want

036to also congratulate midway high school maintaining that a as well from that 2019 to 2022 with covet in between not an easy task at all midway middle school is at a b a strong b we have some plans to move them into that a category and so we're challenging jay isn't here today but we're definitely going to move midway middle school and river valley middle school will be the first time that they will be raided here coming up this spring river valley intermediate school finished with a bang maintaining their a rating woodgate intermediate now i do have to say woodgate intermediate we literally ripped it in half shuffled people around and they slipped just ever so slightly to an 89 so wes i know that's heartbreaking but you guys did an outstanding job and we're

037really proud of that effort now here's where it really gets good if that's not good enough we have elementary schools that moved up in virtually well really all of our elementary schools moved up from their 2019 ratings so first at the top castleman creek hewitt and spiegelville each had c ratings back in 2019 they have all moved into the b category so we're really excited for them spring valley and woodway have also moved up from b's to solid a's and when i say solid a's they're right in that you know mid uh 90s category and south bosque is also maintaining their a they don't have that little yellow circle that's what that signifies that they've moved up and south bosque has maintained their a and it's a very strong a uh at that so we're

038excited we're doing really well i do want to just go through a few more specific slides it'll take just a couple of minutes because as always we still have some work to do we have plenty to celebrate but we're not slowing down and so we want to take a look at reading like i said blue is good so we are really really proud of our reading scores so third through fifth is on the way up so what we've done here on this table is blue means that we have kind of curved that coveted slide and we're starting to move in an upward trajectory once again so that's what those 22 20 22 numbers mean for third fourth and fifth we're headed in an upper direction once again getting back to those 2019 overall levels sixth

039and seventh grade have that yellow circle because they have already surpassed the pre-covered levels so we are really really proud of those teams a lot of work and a lot of effort from a lot of people have gone into getting those that high eighth grade is in the right direction as well we still have a little bit of work to do i know the english one team is just really kind of beating themselves up you know it's a it's it's tough uh with high school kids but we're also going to get we believe moving in the right direction and really when you look at that from 84 to 82 to 80 we're talking just a few kids here and there who really kind of sway those numbers a little bit so we're really close and

040in english 2 is just rocking it they also are above as they did last year they're pre-covered levels so we're really proud of that we do have a little bit of work to do in fifth grade science now like i mentioned we did rip with gate and half we had teachers going all over the place and we lost the power of the team on some of our campuses because we had some singletons teaching science all alone it really does make a difference but we are back in full force with our teams we have partners at every school most every school we do have some small fifth grade uh groups here and there but we do believe we have some good plans to get fifth grade science moving in the right direction eighth grade and biology

041eoc are looking good we're approaching our pre-covet levels as well social studies eighth grade social studies and u.s history eoc also kind of the same story there we're getting back from the covet slide and math got a little bit of work to do in math in a couple of areas we have lots to celebrate though again lots of blue we're getting above last year's numbers and we're going to get back to those pre-coveted levels a couple of a couple of issues there that we're addressing we've got plans in place for fifth grade math and seventh grade math and like i said we have a lot to celebrate but we do have areas that are chat still challenges for us so moving forward so we have learned a lot over the last few years these are

042just overall passing percentages okay yes sir yes sir approaches yes and so you put those together and in your board packet you do have the breakdown yeah i saw the full chart so i was just trying to go through it yes seriously it's it's a lot to suggest and when we do our taper report later in the fall we'll kind of break it down differently for you and show you kind of how we compare with those districts that we usually compare ourselves with just so you can kind of get a different flavor for how we're doing so what some of the things that we're doing moving forward are and things that have worked in the past are intensive interventions you've heard of house bull bill 4545 we have lots of students who were really dedicated

043to meeting those hours working with teachers and it really did make a difference we feel and so we're going to continue that we also have intensive intervention classes in our school we have the path the inside path at the high school insights at the middle school so students have the opportunity to get the help that they need in their particular areas vertical alignment we are excited that now we have fifth grade third fourth and fifth grade together on one campus we feel that's going to make a difference with teaming sixth seventh and eighth the middle school level as well we're putting a big emphasis on instructional coaching our our instructional specialists are we're freeing them up a little bit from some of their duties to really put an emphasis on them helping other teachers and

044then finally there's some personnel adjustments we believe in having strong teams so principals are always looking at how they can you know bring people together and have people teaching what they what they teach on their team but finally just a little bit time and grace is needed we do know that for math in particular it's really tough to combat the covet slide because it builds on itself and so teachers are having to still play catch-up and fill in prerequisite skills with the current skills of their current year and so that's tough and it's just going to take us a little bit of time but the main thing that we have moving forward is our teachers we have the most amazing teachers i've been in a lot of districts and midway is just just the shining

045star when it comes to the folks we have in our classrooms they truly are amazing and research has shown us that it's the teacher that matters more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling and so i just wanted to finish with a couple of kiddos i'm not going to share their names but i want to share their data since it's kind of a data report we had a student from south bosque who grew in her reading score 52 from one year last lap well two years ago now i feel like saying last year but from 2021 to 2022 a 35 to an 85 percent this kiddo there's uh i think the educational term is knocked it out of the park and uh i i just wanted to make sure that we understand that

046there are people behind a kid like this who pour into her she's she's a young lady who poured into her all year long we have her teacher miss hansen who is now at chapel park but miss hanson just said that wow she just worked so hard she dedicated herself she was so disciplined and i had to tell her well you know what so were you you worked so hard you were so disciplined you were so dedicated and also miss pinson she helped give this student her tutoring every morning without fail and she was so complimentary of the student and again well miss pinson you were up extra early as well all those mornings and then finally we have another example here and i could show you so many students like this who have made such

047tremendous gains but this young lady an esl student at the middle school grew from last year to this year in math all the way to 77 percent of 62 percent growth and that is just phenomenal and again it took a team to pour into her miss davis was her regular ed teacher just really worked with her differentiating for her meeting her needs miss pinellas was her esl support and just really made sure that she was connecting with the family and making sure that they had their needs met as well and ms burke tutored her on occasion after school it took a team effort but this is how we get the results it's the men and women the teachers behind every one of those numbers so thank you so much and are there any questions thank

048you for your leadership and guidance for all these teachers and staff members that have accomplished these goals and just so excited for all the cl all the um schools on every level for their achievements just awesome thank you and i really like the chart the way you did it with the blue and red that was so easy to understand and i like that that's a keeper crazy that was a good one let's click that one good one tracy a lot better than all these graph bars the weeds but um that was good you have both yeah you're always going to have uh full reports like there in your packet as well as a summary report but i think thank you dr pena again and to our teachers and staff i announced that at the uh

049convocation and um as dr pena pointed out again in terms of the one measure of success yes is the state accountability but not one school was the c was the c rated i think one of the things that we saw was yes a certain score on a test but also growth and that this accountability accountability system has student growth measures as well as closing gaps between subgroups and those those were very uh evident through uh as dr pena said all of the different uh efforts through house bill 4545 tutoring catching students up but we saw growth and obviously all kids and they may not be where we want them to be but they're on the right track uh i looked and as i said seeing all that growth seeing a's and b's of the campuses

050the overall score again we can talk about that further maybe at the tapper report time was a 96 i believe out of 100 and again that is um more than a solid a rating actually really in the county i was looking and this there was one other just one point higher than us that's certainly nothing like us in terms of demographics and size so um it's really really a testament that our of how hard the teachers work and work for all kids all schools all kids and all campuses because you all know how diverse the district is from one end of the district to another end and um really all of those efforts are paying off and so it is gratifying to see that and uh knowing that i think too our approach keeping kids

051um tuned in and learning as best as they could during covet was critical um your help of course or vision some of you that were on the board at the time vision of the one-to-one initiative having that to put out right away during covet did keep students engaged it wasn't perfect but it kept them engaged and um again having most of them face to face again last year and of course all of them this year that this certainly has been a blessing for us so kudos great great great work so we're very again very very pleased this is our bond construction yes it's your version of on time and under budget so all right again to you george and your staff and coming up with these techniques or plans that we're very successful and the

052teachers and enacting them and everything working so in the midst of remodeling in the midst of it good team as you said teamwork is what it is everybody all levels of folks uh doing everything that they can and so i appreciate it indeed indeed uh consideration items the consent agenda we are going to remove not pull remove for no action number 10 on the consent agenda and that's a good thing because of where the cdc is with regard to covid recommendations and protocols but we still have our minutes our resolution on the investment policy our extracurricular matter for 4-h that we have each year expedited waivers for tea district appraiser list a short read on our policy update um short read yeah budget amendment uh and our defeasion's resolution does any board member wish to

053remove any of the other items from the consent agenda number seven for a couple of quick questions okay so do we have a motion to approve one through six and eight and nine on the consent agenda motioned by miss watts second by mr tullis all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion carries unanimously calling questions uh thank you and i actually had a short conversation with dr pena about this yesterday too just to let him know but i i think it would be helpful if you could just maybe just take a minute or two and talk through the i know we're separating the the policies into instruction materials and library materials and i know the tea had some recommendations for what the policy might look like and then tasby had some recommendations so

054just maybe just give us a quick minute or two overview of why we landed where we did on the library material side and the language that's a little different if if you if that's okay yeah if you could and really it's not i don't think i have a problem with it i just wanted to know for parents to hear and understand kind of how this meets the needs of our of our families and things so yes sir no it's a great question so last fall governor abbott directed the tea to um come up with a way to prevent obscene content from entering our school libraries and so what tea did was they went ahead and submitted a letter to districts letting them know that this was kind of the direction that they were moving and

055that their recommendation would be for districts to take a look at their ef local because originally and what we actually have currently is kind of a pretty simplistic instructional materials and library materials policy in one and so tea wrote up their version of a policy that we could consider and and made that available to districts in april it was and we reviewed it and considered uh potentially using that and they went ahead and split the two into an efa and an efb instructional materials for the classroom and also library materials separate um and so which personally we thought was a very good idea it was kind of a difficult policy it's very cumbersome very wordy very technical and so some districts we didn't but some other districts reached out to tasby to see if they

056could come up with um also kind of their own version and so in may tasby sent out a combo version an ef and then also their own efa and an efb and so we had our librarians get together and myself and some of our curriculum folks also reviewed all of them the tea version and the three tasby and we decided that the separate efa and efb from tasby was probably the way the best that was going to meet our needs best and the librarians also recommended that one as well they did recommend a couple of just small wording changes like for example one of the sentences that said when when you're selecting library materials it said shall ensure we asked if we could just change it to shall consider because there are a lot of

057i think there's 13 points to check off and our librarians told us that in actual practice they really don't they're really not able to make sure every library book that comes into the library hits every 13 of those points so just a couple of little word smithing things that that our librarians came up with and our our tasby consultant agreed that they would work for us and so that's the version that you have in front of you that's sort of going to meet the needs of the librarians and the students but the families and everything that might have questions down the road about certain materials or whatever yes it's definitely going to be better than what we have currently because some of the sections that are new are a parent consideration section that wasn't even

058in our previous um or our current policy that we have now and so it really has given parents a lot more ability to just be involved in the process the first thing a parent would want to do is contact their librarian on the campus so kind of depends on um like what you mean by involvement if they have a concern about a book the first thing to do is to contact a librarian and the librarian and the principal would get together and kind of go through the policy from there or if and another question that you know may come up is if a a group an organization or even just an individual wants to donate library books to the library it goes through the same process as anything else it's not just automatically put on

059the shelves is that they know of something is just to share that it may not be a collection we currently have in our libraries but if they have that they know the name and the title email or share hey call this come up or something and we might not as dr pena said these 13 14 different criteria there in the different policy but we certainly is good heads up to know because there's thousands and thousands and thousands of library materials you know it's just again more eyes and more ears it says hey this may not be is very i know very helpful to the librarians for that but also i think as mentioned if you look at the policies there's certainly an informal and then a formal process so it's really a double way to

060to ensure parents are heard about if they have an objection to a library there's a certainly a very i think important process that informal reconsideration of it and so uh specifically as aaron said between instructional materials and and library materials i appreciate that they're separated now so we have this ability i think we have those processes in place for the library because i know years ago i was on a committee to review a book that a parent wanted banned from the library and so you know we have those processes in place don't try to make it fair and have a good review of books we're fortunate we don't have too many of those you know our librarians are very good about that in terms of their discernment and selection of materials as well they've done

061a really good job but i'm not going to sit here until you might not slip something me come through that we just didn't see or realize or something like that age-appropriate yeah or being age appropriate but my knowledge they they have done an excellent job and two this can this includes not just printed books printed materials in the library but it's other electronic resources they may have right if it's if it's movies or clips on tape or things like that right of course any of the materials that would be in the library if it didn't quite fit one policy it's definitely going to fit the other yeah so erin after we made the tweaks to tasby's efb local did we then send it back to tasby for them to review our final version of it

062yes sir okay very good and then that's the version that's in right right all right and we made no changes to efa we just kept the we felt it was so similar it's exactly what we do anyway it just kind of made it a little more specific for us so that we didn't wordsmith at all just went with the tasby recommendation other questions for the board appreciate it thank you thank you so do we have a motion to approve efa local and efb local as presented so moved motioned by mr witt second by mr alford all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion also carries unanimously uh public hearing on the proposed budget and tax rate for 2022-2023 um we are required each year at this time before we adopt a budget or

063adopt a tax rate to conduct a public hearing so without further ado we'll open the public hearing at this time and welcome any members of the public that wish to address the board on the uh proposed budget or the proposed tax rates um we're ready to hear from you all right seeing no one come forward hearing from no one will close the public hearing and uh take up um budget who's going to talk about that wesley you george wesley i thought so i want to all right included in your packet are the three budgets proposed for adoption they should look familiar we was covering the june budget workshop and updated last month in the july financial report those three budgets the general fund child nutrition fund and debt service fund the general fund with a

064proposed deficit of 3.5 million child nutrition surplus of 36 000 and a surplus of 172 000 in the debt service fund this has been posted on the district's website according to statute and also published in the newspaper any questions what our current tax rate is and what it will be with this budget yes um the proposed tax rate will be um the total proposed tax rate will be 1.1246 689 in the middle there that's okay so the m o rate is 0.8546 the debt service rate is 0.27 cents for a total tax rate of one point one two four six per hundred dollars of property valuation um and last year and this is for a total of four cents lower than last year the debt service rate was the same as last year but the

065m o rate was 0.89 it was close to 90 cents so we did a four cent decrease is what you're saying okay wow wesley be clear why we did the four cents why why it's where it is impression yes so the um so kind of moving into the the next item the adoption of the tax rate we are given by the state our maximum compressed rate um and ours is .8046 so there's right there's there's nothing we can really do on that it's determined by the state and then the tier two funding the district does have discretion over we have um five cents of uh tier two funding five golden pennies out of total possible eight so that's where we get the point um eight five four six uh for our mmo rate and also

066in the tax rate um pack i did include um some charts that were released from tea just to show the in how the mcr is has moved over the last few years so um the floor uh for the mcr is established by the state when they they project the budget and so the comptroller estimated a growth rate of 4.36 um and it actually ended up being 17 this is over the entire state um and so you see there in 2021 there were only 72 districts at the mcr at the floor the mcr floor which was at that time 0.8247 we were not at the floor at that point but then in let me go back 21-22 that increased to 318 districts at 0.822 that was the floor at that time and then now for 20

06722 23 there's 699 districts so two-thirds of the districts in the state are at the mcr floor of 0.8046 including us so um a lot of districts are there in the same boat initially you know there was more disparity you may have one district um that was at that floor maybe they had a you know a big you know power plant or something move in and increase their values and so the neighboring district you know their tax rate was higher but now that's that's really kind of evening out is just the the property value growth um across the state um is bringing more to that um mcr floor i know it's complicated mr brooks into the board but if the best way to look at this is a good chart there but remember that is

068the floor we are at 0.8046 but we have five cents of goldenness copper whatever the number they are that we've somewhat discretion and that's why the tax rate being proposed is 0.8546 but what mr brooks is saying that is troublesome is 699 districts across the state are at that floor where he's saying if you look through the chart initially when this began in house bill 3 it was 72 and so again the system has to be tweaked again or we re examined because it only took a couple of years and it's almost a statewide property tax in other words to me because you're almost all districts are being taxed the same and they've lost discretion at all and so um and the key i'm trying to for folks to remember key things in this is

069that in in mr brooks's write-up is that the statewide average local district property growth was 17 the comptroller estimate was only at four percent and so the state property value increases have been 17 and that's why you keep bringing up you saw a 27 billion dollar surplus at the state level so to those and those that may hear the recording of this is that is that this isn't this group or this board of trustees or local government about spending of the dollars is the question should be to our state lawmakers what are you going to do with 27 billion dollars and that that then reduced their liabilities because the local taxpayers are paying for previous liabilities of the state and so now they have the ability the state has the ability to make those decisions

070with that surplus not the men and women in this room today and that's for me troublesome is now we rely and now have them to decide now what to do with 27 i say it over and over again billion dollars in this cycle and so it's troublesome in my view that you all have to do you know do not have that discretion and ability because of these these strong rise and property values and what the appraisal district is trying to do follow the state contro comptroller their hands are tied as well so i had to get that off my chest i feel better thank you thank you and i know it's complicated but mr brooks does the best job he can because it's very complicated with with uh state with school finance and and and

071how the state drives us still with this with this adoption of the tax rate but 699 is a key number to remember two-thirds or more of the state districts are all at the same in the same vote let me just briefly go ahead yes sir the other part of that is is what the state put in place that drove those tax rates down over the past several years that there's now nearly 700 districts that are there it's maxed out there's no more compression over the current system so not only is there 27 billion dollar surplus projected for the state if they don't do something else as our local property values if they continue to go up not just us but across the state there's no more compression for the local taxpayers so again as the

072superintendent said don't be fussing at us be talking to your representatives and your senators about this with that said do we have a motion to approve the budget as presented i'm sorry general because i'm you know i'm back on the actual budget side i'm i'm not a huge fan of um signing up to lose three and a half million dollars obviously i don't think any of us are what what do we think i mean this is obviously not sustainable from a long-term standpoint so um inflation is hitting us on the cost side just like it's hitting everybody else i mean we drive buses and we feed kids and we buy pencils and everything else so you know i don't i don't know what we think the plan would be outside of convincing our state representatives

073to change funding model i mean what what what do you it's again we can't really cut our costs no it's harking back to our discussion during the budget workshops of again falling back on the local voters who agree with us and that would be that tax swap election vader it's called vote approved tax you know election so that possibility not this fall but next fall with with that we could lower possibly the debt service rate the ins rate and basically swap those so we could generate additional dollars the only way the state as you know permits us to gain any additional dollars it has to be approved we don't have you all as elected officials don't have the ability back in beginnings of my career as a superintendent 24 years ago the boards could look

074at tax rates look at the swaps look at ins and mno maybe raise mno a few pennies and then knowing that property values may have grown somewhat and didn't need as much to pay the debt on ins and have that discretion to make those decisions and adopt a tax rate each and every year independent of this bureaucracy and regulations that are placed on us now so the only way to combat in the future this deficit is to look at how do we then get whatever we can to maximize the state funding formulas that are currently in place and remember in june mr brooks showed us three four cents something like that would really help make a big dent because not only do you earn the local tax dollar but then you're about a third more

075you gain from the state so about six hundred thousand dollars local you get three additional dollars from the state almost 900 to a million dollars per penny so that would help us get that deficit wiped away so there you go that's the short answer yeah i know that's your question that's kind of the direction i figured we were going um i i know that anecdotally in a conversation conversations with people on some of these ground these ribbon cuttings we're hearing that a lot more kids that have maybe left during the last couple of years due to covet or homeschooled are coming back are we do we feel like our ada numbers i know it's too early to tell right now since school starts in two days but do we feel like we're going to be

076on an upward trajectory again where we're going to recover some of that because i know that's really the funding is ada based yeah well i might that's miss klaisman that's far in the back there she has been delved deep into the transportation requests as well as balancing and and dr knutson 2 in hr um we looked through all of that we may have had in this hiring season maybe again don't be offended anyone in the room but maybe one extra fte kind of that we that are there but we were pretty spot on our projections that we had some late moves of teachers uh moving from one elementary to another elementary two of them for sure that i know of to balance classes and so maybe there's some spaces in some of the schools or

077additional kids to enroll throughout the year but we need that because we know they're going to be enrolling because construction continues continues on but i think we're very very close to what we've projected agree mary lou or ashley so we could we could during the year see our ada go up and potentially the revenue side comes up to mitigate a little bit of this yes you're exactly right we certainly we certainly could that's her yes um the request i think qualifying is last number i heard 2100 plus last year we ran about 1700 so we have a lot more that qualifying or wanting but transportation so again drivers costs more drivers more fuel more buses here we go um but i would say the only that area that's a little different is it's not been

078in pre-kindergarten but kindergarteners we don't we need that uh particular grade level maybe they'll just slow coming registering they're they're there they just haven't registered yet very first time again covet they haven't been maybe necessarily in programs last few years and we need those kindergartners jason kindergarten started an ad program i guess you're kinder good all right so a motion to approve the uh budget for 2223 is presented ocean by mr green thank you sir second second second by miss vick last call any further discussion or questions hearing none all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed that motion carries unanimously i think we've already said everything about the tax rate but anybody has questions or further discussion i will say this as the appraisal district representative of the board i want to make

079sure people understand that and it comes back to what dr casanas was saying is that the state itself more or less dictates what the district value as a whole is and so the appraisal district and the chief appraiser he has to peanut butter spread that across businesses right but you have to be within plus or minus five percent of the value that the state dictates you have to be so like dr cozzanos was saying there's really not much we can do as a school board to set the rate at a certain point because of what the state mandates and there's also not a lot the local governments can do to lower your property values so just keep that in mind and like dr kazana said you need to talk to your state representatives more so

080than you talk to anybody within mclennan county not a whole lot of accounting can do change your property taxes just keep saying it yep oh yeah they just set their brains yeah we are weird we get penalized we don't need our isn't that right appraisal district racial discipline yes we would be penalized state funding yeah we would penalize if they don't meet their quota so one other comment there in the context mr green serves on the appraisal district board because this board casted votes to elect him the appraisal district board has got nothing to do with setting property values that's all done by the chief appraiser and the chief appraiser staff not by the people that are elected by the taxing entities to serve on the board just so everybody's clear on that small point

081but an important point uh so do we have a uh motion to approve the uh tax rates that mr brooke uh mr brooks has uh the uh 0.8546 for the m o and .27 for the ins no moved motioned by mr tullis thank you second by mr alford all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion also carries unanimously resolution to commit the fund balance wesley okay so this is uh another item we do every august um so uh commitments of fund balance um are represented intense of uh the governing body to establish amounts of fund balance that can be budgeted in the future for a specific purpose so these are not appropriations and no expenditures can occur until we come back that comes back to the board for approval for a budget amendment

082but just to have some some items kind of set aside kind of like a you know just in chaos contingency in 2021 last august we had three fund balance commitments facilities maintenance construction 500 two hundred and eighty one thousand for buses and a hundred thousand for technology um and for uh so for maintenance projects um these are items that are outside the scope of a bond also don't fall within our annual budget just our maintenance supplies and repairs budget um and usually we come in the spring to the board to approve usually these are called summer projects things that campuses submit requests to be approved to take care of in the summer time there are different ways we've funded those in the past we've used the commitments of fund balance if we've had extra some

083bond funds that were kind of related to those areas or if we've had savings maybe in electricity costs or things like that and we'd be able to use those funds to take care of the summer projects so the recommended amount for this year is 400 000 and that would basically just cover what on average our summer projects are and you know as mr whitt mentioned that the ada is up in the air so you know kind of depending on what that looks like for the year and what our budget looks like in the spring they kind of dictate how much of that we may or may not want to use for those summer projects for next year the next one is for buses and other vehicles we have 250 000 recommended for our committed fund

084balance um that would allow us to purchase two brand new buses um if we decide to do that again in the spring and our technology commitment is a hundred thousand this is what we've we've had for the past several years um it's more it's kind of for emergency if a major piece of equipment failed or maybe a cyber security threat or something like that we have 100 thousand set aside that we could come to the board and use that in those cases and finally that last slide just shows our unassigned fund balance as we've discussed before we have a goal to maintain 25 percent unassigned fund balance of the next year's adopted budget i mean you can see the projections there were in 2021 or projected in 2022 i think it says 28 that's i'm

085kind of have a hard time reading that and then uh 2023 you can see would fall below um 25 you know if we uh if we do finish with that 3.5 million deficit and that's not you know it's not a the 25 is not a ta established we wouldn't get um you necessarily being or you know in trouble but that would just show okay this in adopting the next year's budget a priority is going to be to to raise that 23 to 25 and adopt a surplus budget um for the for the next fiscal year any questions [Music] uh two million dollars of sr3 funds in it yes and where are we on remaining s or three funds is that it are we done um that that is most of it um now i left

086a little bit you know just in case you know kind of deal maybe um maybe 100 000 or something like that and it also kind of depends on where we fall in our 20 percent that we set aside for learning loss and dr pena's office is kind of overseeing um if we have some left over there but but it basically um takes care of other questions if not do we have a motion to approve the resolution commit fund balance well moved motioned by mr wood second second by miss vic all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion carries unanimously we don't need to take any action on personnel right you operating under your authority on those more than likely our last my last group so we hire if we hire anybody after this

087point in september's board meeting they'll be it for your approval got you uh we do need to go into closed session on real estate matters yes sir but we will let you talk about the first day of school first so we may we've been doing that pretty much all board meetings so we're set to go uh welcoming our students on thursday uh excited about that the opportunity to bring them back i think um one of the things not to make light of it at all but um as mentioned pulling one of the agenda items about covet is is the cdc did release some different more some more recommendations that truly are they're not guidelines or recommendations and uh we certainly fall within those and or interpret them uh how we've been doing it and so

088um we are uh so everybody understands uh in terms of has i guess business in the past as usual is our mode at this time we certainly now have the tools to pivot if need be if there happened to be further outbreaks again or some other reasons we know how to do it but but at this particular time uh everybody will use their question about that and be uh in terms of staying home with sick things like that and uh don't have a need we also are not going to be qualifying for additional covet tests um i'm kind of on a on a roll here tonight but again the tea put more red tape involved with those um you have you accept the dollars to get covet testing then you also have to then do

089mass testing to determine if someone in the mass group is positive or not and all that no we were using them wisely if people were sick we were providing a service to our communities by having drive drive-through if need be but we're not a testing center i'm going to punt that now to the public health department it's their job we're done i'm done with that um and so we're not doing that we we will use up what we have i talked to our lead nurse or our coordinator of health services mrs clyphus we have a few you know some left we will use the test if somebody comes into the nurse office and needs a test but otherwise we encourage them to find another source for testing and or use the the ones you receive

090from the federal government or something like that so out of that uh just don't have ability to do that and we're not using the district resources to go out and buy more of the tests uh but again can continue to treat it like a communicable disease that we have like the flu other things that we have in following those protocols so no dashboard we're not sending transparency letters back out about a positive case uh all of that no at this time so wanted to be clear everyone understood where we were the first day of school again we know what to do if need be we know how to handle it if the cases rise you know excessive absences we still have a virtual school option we have a strong enrollment of that parents have that

091choice we have virtual school open um we'll consider i don't know remember it was called remote conferencing if we have the need for that depends i doubt it as much because we don't have as long a time that students are out of school missing school so i don't know we'll have to worry to have necessarily remote conferencing uh offer you know options for students so um other than that we're good you know in terms of opening up again a large number of new staff and but we had a great week of welcoming welcoming all of the new people to the district then a great week starting august the 8th with our professional development work days fantastic family fun night we have for the staff there at the stadium on thursday thanks to tracy marlin and

092her committee and team huge crowd big crowd families just wanted to get together our staff they wanted to meet each other bring kids have bounce houses food trucks were there and i really had a great evening which then led into our back to school summit our back to school summit is it was uh certainly i think undertaken by dr odojima and her work in professional development but in her team members as well to organize all of that but the presenters were our people all of midway people and so you're not spending dollars of outsiders we have our staff providing that information in those workshops and it was well well received and culminated with a good old-fashioned pep rally so we had our convocation inside the gym thanks to the board members that could come and

093help escort our teachers of the year things like that into for special recognition so we've had a good good good week good start as mr freeman said we have uh and i think thank you mr toles what you said i will say overall opening ribbon cutting five facilities um yeah it pushed us it's pushed us hard it's pushed people hard it's pushed people to the brink i'll say hard and it's not great when school starts because you know this is usually we need them refreshed but it really has been hard but um we did it and we have a lot a few more details to go i've always figured out groups but you know when buddy and his team and maintenance but also jesse and his team and technology there's all the dominoes that occur

094to get school it's not just this or that it's so many things the campus principles you know the flexibility of our teachers moving our teachers that have as i said yesterday moved schools even because of pattern shifts and growth of students all of the all the above are occurring and um just know that though that there's still positiveness there positive morale vibes about starting school and welcoming our students back because we do we have these beautiful for the most you know facilities uh that are available for our kids at all all of our campuses and our new ones so we're really really excited very hopeful very optimistic about the 22-23 school year so thank you all for your support and just know that we're we're ready to go as best we can with uh our

095staff and our kids and we'll we'll see hopefully we'll have all the bodies that we expected to be there plus a few more students and we're excited to welcome them thank you and others on your staff who are involved in doing everything we can to get things back to more normal you know as much as we can the uh visiting with uh meet the teacher at castleman creek tonight there was a note in there that said beginning sometime in september they're gonna let parents come back and eat lunch on campuses again if you sign up and things so i think little things like that will make a big difference for students parents and teachers all we want to do is like thank you you're welcome what we used to do is give us a couple

096weeks yeah the labor day get routines down and bodies count accounted for and then we're ready we're ready for them just give us a little bit of time to get all that thing settled so thank you mister whip appreciate it so other than that i got real estate to talk about i was i was just going to adjourn we got yeah we got one more thing to do all right so uh at 8 23 under 551.072 of the texas government code we're going to go into closed session all right do it