001Please stand as trustee Sabata leads us in the invocation and pledge of allegiance. Almighty and merciful God, we ask your guidance and blessing upon this board, students, parents, patrons, teachers, administrators as we are assembled here this evening in the common pursuit of this nation's wealth, our children. Amen. >> Amen. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. The time is now 6:01 and the meeting will now be officially called to order. Good evening and welcome to this regular meeting of the North Side Board of Trustees. Before calling our first agenda item, the board would like to
002just take a moment to briefly review some of the rules for conducting our meeting. The order of business for this meeting is set out in our agenda. One item that you may have noticed is the consent agenda. It includes items that are considered routine and are of recurring nature. All of these items listed under the consent agenda will be acted upon in one motion. If there's a consent agenda item that anyone here would like to address, please sign up to speak to that item and we will pull it from the consent motion and discuss it separately. We are also required by law to allow for public participation regarding the proposed fisc year 2026 budget and tax rates. If you would like to speak to either item, please sign up to address the board by indicating
003your intent to speak to agenda item number one and you will be allowed to do so following the administrative presentation. And the purpose of this meeting is to conduct board business and for that reason it is held in the public. It is not a public forum. However, we do provide the opportunity for audience participation. If there is anyone wishing to address the board regarding citizens to be heard agenda items, you must complete a signup sheet prior to the start of the meeting. If there's anyone who would like to address the board during an agenda item, we ask that you please complete a signup sheet and indicate the agenda you would like to address. The signup sheets are located at the entrance to this room. This is so we do not overlook anyone who would like
004to speak to the board. We will review the rules for addressing the board later in the meeting. Is there anyone here who would like to sign up for an agenda item or the citizens to be heard and has not already done so? >> All right. Thank you. We're now going to move to our first agenda item, public meeting to discuss the budget and proposed tax rate 42526. >> Yes, ma'am. Madam President, members of the board, uh good evening. Uh as uh advertised um we are here tonight uh to uh propose the fiscical year 26 or actually uh uh present the fiscal year 26 budget along with the associated uh debt service and uh maintenance and operation tax rates. Uh so uh at the end of this presentation as already articulated uh we'd like to ask
005you uh for consideration to open this up uh for public comment uh or public hearing. Um, and then like I say, we'll be bringing this uh agenda item forward for your consideration under our business finance uh report section. So, without further ado, Megan, turn it over to you and your team. >> Sure. Thank you very much. Uh, so tonight we're going to review the proposed budgets for the three board approved budgets, which is the general fund, also known as maintenance and operation, the child nutrition fund, and the debt service fund, also known as interest and syncing. We're also going to look at the tax rates and ask the board to consider those tonight also. So this slide is telling you the the code section uh that this is dictated by and we did have our
006notice published in the San Antonio Express News on August 15th in compliance to invite the public to come to this meeting to see this presentation and comment if they would like. So we are going to um go through the proposed budget and this looks very much like what you saw at the last board meeting. As we told you there, we are required or the superintendent is required uh to propose the budget by August 20th, which we did that. We did that at the August 12th board meeting. And this presentation looks very much like what you saw there. So, we're not going to spend a lot of times on the slides, but I want to make sure that the public has the information is enabled to look at them. So, if you'll remember our general fund
007budget, the big items making up that the changes in our general fund budget are taxable value changes. If you remember, we have um increased in our values, our uh appraised values, but then we're also expecting our exemptions, our homestead exemptions to increase based on leg legislative action. So through that, we actually are reducing our taxable values. So that plays a big piece in this budget presentation. We are continuing to see some enrollment declines. So we did budget pretty conservatively this year. And so you can see that 91,500 for ADA. And so right now we're we're okay with what Dr. Craft is going to be showing you in enrollment later in the budget pres sorry later in the board meeting. And then we have implemented the House Bill 2 changes that we're aware of right now.
008We do expect some additional items to come out through the year as the commissioner gives us new guidance. So there will be some budget amendments expected through this year for those items as we receive further guidance. But of course the big thing um here is our the generous pay increase that the board approved. uh that includes the te teacher retention aotment, but the piece that uh the board approved of the 2% for exempt staff and 4% for non-exempt is a big piece of this budget. As we saw last meeting, uh we'll show you the the changes of the local and state split of our revenue. And you can see that our local revenue is actually going down with the state aid going up. And that's mostly due to House Bill 2 that came through. This
009is our proposed budget. Uh TEA does require it to be in this format. We have to have it by function code. So that is a requirement. Uh you can see on this budget as we look through it and compare it to what you saw last time, our total revenues have increased by $50 million from last year's original budget. And our expenditures decreased by about 5 million, which shows all the hard work we did of budget considerations through the year. uh because we know that our payroll actually increased by 41 million with the pay changes. So for our expenditures to decrease by five million that means we were reducing our other expenditures by $46 million. So that's important for you to note out. We are still showing a $38 million deficit in the general fund. And
010so we want to point that out then be transparent about that. But as Jake will come through a bud a final budget amendment for the year we're in um now on the next uh the first business item um it's substantially better than it was last year at this time. So we are making very good progress and we'll show the effect on the fund balance instructional continuity here in a moment. I want to remind the public that 88% of our budget is for payroll and the related costs for payroll. And so people that is our business, our students and then the teachers that are with them. And that is expected, but it's an important piece for you to know. This slide was not in last week's budget presentation. So we'll go through this. This is our
011look at our fund balance. So you can see that the 2425 year we're expecting a results of operations to be around $84 million deficit when we get through the audited um part of our financials. And you can see that that's going to come out of the instructional continuity that the board had committed of $140 million. We'll also discuss that commitment in a future agenda item. So 2526, as you saw on the previous slide, uh is showing a $38 million deficit that will all be able to come out of the instructional continuity line item that was committed by the board. And we'll still retain about um it's a $18 million to be able to come into the next year if we don't make any changes to this budget, which we know we will be making changes.
012We already committed to that. Uh, but if we didn't make any changes, I wanted to let you see that what would happen to that instructional continuity. It would use that up in fiscal year 27 and we would start moving into the three months operating expenditures as an unassigned that we don't want to do. So, we will continue to work on this budget as we have throughout the year to look at that graphically because I think the board liked that this slide earlier when we were looking at it earlier in the year. The green is the instructional continuity. The orange is the unassigned fund balance which is what best practice says to have three months of operating. So that orange is that three months of operating. You can see the blue line is our actual fund
013balance and when we would move into that orange that we don't want to do. So we're still doing okay. The the actions the board took for instructional continuity has helped this process tremendously. So that's the general fund. Do you have any questions on the general fund? Okay, we're going to move over to the child nutrition department. Uh, so as we talked about last time, and I think it bears repeating, we have 76 of our campuses that have the community eligibility provision for their um breakfast and lunch program. So all students at 76 of our campuses have free breakfast and lunch, which is wonderful. We are also not asking for an increase in paid prices and have not asked for that for nine years, which is phenomenal. Thomas Wy does a great job over in that
014department. and TDA and Texas Department of Agriculture is covering the cost of um the reducedpric meals. So any student that it qualifies for a reduced price meal actually gets them for free through this TDA program which is wonderful. School nutrition is run by as a business and so they are self-sufficient through the process that they work and so they do have a balanced budget and so they can see that their revenue does match their expenditures for their proposed budget. They also implemented the same pay increases that the rest of the district um implemented and that's the school nutrition fund. And so now we'll look at debt service. Debt service also known as INS. And this is the budget that would pay for our outstanding debt from bond elections. And the we are looking at a
015defeasance that we'll ask the board to approve tonight also as a later agenda item. But that's part of the budget that is made up here. the defeasence saves money uh in the future. So that um that I know that came up, Miss Freeman had asked about the defeasence, what that actually saves us and it saves us about $26 million in actual debt service for the future for taxpayers, which is a wonderful thing. So this is the proposed debt service budget. You can see um and our local revenue has decreased some um based on our decreased tax values and our state aid has increased due some due to some legislation for additional state aid for um the exemptions that were put into place. We are proposing a surplus budget in this um budget and that would
016allow us to make sure we can take care of these defeasences that we bring forward. This slide shows our outstanding debt service currently. And so you can see how it's stepping down nicely. It lay it stays pretty flat for the next five years and then starts stepping down nicely so that if we do have a bond election, we will be able to ladder that in and still keep our tax rate steady. Our goal is to not increase that tax rate unless we absolutely have to. And that is our um pieces of the budget. We're going to talk about the taxable values that you saw last time also and this is the same slide you saw that the values are actually reducing um because of that homestead exemption and again that plays into our budgets and
017then our proposed tax rates and we showed this to you again last week also uh our tax rates are rem our proposed tax rates are remaining flat uh for both the ILMO at um 6694 and our INS tax rate of 3355 for a total toal tax rate of $1.0049 for our total tax rate. Again, that's the same rate as last year. We are not increasing our tax rate. This shows the history of our tax rate. So, you can see that that debt service tax rate has been steady since 2016. And that is very purposeful. The board has taken action to have the defeasences of debt and the refundings of debt along with the bond elections to keep that that that rate steady. So, we adjust the amount that we would defeze or refund uh to
018allow that tax rate to remain steady. And then, of course, through tax compression at the legislative um um action, the you can see how that's stepped down from back when it was a$14 many years ago and how it's now down to that 66.94 cents. So, that is our presentation. We will ask um if you would open up the the for public comment and then we will be asking later in the agenda just for everyone transparency as if you're here listening to this that we will ask the board to commit fund balance again. We will ask the board to consider a defeasence resolution that is modeled in this plan. Uh we will ask the board to approve the fiscal year budgets and approve the fiscal year tax rates later in the agenda. >> Thank you. So,
019is there anyone signed up to speak to the proposed um year ending 26 budget and our tax rates? >> Madam President, I don't have anyone signed up uh for this particular agenda item unless we missed anyone. I think we can uh safely close public hearing pending any questions that the board may have. Like I say, we'll have the opportunity here uh just um a few agenda items. Uh also to consider any questions andor um the ratification of this year's budget um or fiscal year 26 budget and tax rates. >> Okay. Do we have any motions from the board? >> We'll bring this item like say for action when we get to Okay. U business finance. >> All right. So we're going to go ahead and close the public hearing now and move on to our
020second agenda item. >> Dr. Yes, ma'am. May >> Oh, yes, ma'am. Mrs. Freeman. >> Yeah, we went through that very quickly. >> Um, Miss Bradley, thank you so much for all the work that you have done and getting this together and and the staff. Y'all, I don't know if you know this, but we prepare, we start looking at budget January, if not before then. And so, there's a lot that goes into the preparation for what you just saw. And, um, so, thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah, I I just echo that sentiment, Miss Freeman. What obviously u compile the effort uh just as far as challenges are concerned, working alongside the legislators as they were working to try to figure out House Bill 2 and what ultimately became school finance uh made it incredibly
021complicated. Um and they did a pretty phenomenal job as well as looking at fiscal year 27. uh budget as you just saw. So uh to the entire business finance team uh thank you so much and and really the entire district um because like I say going through also the budget reduction exercises that uh we were forced to engage in was also pretty complicated um work. So appreciate like I say the overall team effort. >> Yeah. And on behalf of the board, we want to thank all the community members that came to our call meetings to discuss specifically the budget because we spent all of our summer really dedicated to this, but also thank you to all the hard decisions that had to be made at the school level with increasing our efficiencies. And remember, we're
022continuing that process as everyone I think that's in education right now is to make sure that we still provide a high quality education. So, thank you all for that. And now to our second agenda item. Sir. >> Yes, ma'am. I'll try to, like I say, be brief. Um, we've had a really successful start to this school year. Uh, it's hard to believe we're already two and a half weeks in. I think we were actually one of the first school districts, uh, if not the first in Beay County to, uh, kick off, um, like I say, two and a half weeks ago on Monday. Um, so again, just really want to show appreciation to our entire team, uh, from our bus drivers to our school nutrition, uh, staff to our custodial staff. Uh, I know our
023HVAC technicians have been working around the clock. I mean, it really, um, was an overall really just a fine team effort. So, very, very appreciative. Uh, I also just want to again articulate my appreciation to all of our students that made this year's convocation again such a huge success. You know, I know that it's one of those um events that's really special for our staff. Um, but a lot of effort goes into the preparation. So, uh, Elizabeth Sanchez, um, uh, does a phenomenal job with her directors and like I say again, uh, thanks so much to those that worked with our students to make the the convocation event such a special event and welcome back and and really motivating our our staff um, for the school year. Um, had the opportunity just recently to visit
024our newest magnet school uh, which is obviously Jordan Magnet. Uh this is our multimedia and design uh campus. Uh they actually have already over 400 students uh enrolled in that that program. Uh pretty tremendous renovation. Um just about complete in fact putting the final touches on it. But it is a it's a very very beautiful facility and um it's great to see that program really off and running to a to a great start. Um, we did have the opportunity to clarify um with our uh campus and really district-wide leadership uh our BYOD policy as it is associate associated with 1481. Again, we're allowing students the ability to bring their own devices. um really as a result of um especially at the secondary level uh some of our classes require particular apps that are only um
025um workable through particular platforms i.e. a MacBook. So um in order for like I say the students to be able to be successful particularly in some of the uh fine art programs uh like I say we have to have that BOD uh policy in place. So, I think we're in pretty good shape uh in that regard. Um, on the legislative front, as you're probably well aware, we are in the second called uh special session. Uh, today uh was rel relatively larger day for public or as it pertains to public education. House Bill 8 uh which is the STAR revamp uh moving to a a three-year testing program uh did pass the House floor. There was a vote of 82 to 56. Uh so it'll move over to the Senate. I' I've been asked, well, what
026is the impact? I it's hard to even project predict. Keep in mind that this won't go into effect until the 2728 school year uh and fully implemented actually in 29 or thereafter. So, it's got a long way to go through not only the development uh but also uh implementation. What I hope that it doesn't turn into is just additional test i.e. STAR tests that just take up more um very very pertinent uh instructional time. So, um, so more to come in that regard, but, um, it did pass the House floor and, uh, we'll be, like I say, moving over to the Senate. Um, and this is a big week. Um, obviously we've already commenced volleyball. Uh, we've commenced cross country, we've commenced water polo, and this week we kick off, uh, football. Uh, so, uh,
027Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, lots will be on at both Ferris and Gus. And so, um, we're looking forward to kicking off the fall season and like I say, we're in full swing, full gear. Um, and we we wish all of our teams, uh, the very best, uh, as they progress this season. Uh, it should be a lot of lot of fun. So, pending any questions. Uh, that's my report and, um, like I say, appreciate everyone's hard work to ensuring that we we're off to a great start. And I do think we have a video moment, um, to kind of, uh, celebrate this time of the season. uh one of our very own athletic coordinators uh has a a pretty heroic uh story uh in some personal challenges uh physical health challenges that I think
028is just a real inspiration to us all and uh really um summarizes uh what it means to be a part of a a great team supporting one another uh through thick and thin. So, without further ado, I'll uh uh ask that you direct your attention to uh our video moment for the week. [Music] >> Most days, this is where you will find coach Eddie Solace on the football field at Harland High School. >> You want to be the best. We continue to work. >> He's built the program and led this team since the school opened, making playoffs every year since they started a varsity program. But for these players, Coach Solace is more than a coach. >> He always makes sure that you know he's there for you if you need you need to talk
029to him. He always makes sure not just to certain players, not the best players, but everyone, the whole team. He makes it feel like you can talk to him about anything. That's just someone we all want to look up to. >> There you go. Quick. There it is. >> At Harland, Coach Solace is a presence, a mentor, a builder of boys into men. >> We don't think we're ever going to lose, right? We're just just unstoppable. We're going to keep going. We're going to keep playing. We're going to keep fighting no matter what the circumstances comes to us. >> But last season during a deep playoff run, Solace knew something wasn't right. >> I remember telling my wife, I'm like, "I'm just tired." And she's like, "Oh, just go to bed already." Like, you know,
030it's just just go to bed. I go, "It's just different. I'm just tired." And so, I kind of battled through that. But through that, my back pain increased. On Christmas Eve, the coach known for never backing down faced something no game could prepare him for. A phone call with a diagnosis and a new kind of fight. >> Dr. Science calls me and he says, "Hey, is Abby there?" And I said, "Yeah, my wife." And he goes, "Hey, you might want to sit down for this." And he said, "Uh uh the the problem is two of your vertebraes are lit up. Your T10 and your T8 are bright." He goes, "It shouldn't be bright. when we do an MRI, everything should look black. And I go, "What are we looking at?" He goes, "There's possible cancer
031there." >> Stage four nonhodkins large B cell lymphoma in his bones. >> What people don't see is the December 24th night uh when I got to lay in bed uh staring at the ceiling with my wife next to me and she goes, "I can't do this without you." You know, and so [Music] You know, that was the start of a of a lot. >> And so, Coach Solace fought and began to measure success not in wins, but in something deeper, his faith, his grit, his refusal to surrender. >> To me, just that mindset, you know, that that strength that God gives you when it shouldn't be there, right? everything just stops. You're not even worried about football. You're just worried about like our head coach, the person we all look up to. >> It was
032a struggle for all of us and honestly like encouraged a lot of us cuz at the same time that he was struggling like fighting for his life every day, he looked almost stronger than ever. >> Through 6 months of chemo, sickness, fatigue, sleepless nights, and quiet prayers. But Coach Solace kept leading, still coaching, still loving, still believing. I told him, "Look, I'm going to tell every one of y'all this. I may lose my hair. I may look tired. I may look whatever. But all it means is that I'm getting healed. I'm working towards this. I'm not losing this fight. I'm going to keep battling this. We're going to get it done." >> We all knew he was he was going to beat it. Like, we had no doubt in our minds. You can't give up.
033You got to keep going. Keep pushing. >> And he did for six long months. Then on June 10th, Coach Solace received the test results he prayed for. It said uh no active lymphoma and everybody's sitting there and I'm going there's nothing there and I like uh I need to see I need to hear from Dr. Hita himself like I need to hear it from him. I I read it but I want to hear. So two days later we go and he says man we're good. You're in complete the mission. >> You going to miss out man. >> When you look at the definition of unstoppable you'll see it reads that which cannot be stopped. Invincible. insurmountable, >> unbeatable. >> Unstoppable is a great word for him. You saw what he went through with cancer didn't
034stop him. Uh hardships with football life, nothing's really stopped him. His mindset was always to be unstoppable. The team to be unstoppable, him as a coach, and then when it comes to cancer, I mean, we knew because of the type of person he is, the way he conducts himself, we knew he was going to beat it for sure. >> Coach Solless will tell you unstoppable isn't about perfection. It's about perseverance. It's not about never failing. It's about rising again and again. >> When I hear that word unstoppable, it started a long time ago. But it came from voices of coaches and teachers who would say that in their own way. They might have not said, "Hey, you're unstoppable." But they're saying, "Don't let anybody stop you. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't rise
035to the top and overcome and do." So here's what I'm going to tell you today. If we were to play today, how would you practice? If we were to play today, today was game day. How would it look? That's what I want to see today. Everybody got it? Yes, sir. >> Let's have a great practice. Here we go, sir. Yes, sir. [Music] >> Yeah, absolutely. For those of you who know Eddie, he he's he's just a a tremendous tremendous leader, man of character, and I'm very very proud for his work that he does at Harlem High School with all of our our student athletes and all those that he comes into contact with. True inspiration. So, with that, that completes my report. >> Thank you, sir. I >> think Barry's trying to either save electricity
036or telling me to be quiet. >> It was a divine inter. Thank you so much, sir. That was a great video. Um, now we're going to move on to a board uh members report. So, if we have any I'd like to go. >> Oh, Mata. >> Yes. >> Just real quick, I just want to um you know, just I know it's back to school. It's been three weeks. It's been a quick 3 weeks and it's been so many things going on, but just um want to say thank you to all the schools, the principles, uh teachers that are back and I know we were able to um go to a few back to school events. John J, we got to meet the principal uh principal out there. She gave us a a tour of some
037of the new facilities or where they're going to be built. Uh Soul Ross, we went out there and saw the chickens, which was cool. Um, but lots of great things that they're doing out there at Soul Ross. Um, and all the hard work that they're putting in there. Homes high school, we got to meet the principal at their back to school event. So, just so many good things and just, um, want to thank everybody who's invited us out there. We were able to go to as many of these events as we can and we also had some city council and state reps go out there, teachers and parents at those events. So, truly is a community event and that's what it's about and it's the, you know, the spirit of the city and the spirit
038the spirit of the community. So, it was just it's it's a great time. I know it's an exhausting time, but it's also a great time. So, I just wanted to uh say thank you to all the campuses and just the best of luck. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Hassel. >> Um just have some updates and just really super thankful. Um convocation was my very first convocation. It was pretty amazing to get to see everyone. and I tried to go to some of the schools and introduce myself, but that's a lot of people, so I tried to do as much as I could, but it was a little difficult. Also want to thank um Ben Mir's team. Um I was able to meet with his team. He took me around to every single person unless
039they were on vacation. I feel like I met every person that works in the HR division. So, thank you. Also, Chriso, thank you so much. Also enjoyed getting to meet your team. I still owe you going back to do a tour. Um, as I let people know, um, August is a difficult time for me work-wise to be able to take time off. So, starting September, I'll head out to do a tour. Um, and also Dr. Janice Jordan um, was able to really help me understand some things and really kind of definitely tell me more of what's going on. So, I'm very appreciative to three of you um, because I was really able to take a lot of information in and really get to know more about North Side. So, thank you. Also, the San Antonio
040deaf dance performing art camp invited us. Um, it was a really great performance and we were able to really be part of the community. Um, we got to learn a lot. So, like I like find you every time someone does an amazing job and just want to kind of tell them thank you. Um, city council district 1, seven, and eight, we were able to go to their back to school bashes. So, we also visited John J's, Salt Ross Middle School, and then also Holmes High School. um we're really able to talk to everyone there, to the principles, to the teachers, to the counselors, and really get to see the students and be excited and with their parents to get ready for the new year. Um I also want to thank of course North Side ISD,
041North Side AFT, Councilman Galavan, and our school, our democracy. We're able to have a north side neighborhood for public education event and Nolton Elementary. We were able to do door-todoor connection with families. So able to go to the neighborhoods, talk to families, tell them about the great things that we're doing here at North Side. And I will say there was actually a family that was a North Side family that went to a charter school and is interested in coming back. And so it was really a great moment to connect with the community. And I will also mention that North AFT and Councilman Galivan's team are still knocking on doors. Actually, they knocked on my door today. the the Ring camera just said, "Hi, Dr. Hasso. I'm not going to leave you one because I feel
042like you're going to be there at the event anyways, but I hope you're having a good day." So, I know that they're still knocking on doors inviting individuals cuz there will be the next event, which is the public education forum, which is at Holmes High School. It'll be on Thursday, September 18 at 6 p.m. And that's really an opportunity for the community to really see what Holmes High School is doing and what we're doing in public education. And so if you are available, please make time to go. Um, but like I said, they're still knocking on doors to inviting individuals um to the event. And just really letting families know that North Side is here and we're here to help and if they need anything to please reach out. So, it's really just an opportunity
043to get to talk to individuals. And I mentioned at another event, um, you know, it's important as elected officials to go out to doors, not just during election season. It's important to go out there and really kind of stay true to our promise and really go out there and say hi and get to know everyone and see if there's anything cuz everyone's busy. Everyone has a million things to do and sometimes there's things that you need help with and you forget that there's resources out there. And so if someone knocking on your door and helping you out with that is that one thing that can help you kind of get through something then hopefully we can be that assistance to them. So thank you. That's it. >> Thank you Dr. Hasso. Dr. Harl, >> thank
044you very much. Um, I first wanted to I mean I'm still um delighting in convocation from the cheerleaders to um the musicians that all came together from other schools and in just a few weeks of practice played like they've been playing together um and made new friendships. And I don't know if the teachers knew that that these were a collection of students that came from all over the district. And it was just phenomenal to see them, you know, really come together. That was incredible. Um I did get to go to Lock Hill. This is their 50th year. And so and it's my 50th year in the district. And so um I got roped into um their ukulele class and they're going to play their ukuleles for their 50th um anniversary. So, I'm going to play
045with them. So, yeah, it brought back really neat memories from when I was in fifth grade playing it. So, they were precious. It was awesome. Teachers were on fire. Um, Cast Teach um had their pinning ceremony. This is their fourth year. So, they'll have a graduating class this year and they'll graduate with alongside Stevens High School. So, when our magnets um have new students um new members, they have a pinning ceremony and so it's really nice. They get there's little purple cast teach pen. Um, but a lot of boys. So, um, it's really moving and grooving. Um, it was I want to say it was about half and I know I I can find out what the numbers are, but it felt like half were young u men along with young ladies wanting to be
046educators. So, that was phenomenal. Um, just a a shout out to um again our fine arts department. This is our sixth year getting um the dis the district of distinction uh from the Texas Arts and Education. Um it's a major award um and they don't just hand them out but at convocation you could see um how worthy they are and we see it all year long. So congratulations on that. Um then in Sunny's paper um one of our own pillars and I love this um gentleman. I want to make sure it's John Picassio. He's an illustrator. He actually was a pillar in 2020 during our co remember we did the pillar ceremony on Zoom and poor guy we need to have him come back again because here's this artist with major work and you're relegated
047to a box. So, I'm sure we'll figure out something, but he actually went to Adams Hill, Ross, and Homes. So, he went through preK or K through 12 in our district. He has a new book. It was um actually touted on in New York Times, and then our newspaper carried um our staff writer carried it, but it's a new book called The Invisible Parade that he partnered with Lee um Bugo, if I said her name right. There's librarians in here. Did I say her name right? Okay, good. Um, so, um, anyway, we look forward to it. The book goes on sale today. The paper had I mean it's really it's huge. It's half a page spread, but wouldn't this make you want to read the book? The Wizard of Oz set in a graveyard. Sounds
048like the perfect debut picture book. I mean, I'm I'm ready. I'm ready to go get it. But really, the Invisible Parade is about showing children how to celebrate the people they've lost and finding their own path through those traditions and through your own grief. So anyway, I can't wait for it. And then um we have a gift that um Lucy gave us. It's an autographed just little card for our trustees to have. So I'll give that to you guys when we take a break. Um but he's one of our own and he's famous and infamous. So, um anyway, that's it. Other than I and I maybe I hold out for future items, but um exploring how we can sell um get advertisers at our football fields and games. I just read that UT Austin now
049has a sponsor for their field and we're talking millions of dollars. We could do that $53 million like that with some sales. So anyway, then the last thing and I'll make it public. So Bobby and I have a big game on Saturday. So maybe friendly bet like if UT beats Ohio State. >> You have no you don't want to wear an orange tie and then I would wear a red dress if Ohio State won. I don't have a red dress. >> You want to do that? >> What would you Okay. I would wear red and he would wear orange >> at the next board meeting. >> Okay. We're good. >> We're good. >> All right. We're good. All right. Thanks. >> Thank you, Dr. Hall and Mr. Blunt. >> Oh, that was me. Okay. Just
050just a couple of items. Um the first one is definitely want to and I think I mentioned it last month, but definitely want to thank the fine arts department. Elizabeth had put together a real really good crew led by Shay and it was um on their own time per se during the summer to lead a nonprofit effort that we had at the Tobin and I will say that everybody was simply amazed at how well orchestrated the event was uh that that they had led. It was pretty complicated but Brisco Middle School's performance uh was it just blew everybody away. I mean, North Side's name was really, really, really well known and everybody's, "Man, who's that? That's a middle school." They couldn't believe it. So, their band and their dance performance was something else. And then
051Brennan just had everybody quiet. I mean, I think everybody knows how good Brennan is. But to see that the Tobin with the audience we have there, so I do want to pass on my my thanks. I think North Side looked good that particular night. >> Um, other one I had led by Zenya over there is our great essay reading. Uh, that I think that's going extremely well. We've got what is it 18 districts so far signed up >> so far >> about 18 districts to be in our third grade reading competition and we've got a couple more if we think that's going to come on board and the other big part of it is the community engagement is really going to be something else we we're getting challenges that we can't talk about officially yet
052uh that's going to have everybody across the city all different organizations literally competing against each other to see who can read the most to the kids so that's coming along extremely extremely well and then the u last one I had So, I'm on visit number 20. I've done 20 visits to learning tree sites and understand we is it 95 or 98 total? >> Whatever the number is. >> 92. >> Is it 92? All right. So, we will be making every single one. Uh, and it's uh you 93. >> I'll let you know afterwards. So, uh so it's it's a great opportunity just to go see the program, seeing the kids. It's it's just amazing how many of the students and others that we have that uh that I've known from other places. So yeah, we're
053on number 20 of of 93 in a row to go. So that's all I have. >> Thank you, Mr. Blunt. Mrs. Freeman. >> Yeah, thank you Dr. Duron. Um just a just a few things, Bobby. Thank you for your work um regarding the initiative for the great American or the great San Antonio reading challenge. Zenia, you were a rock star um on the the presentation to the districts that are interested in participating and we look forward to even recruiting more districts before the kickoff in October. I think it's going to be really um really exciting and it's a great opportunity for our kids too and it get to get them excited about about reading. So, um, thank you both for, uh, getting that, um, moving. And then, um, convocations. I can't say enough about our
054students. You've heard, um, other people talk about it, but, our kids are are they're just the fact that they came together in the summer to practice, and I know our fine arts teachers have done so much, but their dedication, their kids' dedication to be able to do that and pull that off, it was just absolutely wonderful. And then um thank you to everyone who made the first day of school successful. There's so much that goes so much planning that goes into opening up our schools for the first day. Um think about the you know we've got uh maybe almost 98,000 somewhere around 98,000 kids. Think about all those kids. They all get up in the morning. The parents get them up. Um teachers have planned all summer long to um greet those kids. The the
055teachers and the principles are right there. Kids come to schools on on bicycles. They walk to school. They come by bus. And there used to be a um prior superintendent Dr. John Folks always used to say at the beginning of the year, it is nothing short of a miracle that when the bell rings, everybody is where they're supposed to be. Nothing. nothing short of a miracle thinking about getting all those people um everyone together. So again, thank you for everybody um our families, our teachers, our staff, and um I think we had a I think we had a great first day of school. Thank you. That's all I have. >> It is. Thank you, Miraculous Freeman, Mr. Salido. >> Yeah, just just a couple of things. Uh I was able to visit Hobby Middle School,
056that magnet school up there, the brand new school. Looked nice. I was impressed. you know, they got a hospital beds and stuff like that. Is that a medical magnet school? >> It is. Yeah. Program. >> And I was like, okay. I I seen it at a health care, not at a middle school level. So, it's kind of something different >> last year. >> Yeah. >> That was nice. And also, I want to give a shout out to the cavure workers who fed our kids during the summer. I believe several campuses were open during the summer and they were about breakfast and lunch. I could see the kids walking in the morning past my house. They were going to go eat breakfast. should be pretty pretty awesome. >> We were questioning whether we were going to
057be able to continue or not. >> Yeah. >> And also I want to give a shout out to all the custodians for making it open just getting the schools ready. I know at the schools that had construction um they had to work weekends for probably a whole month Saturday and Sundays just to get it open. So thank you for your dedication. Thank you. >> Thank you so much sir. And let me backtrack a little bit. Um, I just want to shout out to all the block walking activities that happened to get ready back to school. Soul Ross through an amazing event. Um, I want to thank um, Commissioner Justin Rodriguez, city council woman Marina Lee Gavito, Sheriff Salazar, Dr. Hasso, Mr. Salceo, the Spurs coyote, but really the teacher performances were wow. I feel like
058they've been taking some dance lessons. So, shout out to you and the principal and that team at Sovals does this every year. I think it's their 17th year to do it. So that's impressive and that's also a really cool initiative because you get to see the students in their environment and where they're living and find out what's happening in their lives. And so a lot of them are excited to get that school year back on track. I loved all the convocation performances with that wicked inspired theme. I think those are amazing. I I don't know how who gets the ideation for that, but shout out to u Miss Elizabeth Lopez for that and her entire team and the students. Um, I also want to shout out uh all the the the Nolton Elementary blocking event
059led by NFTt and um also thank Congressman Hake Castro, Rick Alvan and Sheriff Salazar for attending and then blocking block walking at those doors really um allowed us the time the ability to be able to communicate some of the new things that we're doing at North Side and a lot of folks weren't aware of some of the things that were happening like we're an open enrollment school district now. Those are cool things to share. So, if you can reach out to the community at any time and you get a a a call, not just, oh, your kids in trouble, but a check-in with the family, that adds a lot of value as a classroom teacher. I try to do that. I want to thank uh Zach at Taft for starting that bike club. Miho, I
060still have your bike. They're going to pick it up, but they're also accepting donations for bikes. Okay. Okay, so if you have a bike you you said you bought it for a New Year's resolution and you've never used it, this is a good time to give it to somebody. They are accepting donations for bikes. Um I were able to tour Holmes High School, so I loved how mu amazing that building was, but also the complexity of our campuses. Each one is so unique. Um if I felt like I was in like a California inspired school because of the outdoors see and how many stairways I'm like these kids are getting exercises they're walking to class because we were getting exercise. So um I just want to thank that community. They had vaccinations. They had the
061city clerk there doing um the ID finder for students if your child were to get lost. You know those are very important touch points for students. And um I just want to remind the community uh we have our prek programs available open enrollment. I want to shout out to uh Mrs. Elely and her team for the leadership north side. I was able to attend last week. They've been working hard in the evenings and that group is a really um a very impressive group. Very outspoken with a lot of ideas and uh I learned a lot. So I really want to thank you for continuing that program. our dual credit students started college if they're attending Elmo Colleges on Monday yesterday. So, I love seeing those young people on our campuses. Um, shout out to them.
062And I just want to shout out to Dr. Mr. Blunt um for your involvement with the Renaissance with the stars. Our students were just extraordinary. I felt like I was watching students that were Giuliard Academy level grade and everybody and the pride that I felt because they're north side, it says a lot about what we do in public school. So if nobody has told you you guys work really hard, we want to thank you for that because it's evident in the students and what they produce. And really as a prior coach who's faced a lot of adversity as you've witnessed, I just want to give uh send a virtual hug to that coach at Harland because we're plant seeds every day, but we show that we're unstoppable by modeling that. And so when we fall
063as a coach, we get back up, right? And so I just want that's the unstoppable theme for this year. So thank you all. That's all I have. >> All right, I'm back on again. >> And so now we move to our citizens to be heard portion. Um it's very important and meaningful that we listen to what you have to say and we value your opinions, but we are restrained by law from taking any action. So, please re um address your remarks to the board and confine to a north side policy or practice and limit your remark to three minutes. At the three minute mark, you will be asked to wrap it up and please do not make any personal attacks on individuals. Thank you. >> So, we have several uh several signed up. Um and
064if I mispronounce your name, please correct me. Uh Deshawn Johnson and Leelle Aguar. That's us. >> Okay. >> Oh, sorry. This is our first time. >> Welcome. >> This is our first time. Please bear with us everybody. >> I just heard the three minute mark and we're back there freaking out now. So, we're trying to figure out. >> So, um our oldest daughter attends uh Brisco Middle School. >> Dolph Brisco uh middle school. >> And uh unfortunately, um that y'all the two-m radius uh we live uh right here by um uh Casablanca, >> right? Uh, and the two we're like I guess right on the two-m radius. And it's just um they're um they're building apartments on Alamo Ranch Parkway, so there's no walkway for her to to walk to school. And I just feel
065like 50 minutes for a child to walk is, you know, a little especially on the side of a highway is kind of, you know, dangerous. Anybody I have I have three girls, so I have no boys, all girls. I just would feel safer if she can like be added to a stop because um where we live is like the buses turn right there, you know, but unfortunately like it's two-m radius, but um it's just like like we were saying, you know, there's no walkway. Um I'm a I'm a construction plumber, so um >> let me say something. >> Okay, so yeah, because it's it's important that you guys get the idea of a commute for a 10-year-old little girl. It's really complicated for me to let my daughter walk anywhere alone at 10 years old.
066And then there's two other schools that drop off and pick up at our location. It's a elementary school, which is understandable, but then it's also a high school. So, I was just like, why was middle school skipped over? So, I walk with her. Um, it is a 45minute walk. It's a four mile commute for a parent. If you walk there with your child and you walk back, it is just a four mile commute for the child alone. and the heat, the Texas heat along with not having any um way to walk safely on the side of 1604 and 151. It's it's very concerning. And like he just said, there's apartment complexes that are being built. A lot of vacant apartments are there and there are a lot of men who are working at those construction
067sites. I do not feel comfortable having my daughter walk past those men. I don't, you know, I don't know what they're >> Yeah. I I work construction so like some trades don't do thoroughly background checks, you know, so you never know, you know. And then it's just a point of like uh you know, we got her a bicycle and we have to worry about the rain, you know. Thank god it don't snow that much in Texas, but um >> you know, it's just I'm already at work by six and I don't feel safe, but my woman walking with the busy traffic right there in Alammore Ranch. We're just trying to figure out. We've been talking to the um the transportation the school the school believes that we that she should have a bus stop because
068it's right there by the but we don't know what to do. So we just decided to come and >> show face and see what we can do if anybody can point us in the right direction. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> We'll follow up with you. Absolutely. Uh we have a hazardous route uh exception exemption. So let us let us follow up with you. >> I appreciate Thank y'all everybody for coming. >> Thank you for listening. >> Thank you for coming. Good job. Good job. >> You did good. All right, >> next signed up is Rita Kellogg. I need my readers. Hi, good evening. My name is Rita Kellogg. Um, I've been a part of Alamo Area Masters Swimming for six years now. I'm here tonight because NISD Aquatics is enforcing United States Masters Swimming's transgender eligibility
069policy at a public taxpayer funded facility and it's harming female athletes. USMs policy allows biological males who identify as women to compete in women's divisions and use women's locker rooms. On July 29th, NISD administrator BJ Allenstein made clear this policy would be enforced, stating, quote, "We are still a US MS team. If you don't like it, you do not need to register. It will be a requirement starting September 1st. Two days later, he emailed again saying, "I know some of you feel very strongly about how USMs has handled the USms national situation. If you do not want to be part of the organization, that is your choice. NISD aquatics will continue to be a part of the USMs organization and being an active member will be required to be part of the practices at the
070USMs spring nationals held at the NISTD Nitorium. I competed in the women's 45 to 49 division against Hugo Anna Caldis, a biological male who won all five events by wide margins. I raced in two of those same events. Neither group warned us that men would be competing in women's races or using our locker rooms. Refund requests were ignored. The NISTD Masters registration page for now even says the title as USMs registration, but it runs through the NISD's own payment system. That page states, "One of NISD's objectives is to quote instill good habits, sound morals, dot dot dot dot in the student of North Side Independent School District and NISD programming. So by adopting USMs masters as part of NISD programming, NISD is extending those values not just to K through2 students but also to master
071athletes. Yet those values are undermined when women are denied fairness and safety. To resolve this issue, I'm requesting that you allow myself and others to continue swimming with our regular teammates and practice times and coaches without being forced to join USMs, a nonprofit thirdparty organization. If NISTD insists on remaining partnered with USMS, then allow me to register independently, paying dues only to NISD Niatorium and not USMS or NISD masters. I do not want my money supporting an organization that enforces compliance with policies violating the law and my personal faith. At its core, this is about insurance coverage. Um, USMs provides liability insurance for its masters teams nationwide. But NISD already provides insurance for lifeguards and lap swimmers and other programs at the very same pool. There's no reason NISD cannot also provide coverage for master
072swimmers who object to USMs policies. To claim otherwise is simply an excuse. It's unfair. It violates Title 9. It should not be happening in a public school district program. And as an athlete with serious orthopedic injuries, swimming is truly my only option. For all of my doctors, I'm being forced out, though, by NISD and USMs. Hash unstoppable. Um, I'm going to provide a handout summary, but I know I can't give it to you guys, I don't think. So, if there's a way I could submit it, I would like that, um, this be entered into official record, and I request that the board provide a written response within 10 business days, please. Thank you very much. Thank you. >> And Miss Kell, I will follow up. Um, I have a lot of questions, so we we'll
073be following up with you. >> Lot of answers. >> Thank you. >> Um, this next person signed up and I apologize. Or Greenwald. >> Or Greenwald. I apologize. Good evening. My name is Orb Greenwald and um I'm here to talk about master swimming. A little bit about me, I grew up in California, learned to swim in the Pacific Ocean, went through high school and college swimming and playing water polo. Um upon graduation, I was commissioned in the army. Came down here to Fort Sam Houston where I was uh sent to participate in the sport of modern pentathlon. One of the five events in Kathlon is swimming. Back then, um I think we were the first non- studentent group to utilize a now George block pool. So I had a a pentathlon career. Fast forward to
0742003, I was recruited by the Air Force to come down here, teach and train uh special special operations students, par rescue men and combat controllers. One of the things you learn about being around these guys or um good athletes that they have discipline, drive, desire, dedication, determination, all of those things. Six years ago, as Rita mentioned, she showed up on the pool deck, joined the team, and she exhibited those same characteristics. In the pool, she's there every time on time. in the pool. She trains hard, works hard, and is a good example of what a nonswmer can do in a good mast's program. She was elated to make the national swimming championships here held in the her own her home pool. Um, very exciting. First time out to compete in the nationals gets there. Um,
075US Master Swimming Awards certificates. um all-American certificates for the first 10 finishers in each event. Rita finished 10th in her event. Lo and behold, transgender guy parading as a female finished first, knocked her down to 11th. Imagine that. She was elated to have won and placed as an all-American to have it short-lived like that by somebody who should have not been, in my opinion, allowed to be in the pool. How do we fix that? Ken Paxton got wind of it and he filed a lawsuit against US Master Swimming. My suggestion is that for people like me, like Rita, other masters, we will continue to swim as a master, pay our monthly dues, but not be forced to join US Masters Swimming until that lawsuit is fi uh finished. That pretty much concludes my remarks. Do
076you have any questions? >> You can't respond. Yeah, thank you. That adds a little bit more context. >> We'll be following up on the matter. Thank you. >> Um, Angela Manzo, or is it Manto? >> Manto, I'm sorry. >> Close enough. >> Okay. Well, I want to thank you for the oversight that you provide for the 91,500 average daily attendant students here at North Side. and I appreciate very much the education my now adult sons received and I wouldn't change a thing about our experience. My name is Angela Monzo and I've lived in the North Side School District for over 13 years. We're a very military family. My husband is a retired Army colonel and my now adult sons that graduated from Northside schools are both at servicemies. One is going to graduate this year
077from Air Force Academy and the other one is in his second year at Coast Guard Academy and they both became collegiate swimmers andor water water polo players. So that might give you some insight into the amount of time that we have spent at the north side pools over the last 13 years. So I also want to talk about what happened back in the spring. You know that got national attention about the man that competed against women at our pool. So, I've been a member of the master's swimming program at the Natitorium since before co. I am not competitive like Rita. Um, it doesn't mean that I'm a being a master swimmer doesn't mean that you're an Olympian. It just means that I'm an adult who likes to swim with a group of other adults who
078like to swim, too. Competition represents a very few number of days out of the year, even for the most competitive members of this community program. It's the only program for adults that I'm aware of at the pool and none of the members here or anywhere are professional master swimmers. That doesn't exist. It's a hobby for everyone. So, um, US Masters does not provide the pool. I pay a different fee for the community program. And as they've already heard, we also are required to pay a fee to the national organization in order to participate in our community program. And if we won't pay that fee, we cannot participate in the community program. And it's the only one that's adult that's offered for adults as far as I'm aware. So, um, so back in the spring when
079we hosted the the national championship, you know, North Side hosted it, not San Antonio Sports, not any other organization. And I was included on another email from a North Side employee asking for volunteers to help run the event. So, I came every day and I spent four or five hours every single day of the event timing swimmers, both male and female. And yes, the event made national news because at least one male swimmer competed in the women's category. And I distinctly remember seeing this swimmer close up multiple times, including when he broke women's records. I didn't know that they were male at the time. And when I found out, I was very upset. And I asked North Side employees questions about it and was referred to US Masters Swimming. and I asked them if US
080Master Swimming is now speaking for North Side and got no response. So the strong feelings were acknowledged, but ultimately the only answer we were provided was that if we wanted to continue swimming with the community program, we would be required to continue to pay any more to pay money to the national organization. an organization that openly defies state and national law. An organization that's being sued by General Attorney General Ken Paxton as of July last month because of what happened at Northside Swim Center. >> Okay, we have time is up. Do you want to wrap it up? Are you done? >> Sure. Um, so I too would like to just be able to continue swimming in the in the community program without being forced to pay a fee to the national organization that is not
081in compliance with state or federal law. And um I question why North Side would want to make this political because it is a sensitive topic and I do want to be sensitive to other people's feelings about it. But Noright is forcing me to take a position, a political position that I don't want to have to do. >> Thank you, >> Angie Jin. >> Hi there. My name is Angie Yain. Sorry, >> I apologize. >> It's like the rain in Spain. Um, but yay. Anyways, anyways, um, thank you for having me here. I live in district 4 where I have two boys attending high school. I am here today to express concerns regarding students safety, in particular, firearms in around in and around school grounds. Excuse me. Last week, I received an email from our principal
082stating that campus administrators detained a student for questioning. After searching the student's vehicle, multiple vaping devices and a handgun were found. While I appreciate the swift actions of campus police and school administrators took to apprehend the student, I feel our school district can use this incident as an opportunity to send a strong, secure gun storage message to parents and guardians. Guns used in school-based violence come from the shooter's home or homes of family or friends. 4.1 or 4.6 6 million American children live in a home with at least one loaded unlocked gun. Restricting access to guns is critical in reducing acts of violence, whether as self harm or towards others. In 2023, the Texas legislature passed legislation requiring school districts to distribute sorry require requiring school districts to distribute secure gun storage information and share
083child access prevention laws in Texas. While North Side School District has the keep them safe messaging at the bottom of the NISD parents page, I feel the district should send supplemental information home directly to parents and guardians. Here's a few ideas. Um, Houston ISD requires parents or guardians to sign a safe gun storage acknowledgement form. You could also have secure storage presentations at um your stop thebleleed events. You could work with PTA or other like-minded organizations to have them disseminate the same information. Have principles or districtwide rooc calls that explain the child access prevention laws and secure gun storage. Um or better yet, I know football season's here. you can show the keep them safe um video message on the jumbotrons during games or athletic events. Um so I think studies so I think building
084a robust culture of secure gun storage not only in our school communities but in our general community can help normalize the adult conversation around this topic that are crucial to keeping our community safe and especially our kids in schools. So thank you. Thanks, Miss Jane. >> I believe last signed up is Molina Espiritu Azokar. >> You did not miss my name. >> I get it. >> I said you did not mess my name up. >> Practicing for practicing. Uh good evening, trustees, superintendent. Um thank you for having me this evening. Um Saturday the 16th was a powerful day for public education in North Side. Our north side neighbors for public schools event brought together teachers, support staff, union members, and IC trustees and community volunteerers all working side by side to strengthen our schools. And
085I want to thank Dr. Jordan uh for coming and speaking and knocking on doors with us that day. Um together we knocked and shared great things happening in North Side and helped bring families back to their neighborhood schools. That day we knocked on about 300 doors. Uh this is what it looks like when communities come together to invest in our students. Uh, of course, a special thank you to Congressman Haqin Castro, Ser Sheriff Salazar, and Councilman Rick Galvan for standing strong with our public schools and our north side families. Uh, their presence remind us that public education is not just about school issues. It's a community issue and it's one worth fighting for. Our volunteers showed that what's possible when we lead with hope and commitment. We showed that when we stand together, we can
086build a stronger North Side for every student, every family, and every educator. North Side AFT has continued to knock doors in the community this week and we hope to hit the 500 mark at some point this week, just for this week. Um, and we'll be knocking again next week as well. Um, we're not stopping here. On September the 18th, we're gather again for a public education forum. Um, as you heard tonight, um, as we work together with the district to combat continuous expansion of charter schools in in this district, this event is a partnership um, with our schools, our democracy, North A North Side Councilman Rick Alvon's office. This will be a great chance for families, educators, and community members to come together to share ideas and to make sure uh public education stays strong
087in North Side. Um I hope that all of y'all can attend this event. Uh bring your voices, your questions, and your commitment to our schools. Uh together we can keep building the kind of public schools every child deserves, and we definitely need to continue to make sure that our students stay in our district. Thanks. >> Thanks, Molina. That concludes uh or this the last speaker. I think that uh concludes unless we missed anyone uh signed up for citizens to be heard. >> Thank you. Thank you for coming. All right. So, now we're moving on to our consent agenda [Applause] and Mrs. Freeman. >> Yes. Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you, Dr. Dur. There's one item I would like to pull um for just discussion and that would be the um the 202526 school health advisory
088council and this is just a a a small ask. Um I have uh I know we had the presentation um the other day at committee meeting and I never really thought to ask about this. We were provided with a list of those current members on the shack that we are looking to approve tonight. Um because of prior experiences with some of our committees, I had asked um someone I guess it was yesterday or staff member if they could pull the attendance for each of the um people on this particular roster. And I don't want to go through them by names because I'm not even sure I what I don't know is if we've actually talked to these people. There are three that have not attended um any of the meetings from last year and I
089kind of wonder if they're really interested this year. Have we had the conversation? There's also a member that um or a couple members that have attended one of the sessions. So, I just ask um staff if you please just go ahead and um have those conversations. Janice, do you uh Dr. Jordan, do you know if we've talked to them? >> At the very last meeting, those who were in attendance, >> it was asked if they would like to return. And so, um if they didn't attend the last meeting, we didn't get feedback from them. So we can easily we know what you're seeing on that is kind of a accumulation of attendance across four meetings. Um we actually have the document that shows which meeting they were in attendance. So we can easily follow up
090anyone who was not in attendance for that fourth meeting. >> Yeah, it just appears that there there were people that haven't attended any of the meetings. And my point is to hear I think we could still go ahead and approve the the list, but I'd like to go ahead and have a conversation with those people and if they're not able to attend the meetings um coming up next year, maybe that's an opportunity for us to >> Yeah, I think that's a good point. When is the first meeting? Do we schedule it again? >> It's in October. Yeah, we have the dates for shot. Yeah, we we can definitely follow up just to ensure that especially if they haven't attended a meeting last year and if they're not interested in serving completely understand busy times, we
091can actually look at replacing those committee members. >> I mean, I understand there are sometimes when you really want to do something and then you get into it and your schedule changes or such. So again, I don't want to exclude anybody um from this particular approval tonight, but I do want I'd like to have >> Yeah, we can follow up and then we can bring back the list and at the September board meeting. >> Well, yes, exactly. We'll have time to bring it back for review and that'll give us the opportunity to reach out and confirm, but also make personal contact if they haven't been in attendance or weren't in attendance to that last meeting last year >> or haven't made like again there's a couple, just a few. Okay, thank you. >> We're happy
092to do so. >> All right. Okay. Do we have any motions to approve the consent agenda without item I? >> I I'm sorry. I um my thought is that we just go ahead and approve. Excuse me. >> Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. >> Oh, no. I my thought is we approve the list and then find out who can. But if you have another suggestion, >> Mr. M. >> Yeah. I I tend to follow what Dr. Craft was sort of indicating. I think we should wait to be honest. um one to reconfirm and some of us a point we may want to check ourselves too >> and then um also got the list I'm not sure everybody's had opportunity to >> identify others and that may give a little time for that >> yeah we'll have
093ample time to bring it back to the September 23rd >> uh for reconsideration >> any motions >> we we can still well not yet sorry I just want clarity so we can still ask someone >> you can I think and I I am looking at one of the people that I did recommend um if when the dates were published. I mean, she couldn't do it. So, I'm just wondering um because she agreed to it and she was real excited, but she couldn't do it because of the dates. I'm wondering if at that time um we could still I mean, we could still ask someone else to come. >> Do we have those dates? Uh pretty soon. >> We do. We have the dates for the NEIC. We have the dates for Shaq. >> Could you
094share those with us? >> Yep. We just don't have them for North Side Leadership, right? For leadership north side, >> we just have the dates. >> We just have Yeah, if we could have all those dates and that way. >> Yeah, you guys can you can add members all the way up to approval. >> Then then I mean it's your if if you want to add or change after that, we would just need to bring it back for approval and that's not a problem. >> Well, that'll be helpful uh that they know what >> dates. Yeah, they know kind of what the commitment is, right? Yes, >> we could still like Okay, good. >> Snack check. >> Thanks. >> All right. >> Any motions? >> Okay, Mrs. Freeman. >> Yes. Then I would go ahead
095and move to approve the items on um consent agenda except for item I. Second. >> We have a second from Dr. Harl. All in favor say I. I. >> All oppose. Any discussion? Motion is passed. Thank you. All right. So, that leaves us to our next agenda item, which is item number six for facilities and operations. >> Yes, ma'am. Uh, this is our second GMP or guarantee maximum price for our classroom replacement at John Marshall High School. Um, uh, we were able to review this with the building committee uh, at our last building committee and so this is for your consideration this evening. Yeah. Good evening. Raise this up a little bit. Good evening, Madame President, members of the board. So, I'm here presenting amendment number two for the GMP of the admin and uh
096classroom replacement at John Marshall High School. This is for approval. This is part of our 22 bond proposition. Uh, as you may recall, we brought the construction manager at risk uh back in January of this year. Um, and then you guys actually approved amendment number one, which was the demolition, uh, or not the demolition, but the what we call the make, relocating utilities and getting the building prepared to be demolished and then getting ready for that day one of school. And so that was approved back in a special call meeting in May in the amount of just over $6.7 million. So this amendment number two that we're bringing to you today is really the big bulk of this project. There is a third phase that we'll bring at a later date. We're targeting November board
097meeting right now. Um, but this is where we're going to be tearing down the building and starting to build the new building in its place. Um, it will be a two-story structure. It will remove two buildings, building A and building C. Uh, with me today, I have the architect of record with Fluger Architects, Mr. Raul Giannis. And then I also have George General Contracting with Mr. D Robertson who's back here if he if you guys have any questions. So this amendment number two is a not to exceed amount of $21,655,470. Again, this is the biggest chunk of the project. Uh amendment three would come and we're targeting in the neighborhood of about $6 million. So in totality, um due to math, it's a it's a decent chunk of change, but it's a going to have
098a instrumental impact to the front of Marshall. As you know, we've done several portions of that campus at the front and so this would be the kind of glue that brings all those together. So, with that, um, uh, we're recommending approval and we're here to answer any questions that you may have. >> Don't have any. We asked a lot of questions in building, so maybe that's why. >> Sure. >> Um, all right. Any motions to come from the board? Dr. Hall. >> Well, since it is John Marshall High School, go Rams. I'll make the motion to approve. >> Any second? Mr. Santido seconds that uh all in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? Any further discussion? All right. Motion is passed. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you.
099And now moving on to our seventh item on the agenda, business and finance. >> Yes, ma'am. Uh, as promised, uh, we've got several items to bring to your attention. So, I believe Jake is going to, uh, start us off with the fourth B, excuse me, fourth budget amendment for this current fiscal year, uh, which we've only got a few short days left. >> Yes, last day is Sunday. So, uh, we're excited about that. I I'll I'll go over and uh review the budget amendment uh tonight. Um as usual, we don't have a slideshow with these, but you have the entire packet there with a brief write up about it. So, I'll go over each fund and uh feel free to ask questions if y'all have any. So, uh Texas Education Code in general requires us
100to stay within functional budgets. And so, that's what we're trying to do here in this final budget amendment is to align our budget as closely as we can to where we think we're going to end the year for actual expenditures. That's easier said than done. It takes a lot of work and a lot of projections for payroll with 14,000 employees. There's a lot that goes into that, but um tonight we believe we've got it pretty close and u excited to kind of present that forward. For the general fund, the most significant thing we've got is an $18 million swing in state aid that we received on Friday of last week. So this is involves our property value audits that adjust each year sometimes if we're filed and we get them approved. Uh this audit came
101in uh last week or we heard last week that it would come in for this fiscal year. So we had that previously scheduled to be received in 2526 and now we transition that over to the 2425 year. So the presentation that Miss Bradley did that slideshow that showed the fund balance also had that moved over into 2425. So we had to transition most of our documents on Friday to make that that adjustment. So some of the other significant changes that we'll see in the general fund are ADA reductions and then tax collection adjustments based on the property values. Expenditures include the uh salary and overtime savings that we've realized in going through our budget savings process for 2526. We got to realize some of those at the end of this year. So, uh, through those,
102we expect the proposed final budget deficit to be around $83.9 million. Have any questions on the general fund? Okay. So, the child nutrition fund, this one has relatively small adjustments for revenue and expenditures. I think the expenditures are food and utility costs. Uh, this results in a $4.6 million deficit budget. Um, this is approved by TDA. We had a fund balance spend down plan because we had fund balance in excess of three months, I believe. So, we had to get that down this fiscal year as we worked out with TDA. So, that was planned to be at that level. And then our last fund is the debt service fund. So, this one is where we pay all of our uh bond payments and make all the debt payments for the district. So this includes some
103final adjustments for expenditures, a little bit of revenue adjustments as well, but the expenditures includes the include the uh final adjustment for defeasance for the fiscal year. So this will leave the debt service fund with an $ 8.4 million surplus. That point, this would be an item for approval this evening. If y'all have questions, I'd be happy to answer them. We were happy to see >> we were happy to see the property study uh value um revenue uh uh come in for this fiscal year. I mean you saw it was the fund balance that we're asking or for your consideration to designate either was going to come out of this upcoming fiscal year i.e. fiscal year 26 or this current fiscal year. So, it's kind of just a matter of timing more so, but uh
104that $18 million uh approved by the controller is very helpful >> um to say the least. >> No questions on from the floor. >> Okay. >> So, this is an action item. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Do we have any motions? >> Oh, Mrs. Freeman. Dr. D on I would move approval of the budget amendment. >> Okay. Any second? Dr. Hassel second that. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any other discussion? Okay. Motion is passed. Thank you. >> Good evening. Uh the next agenda item is the commitment of fund balance resolution. uh for the last few months, more than few months, we've been talking about the fund balance and showing that earlier in the presentation. This is what we bring forward every August to uh commit a fund balance amount. And so
105per B board policy CE local, the board approves all fund balance commitments by formal action. So that's what we're here to do today. The resolution commits um the resolution which is attached in your agenda uh commits a portion of the general funds general funds fund balance as well as committing special revenue fund balances from local sources. And so the commitment allows for the previously committed 140 million instructional continuity in the general fund to be adjusted by the actual results of operations. And so in there you will see that language in the resolution and um once the fiscal audit is done then we'll determine how much is left in that instructional continuity fund and that is uh for approval. >> Any motions Mr. Blunt? >> Just a real quick question. It's not really it's related but
106not directly to what what you just talked about. I'm just curious on on Gatsby when when Gatsby make changes or do y'all get informed of that or we have any input into that or >> they do they do have um forums that you can ask questions and then you can listen to a lot of the uh live webinars that they have. Yes, you can submit with that and then we also um every time there's changes proposed we talk to our external auditors through that process and they of course are really um involved in that process. And Gatsby has a public comment time before they actually adopt also. So they give a window of time to offer. >> Okay. Good. Good. Thank you. Since I interrupted, I'll move approval of the unbalanced resolution as presented. >>
107Do we have a second? Mr. Silo seconds that all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any further discussion? All right. Motion carries. Thank you. >> Perfect. Okay. Okay, the next agenda item is something we also bring every August and this is our defeasence um resolution. And so we've talked about this also o over the last few months and in fact our municipal advisor Michelle Aragon uh presented on August 12th about the defeasance and the amount we're going to uh recommend or that we have in the resolution. And so that will be an amount no less than 84.36 million to defeze in this next fiscal year 2526 >> and this amount is included in the budget as we talked about earlier. >> Mrs. Freeman, >> thank you. Uh Miss Bradley, thank you for
108um estimating for coming up with the estimate is the amount of money that we save regarding this defeasance. It's because of our aggressive debt management plan that we're able to do this. Yes, ma'am. And we've been doing these kinds of things for several years, saving taxpayers money. And I think it's a good idea that we continue to let them know how much we've saved them. Yes, ma'am. >> So, um, so thank you for that. >> And I don't know. With that, I would move approval. >> Okay. Do we have any seconds? >> Second. >> Mr. Blunt seconds that. And all in favor say I. >> Any opposed? Any further discussion? Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. As you can see this evening, I'm um spreading the wealth of letting other people speak tonight. So, the next
109item, as promised, is the request to adopt the budgets. Um the three budgets, the general fund, school nutrition, and debt service, as we've discussed earlier this evening. What I like about this just is that we're not raising prices for children's school lunch, which is really nice because usually in order to do something there's a cost associated and this year we're helping parents be able to uh those that have to pay afford their school lunch. So, >> and if you would like um Mr. Weary did do an analysis comparing our prices, our paid prices to districts around us. If you'd like me to put that in the Friday letter, I could do that for you for you to know >> because I know they're very low compared. >> They are very low compared to our neighbors.
110>> So, thank you for that. Any motions, >> Mrs. Freeman? >> I was just going to comment that um child nutrition does a very good job of um looking for ways to be more efficient. And we've we've historically had this um come to us where we've been able to keep the the prices low. So um but it is because they work at it. Um certainly economy of scale helps. But um but uh child nutrition does a with under Thomas Wary does a really good job. >> Yes, I do. >> Do you want to make a motion? Oh yes, I um I I would move approval. >> Any second? >> Miss Dr. Harl would second that. And all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any further discussion? Okay. Approved. >> Thank you, ma'am.
111And the next item is also related and we've talked about it um through the evening and it is adopting the tax rates that were used to develop the budgets that you see. Again, those tax rates are remaining flat. There is a specific motion I want to point out to you that is in your board document. So you can see it there. [Applause] >> Do we want >> It's an odd and I will say to the board it >> Dr. Hasso will Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. >> I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of the tax rate of dollar What's 1.0049 >> which is effectively a 1.94% increase in the tax rate. >> Any second Mrs. Freeman? >> Yeah, just a a comment too um if I may. So regarding
112this I think you can correct me but this is the lowest tax rate that this district has had for how long? Um yes and the presentation showed and I will yes it's yes it has steadily gone down this year is the same as last year but yes it is historic it has gone down since at least 2016 >> right and our our maintenance and operations um uh we're actually essentially told how much we can tax regarding that the fact that um we have to the motion has the language that it's in though we've lowered heard we've continued to lower the tax rate. We have to say that we have an effective tax rate that's higher because our property values are higher. Um and it's by law that we have to say that but actuality the
113rate has gone the rate has gone down. >> Yeah, that's precisely correct. It's the the levy is increased as a result of of property value increases but not as a result of what you as a governing body have elected to do with the actual effective tax rate. >> Even though we have to read it that way. >> Correct. Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. Thank you for that point. We have a second. >> Second. >> Okay. Dr. Hall, I heard you first. Sorry. But Ty, you want to flip a coin? >> Dr. Okay. And so all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any further discussion? Okay, the motion carries. >> Thank you. Megan has a budget. >> Yes, we can we can pay our bills. Thank you very much. North has a budget.
114>> Our employees appreciate it. as a day approaches. >> Thank you. Get some rest team finance. We now move on to our next item on the agenda which is administration. >> Yes, ma'am. Uh there are several pieces of legislation uh obviously that uh have passed as a result of the 89th legislative session. Um and so we're like I say working through um trying to work to prioritize um uh those um uh bills and then of course uh interject uh the bill language uh into policy. Uh so tonight we have update 125 um and then several other policies that uh we need to bring for your uh first reading um and or review. So Dr. Fay It's the It's the one on the >> little gray gray button. >> You should be on. >> I'm on.
115There you go. Thank you. Thank you. It is my technology people back there. >> Sorry. Now I got to log back onto my computer. So, I'm thrilled because policy is one of my favorite things uh to present to boards. Um, let me um get into this real quick. Of course, my password is incorrect. There we go. So, the first one is uh up for discussion. Uh, and this is a requirement by House Bill 367, which actually institutes a form that the board has to formally adopt now for a child to have their doctors um sign off on a serious illness. And so, we'll be bringing this back for formal adoption and consent in the next meeting. Oh, well, we we can actually take action on this one if y'all want to uh tonight actually. And
116so, um, basically, um, we have to adopt a form legally now for someone to get their, uh, absences excused, uh, and signed off on by a physician. And so, we've created this document. We've had it signed off on by our legal, uh, consultation, and we are asking for your approval tonight to sign off on this. Okay, Mrs. Freeman, >> I have a question. >> Sure. >> Um, regarding this, I just the the rationale behind it. Um, so when when a ch when a student is sick and um a parent writes an excuse note, sends it to the school saying that the child was sick, we automatically excuse up to a certain number of days. Is that correct? That is it can be lots of days actually. Yes. >> So I guess I wonder why >>
117is this assuming a long um >> yes serious illness uh serious illness extended uh hospital stay things like that. Um >> so in the past uh you could have signed a note saying my child has been in the hospital. um for those absences to be excused. They're asking now for the physician to actually sign off on it. >> Did they say they didn't specify a number of days that they did not talking about? >> Are we going to quantify that number? >> Uh I don't believe that we will. Um >> case by case basis. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. All right. Dr. Hustle. Um, can we fix the formatting of the form where it says like campus the line is at the bottom semantics either move it down or >> delete it? >>
118Yeah, absolutely. >> I'm not tracking that. >> We can clean up the >> Where student name and student information. >> Oh, yes. Yes. It may have just shown up that way as well because of the uploading. So, yeah. Okay. Yes. Thank you. >> We We are very good editors, right? >> That's great. Good for me to know. There's too much space in between. >> Yeah. >> So, thank you. All right. Do we have Mrs. Zapata question? >> I guess my question is is um it it doesn't really say it says um a physician like a board approved physician and I don't know if that's is that written in there completed by >> what is the question? I'm sorry. board certified physician or >> I'm assuming so um >> I think it's >> well sometimes they
119the physicians designate like there are >> like an MPA or a PA I'm assuming that that would suffice. Yes, >> but it's not regulated per seb. >> Great question. >> And Dr. Hall I think my question was answered. I mean, I was double-checking because it's it's hard to quantify cancer. I mean, severity is severity. So, I'm I'm glad it doesn't have days on it or a time period. Um, did legal have any any questions or No, they they said this is pretty standard. This is >> they actually created it for us. >> Oh, okay. Okay. So >> would it also include um any kind of um is mental health considered an illness? >> Uh I believe that depends on the diagnosis. >> Okay. >> And so I would say the answer would be yes based
120on an individual basis depending on hospitalization things like that. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> In a lot of these cases keep in mind uh the student is likely going to qualify for homebound services which is inhome instructional support services. So these are like I say pretty extenuating circumstances. >> Okay. Dr. Hasso, do you have another question or are from earlier? Okay. Mrs. Apata, Dr. Hasso, Mr. Sido. >> Yeah, I just >> on number one, diagnosis of illness. Is that going to be open to who who's going to see that? I'm concerned about the privacy of the HEPA laws of diagnosis who secretary >> all that would be maintained in the students private file on campus and so which are protected and so only certain individuals on campus have access to it or have
121a right to have access to that and so yes pretty standard >> concern is who's seeing what you got. >> Yeah, this will be considered an educational record. It's not even directory information. Um, so >> the parent brings it to the >> secretary puts it in the assistant. >> Yeah, it would be submitted to the students file. I mean it it absolutely would be considered confidential information just as grades just as other health records. Um, and keep in mind too only if parents opt into directory information be released is that privy to any type of information request uh by the public. >> Because we get doctor's notes today and that's the process. Correct. Okay. All right. Does anyone want to make a motion today? >> Further discuss. Dr. Hall, >> I move we approve the
122certification of excused absences with the changes that Dr. Hasso recommended or change. >> Okay. Any seconds? >> Mr. Blunt has a excuse me. >> Can Can we clarify that? Are we was just semantics. >> But I mean, are we talking about Oh, that part not to certify. Okay. Okay. >> Just to move the line over >> the signature line. >> All right. And Mrs. Freeman seconded that. Uh, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Okay. Any further discussion? Motion carries. Thank you. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All opposed. Yeah, we did. We did vote, Carol. >> Uh the next item, uh you probably recall this is a good cause exception. Um uh legislation that was passed actually the 88th legislative session uh requires an armed security officer. um
123uh if an armed security officer is not assigned to uh each campus uh a good cause uh exception resolution uh is required and so this legislative session it's required on an annual basis. Um uh I'm very pleased to say that uh we have um actually one of our lowest vacancy rates with our police officers that we've had in quite some time. Uh so we have well over 100 commissioned officers. Uh just as a reminder, we use our own police um uh to provide uh armed security services, but then also patrolling uh uh geographic regions for our elementary campuses. Our police officers make contact with every elementary campus on a daily basis on a rotation. Um and and like I say, um this is um the good cause exception uh for not having in essence the
124armed security officer which my recommendation is still to maintain our police department um which are TCO certified in providing uh this particular um uh provision. >> Dr. Fre, I don't know if you wanted to add anything. No, just that this the original resolution uh that districts had to do was done back in 2023 uh prior to the start of the school year. Uh that was not a mandatory requirement every year. Uh with the 89th legislature, that now is a mandatory requirement every year for us to do a good cause exception. And so that's what we're bringing you tonight for action. >> Okay. Do we have any motions? Any further discussion? Any questions? Mrs. Zapata. >> Um, I have a question. It says in here, >> I'm I'm just skimming over it, that we have 13
125open police officer positions. >> Yes. >> That are vacant >> as of right. as of Okay, >> that number just again for historical context has been anywhere from 35 to 40 plus. So, we're actually in much much better shape and and being able to recruit as well as retain district police officers. We're competing with San Antonio, obviously, city of San Antonio is where as well as uh Bear County Sheriff's Department. So, it's can be pretty tough. Do >> we have any motions? >> Mrs. Freeman. >> Yeah, I move approval. >> A second. >> Second. >> Dr. Harl, we are getting tired of pressing the button. All in favor say I. I. >> I. >> Uh, any opposed? >> Any further discussion? Okay, the motion passes. Uh the next item, uh TASBY policy update 125. This
126was discussed in our last policy meeting. Um unless you have any questions, Dr. Faves, there anything? >> No, we have both. We have um we have legal policy listed separately from local and so most of our um most of the legal stuff is just required by law to change. And so you have that as an action item actually for a first reading tonight. And then uh local policy updates we discuss in the policy committee meeting. So if you have any questions about that and I tried to put some good narrative in in the the board book for that as well. >> Okay. Do we have any motion? This is just a discussion. >> So let's read it. With your approval, what we'd like to do is bring these uh policies back for a second reading
127on the September 23rd meeting on consent agenda. >> Okay. So, we get time to look them over and ask any questions. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Item D. >> Um E, it was actually a policy that was discussed um which is CW local um naming of facilities or portions of facilities. And so you'll see uh believe in that uh policy um that we did add some language >> um to include a first reading uh on page 202. Um so that will provide the opportunity for the board to review any proposed uh name. We won't change the naming process which is really the soliciting of names uh through our online medium. um that that process will remain the same. Uh but it will entail a first reading uh for a facility and or a portion of
128a facility um before bringing it back to the subsequent meet uh for consideration or action. >> Okay. So that's for discussion. And if we have folks that have resubmitted requirements pending this policy, what I know it says one year, but do we have anything that comes before that? So, we're actually we were working through that last week and I'll let Monica uh provide that kind of overview as to where we are with previous name submissions and then um well then going forward if there need to be reubmissions. >> I hope Okay, I think that's fine. Yeah. Okay. So, we do have a list currently um of the most recent. I do have a log of previous if we need to go to those as well, but we do have some. Do you want me to
129give full specifics? >> No, I I guess I would just want those folks to know like we'll be reaching out to them if they're within what two years or since I've been on this board there's been a request and so then if they need to resubmit, we will give them that opportunity. >> And I do keep an email or in my email I do have a folder of any emails that have come through as well. We've looked at them in the past when we've named other facilities as well and and schools. So, um, I do keep that log. So, depending on how far back you want to go, >> I I think if we want to be fair, if we can look back to since we were elected, I can't go back beyond that, but
130there was been names that have been submitted, but we've been tableing this agenda. >> And usually we give a we give a time frame as well. We'll open it to the public. We'll make sure that they're aware that we are looking at this process and to give their input if they would like to do so. the website has the um link for them to fill everything out and we give a start and a close date and then I believe y'all usually discuss a time frame of how far back you want to look at those things and so we will do that as well. >> Yeah, I think Monica Kitman if I'm wrong, but the online submissions that once they're submitted they don't they don't really fall off. >> Yeah, they're on the spreadsheet. So we
131we we keep those in a repository if you will. Now, you know, it's the board's purview completely as to whether those names need to be reconsidered. But, um, when it's a specific facility, say a new campus, then we go about very specifically delineating this is the window of time for name submission, but we keep kind of this catalog, if you will, of names that have been uh or or suggestions that have been submitted historically. >> Mr. Blunt. No, no. I just um so the one year applies to um elementary, middle, and high schools. It doesn't we don't have the same time frame within the naming of specific buildings or facilities on a campus. And um >> I say that because it's sort of a different process per se because those in theory we should consider
132as they come up per se, >> right? So that's one thing we need to remember and be cautious of that the specific buildings facilities are all together different than time-wise how we handle the middle elementary and high schools. >> Okay. >> Yeah, that's a great point. When we're get when we're opening a new facility, for example, it's kind of important to have a name uh before we uh open the front doors. um whereas existing facilities um or portions of those facilities there's a little bit more grace as far as just from a timeline standpoint. It's good good point. >> Okay. So, uh doc Mrs. Freeman and then Dr. Hall. >> I have a question regarding um the not the facility naming outside of school of course the school namings. We've already named all the schools
133that we're going to name right now. So those those names would go away. So anybody though that has um nominated in the past I don't I don't know how many I don't know how many we have that have been stacked up because it's been a while because we've been talking about this policy for a little while. Um I wonder and I don't know what the pleasure of the board is. Should we should we go back and ask these people if they want to update their um nomination? I I think some of them are probably at least a couple years old. >> Yeah, we we we can I >> I mean that's the question. >> I think that's a number of nominations. >> How many do we have? How many? >> We don't know that number,
134but okay. I want to make sure we do not >> I don't know the exact number, but I do have a spreadsheet. It would be easy for me to get those calculations for you. I do keep a spreadsheet on those. >> Dr. Uh-huh. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Yeah. Real quick question. This doesn't cover renaming, right? Like if we want it where where did it >> the last >> renaming change two of two >> the last paragraph >> it would it would come like we're naming a new um >> yeah we haven't we haven't suggested any recommen um and then facilities also includes like the naming of a library or the naming of a music building. Okay. That's also meant by facilities. Okay. >> Yeah. So, the the classroom buildings that are part of a
135campus, >> um request uh to name specific facilities. Example, libraries, band halls, courtyards, amphitheaters. >> Uh again, considered on a case by case uh basis. And Karen, it is easy for me to the way I have the spreadsheet set up versus reaching out to each individual one because we can do that like I've done in the past. The last time we did um a facility, I can categorize and pull all of the ones. So like he said, it's historical. I can pull those and we can look at all of those that um have requested say since 23. >> May 2023 is my request since that's the only time I can account for since you've been here. Dr. Mr. has a question. >> Yeah, I just got a quick comment as far as uh moving uh
136make this a priority since we've got um facility now that are being built and instead of going to the cost of renaming something actually got the contractor to put if we do decide to name an example would be the old uh baseball complex that we're doing. We got two two new stadiums and a a field that's going >> the the sports complex. If we're going to look to u make a change with the name, i.e. in order to be able to order lettering, we are going to have to do so ASAP. um um because that that facility, in fact, I'm pretty certain we're probably already ordered or have ordered um the lettering the metal fixtures, if you will, for uh that facility. So, you're exactly right. Looking forward, if it's the board's desire to go
137about naming portions of facilities, particularly that are under construction, the sooner the better. Absolutely. >> Yeah. because there's a field on at Gus well next to Gus at Jake Engelman. I asked Stan about it. He doesn't really know how that got named since we didn't have a policy but it actually has it on >> baseball field. Bobby I don't know. >> Yeah, I just in I would tell you this when it comes to athletic facility it usually came a lot most cases it came from the board want to recognize certain individuals. So wasn't automatically because we got a new tennis facility or we got a new and Ferris is a good example of that when you look closely at it. It's just the board say hey this is a great individual we want to recognize
138is how most of the athletic ones got named. So it wasn't a new facility we got to name it type of thing for the athletic ones. And my suggestion like most colleges and universities is the naming comes with donation >> that's going to get that much notoriety >> that sponsorship right we hearing this recently and other situations happening but so I'm just saying like where we're at we might you want to sponsor us >> well yeah >> you don't have roles for that but you know think about it >> well I think the nomination process comes more than one, right? I mean, for an example of Germany, which you had a stack of I mean, who's going to pay? Would they split the cost or I mean >> I you know, we we at the
139last policy uh meeting we we did look at a particular policy that uh talked about uh donor amounts and um particularly the cost associated with rebranding lettering. you know, having been associated with um a couple of districts that um went about um soliciting donations andor advertising, I'd just caution proceeding really carefully. Um, we've got some really nice facilities. And in my opinion, once we start placing uh ads and other things on our really nice facilities, uh, it it it definitely changes um the look, not for the better in my opinion. Now, I love chicken, especially fried chicken, but >> not that much. >> That sounds like a personal story and it's what you'll tell us later about. >> Um, Dr. Harl, you had the >> Did you need Did you want to follow up? >>
140No. >> Oh, okay. Thanks. Sorry. >> All right. >> Mrs. Freeman, do you have another followup? >> Yeah. I just don't know where we are right now regarding this. So, um I think it's up to the board whether we want to go back and ask the people who have made the nominations if they want to um modify those nominations, especially some that have just have been in the hopper for a while, but there might be some that have gone before 2023. So, I don't want to discount them. So, I don't know how many you have that is have been in a stack and we've just kept them on file. I know of a couple and I think there might be one before 2023. We just haven't this board hasn't addressed it. So I think I
141think yeah those come back and then we decide whether we want to go forward with those or not. But >> so logistically what we can do is for those that we have contact information and record we can start working to reach out just offering would you like to update those nominations. In the meantime, uh this is first reading for the policy uh amendment as presented. Um that gives us really almost a month uh before we bring this back on September 23rd for like say your consideration second reading. >> Um and that'll give us like say I think some time to reach out if there's updated nomination. I would feel better that we have do our due diligence and that way we can fulfill the the the policy as stated within the year and then we
142could start fresh with anything that comes after that and revisit that list as names are submitted. So thank you all great great input. >> Okay, we we'll bring this back like I say on the 23rd. >> The next policy is uh EFB local uh which pertains to instructional resources and library materials. Uh Dr. Fay. Uh, no. Dr. Jordan, >> there you go. >> Yeah. So, next, as Dr. Craft mentioned, is first reading of EFP local, which is a policy focusing on requirements in regard to library material. Um, as you know, Senate Bill 13 dictates that districts must adopt a policy that regulates how we select, acquire, and approve library materials. So the next slide shows the first key provision. Um one is that the board must approve all of the list of books that libraries
143order. The process is librarians and staff put together a list. The list is then posted for 30 days to receive public input. And then once we receive public input, we'll bring the list forward to you guys um for your um review and approval. So only board approved library material can be ordered um from here on out, which is a which is a change. A second key provision is that parental rights and transparency are a priority in this policy. So parents can access what their children check out and parents can even opt out or restrict materials um for their children to have access to. Um this is part of the law, but we already do this. We already have systems in place in North Side um where parents are able to um have that transparency and
144control. Um, in addition, uh, this Senate Bill 13 and the policy, um, allows for public access to all of the li cataloges. So, anyone in the public can see all of our holdings, um, in our district libraries at any time. >> An additional provision is that a school library advisory council or a slack uh may be formed. uh districts may opt to create a slack um or if they're petitioned to do so they create a slack and this is a boardappointed group of primarily parents and the role that they play is they then review library materials and the slack is who would recommend lists um to you guys. One of the uh last provisions is about material regulation and reconsideration. Um a formal process is required to prohibit the acquisition of any library material that's
145deemed to be harmful, indecent or profane. So the law actually talks about what that means. And so we will follow up in some of our administrative regulations on um specifics. The policy also talks about what the process is if somebody has a complaint or they have a a title that they want reconsidered. So really the next steps is we'll bring back EFB local to you guys next month for second reading. Um I'd referred to the administrative procedures. That's where much of the detail is about the actions we will take in the district uh for reconsideration for how we build our lists and um so we'll be getting those we already have a a regulation but we'll make sure it's aligned with policy. So we discussed this at length at academics last week so I'm happy
146to answer any questions you may have. >> Dr. Harl. >> Yeah. Thanks, Janice. And we we had um several librarians join us as part of um our open meeting and and also gave kind of a a bird's eye view from um how it impacts um our school libraries and thank you for them for coming. Um this is already uh the books have already been posted online. Yes. >> Right. For 30 days. So, um, does it hold up anything on ordering those books if we wait for September? Are there is there is there anything like I know this is first reading, but we've also >> Well, you've actually uh on consent was our first book list. >> Okay. And so, we we were able to to go ahead and put that on. And that's such a
147great point. And I do want to introduce Miss Jennifer Eert >> and Miss Zena Biardo, which y'all have already referred to as rock stars. Um, these two ladies have done a phenomenal job working with um, certainly with Diana Elely. And so that list has already been compiled and so we felt like we needed to get it through now so librarians can order. >> Okay. So nothing is held up by us waiting for September? >> No, ma'am. No, because this isn't the only round of books we're gonna approve, right? >> Oh, we'll be uh we're already talking about kind of getting on the schedule, so we're not hitting you with it every month, but it they'll be several times a year, and we'll follow the process. The book list will be created. It'll be posted for
148public comment. We'll review any public comment that we get on the books, make any adjustments we feel like we need to make on the list, and then bring to you the recommended list. And typically it'll go through academics first like we do and then we'll place it on consent unless y'all want it somewhere else. >> Okay. I was just thinking like when um the the blue body or the Newberry books or whatever come out >> um or the nominated books would our kids be able to see them and read them ahead of time so they there could be voting or whatever. So I guess >> well perhaps perhaps and we're also learning from other districts as well and other districts are calling us. So you know everybody's kind of skating with and and the goal
149is to ensure our children have the best books on the market with a wide range of interest. And um so so far uh we don't feel like we've been held up at all. And after your approval tonight, boy, I know people tomorrow morning, y'all are probably already ordering stuff up there. >> They already ordered it. >> They already had they had it in the queue just to hit um >> send sent. >> And just last thing, just because we there were a couple members who weren't able to make it. Um can you can you elaborate a little bit about um our um formal process, our reconsideration plan, and how well that's been working? >> Yes. Um thank you for that. So you remember um one of the key provisions is that school library advisory council
150um we really have that almost already in the district. So um we have a very firm process. So basically the way it works is any parent, any staff member really any commun community member that resides in North Side um if they have an objection to a book you know we always the first step is to try to deal with it as uh locally. So we ask that they talk to that library and that principal. If it's not resolved at that point, they actually fill out a district created reconsideration form where basically they list the book, the title, they indicate whether they've read the entire book or not, and then they talk about whatever their um objections are. Then we pull together a uh really diverse committee and the committee is mostly comprised of parents um
151throughout the district. Uh we'll have a librarian or two. Um often we may have another a teacher or staff member and then um I facilitate that committee and then typically we have a library um representative. And so we actually have a formal meeting where we all come together and we even invite to those uh reviews. We invite the complainant. So whoever submitted it, we invite them to come to come and hear the conversation. And so what we do then as a as a committee is we deliberate. So, we use the standards that we're supposed to use to adopt library books that include, you know, a wide range of interest. Um, a whole host from the library association. And so, we compare the the current book to those particular pieces and then we really unpack the
152particular complaint. And um and so I will tell you, I don't want to jinx anything. Um, it has been, I'm looking back at y'all, it's been successful for for a long time. And uh, and we're committed, you know, I know what this this uh policy is attempting to do. We're committed to parental transparency. Um, you know, we know parents know their children best. And so what we want is we want a process where all children have books that they're interested in in the library. And so what can we do to not create it so narrow that we have some children that don't have a book that represents them. So we had talked at academics and um we talked about the slack, you know, do we go ahead and create one? Do we wait? And so
153we we decided let's continue the process that we have in place which involves multiple voices mostly parents um it has been successful and so let's try that with some of these new provisions um and also developing the list and see how it goes and you know depending upon how y'all feel going forward or if we get any feedback then you know certainly we could you know alter it. Um, but I think and I know you guys have made a great point. It's kind of like what what we're doing right now seems to be achieving our goals of ensuring every child has access to books and that that you know speak to them and parents have complete control already and can and can adapt what their what their children have access to. >> Thank you. Thank
154you. >> Thank you, Mr. Blunt. Yeah. Just um No, I think it's a really good good policy, but um and I sorry I missed the academic meeting, but is EFB local is this totally is this a new policy for us? >> Yes, sir. >> Where um I hate to ask this, but I'm curious like the reconsideration was that somewhere else and we pulled it there or >> um the whole reconsideration process we currently have an administrative regulation. >> Okay, that's where it was. >> And so there is an EFB legal that talks about some of those library standards that I'm referring to. Yes. So, so we and we had talked at academics that uh that TASBY is working so quickly to turn out all of this that when we got the sample policies for both
155we got two two sample policies. One was with Slack, one was without Slack. Um they were they were clearly in a hurry when they were put together. So, we had to do, you know, quite a bit of work. But we but we feel good about where we landed. >> Okay. And so yeah, the spe the specific you're going to see reconsideration in here in this local policy, but the more specific piece is within our >> administrative admin right. >> Okay, good. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mrs. Freeman. >> Yeah, thank you. Um Dr. Carl asked the question that I was going to ask Janice about um our our current process that we have. So um thank you um Dr. Jordan. And also this school district has been we've had reconsideration committees for years. My kids
156went to Scobby and back in the early 90s I was asked to be on one of these committees to serve. So we've we've been doing this for a a very long time and it has worked and um and over the years I think we've refined it. Um but but we've got experience at this. So I I >> think it's a great idea with our policy is written >> and I agree. I think that the transparency that is being asked of this bill and this legislative directive is already being happening here with us. So um good job. Thank you. And so this was just for a discussion. >> Yes ma'am. Uh we'll bring this back also uh if the board um desires on the 23rd. Uh the next policy uh that was reviewed also at academics
157was ELA local. Uh this pertains to campus and or program charter partnership uh charters. Uh this uh very simply is um a requirement if we are to pursue um cast teach uh and an 1882 agreement. Um and Jerry Woods uh or myself we can provide like say a little bit of a refresher reminder. We've we've looked at this policy, if you recall, uh right at about a year ago. Um the timeline would require us to have these modifications in place in order for us to be able to submit an application uh that goes through a TEA approval process. Um, like I say, if if CASS teach were to become uh what's considered a Senate Bill 1882 agreement um for the following school year, the advantage um would be initial on one-time um revenue um uh
158which would be somewhere in the tune of 700 to $800,000 of onetime payment. Um and then um the additional per uh ADA funding uh that could be upwards of $1,000 per student. Um you know some of the things that we discussed uh in the past were um the governance um and you know who in essence uh controls um the operations of this 1882 agreement relationship. Um and then uh supervisor roles in regards to the evaluation particularly of the campus principal um which we can definitely jump into uh in the near future. This this is really a policy uh matter in the sense of before we can look at and start pursuing which you will also have the opportunity to pursue the application uh prior to being submitted. we we've got to have this policy in
159place in order to be able to really take that next step. Um and this is where we stalled uh like I say right at about a year ago um before we even got to like I say the application process. So again there's financial uh benefit but I know like I say there are some also uh there's rightfully so some some reservation. Um, so this one is like I say for your consideration as really a first reading. If you would like to bring this for us to bring this back for a second reading on the 23rd, we'll be happy to. I think that there are some advantages to the funding. Um, we've got a little over 300 students in the cast uh teach program and of course um we've got the established relationship with CAST. Um,
160I meet with Jean and and her team on a monthly basis. Um, I think it's a very uh solid working uh really well-run relationship as it exists. So, again, once again, this is purely a funding uh discussion from from my perspective. Um and and granted, like I say, we'll have to work through from a contractual standpoint uh the details of performance measures and um everything else that uh will follow. >> I just got Mr. >> CW 1882 was passed back in 2017, right? >> That sounds right. It's they've been they've been in they've been in place for quite some time. >> Yeah, because I couldn't looked it up. I think the only districts are doing it is Edgewood and SISD. I didn't see any other districts locally. >> Uh no, there there are several other
161school districts who have 1882 central. >> Yeah, we talking about we just with cast. >> Yeah. Well, I guess cast >> locally here in San Antonio. >> There's three. >> Those three. >> That sounds right. I I know that there are 1882s that extend well beyond our region. >> No, but I'm saying that the local >> your mic is off. I saw Edgewood and SISD as a local schools are actually doing it. >> Those are the two central East Central. >> Mr. Blunt, >> just a quick comment. I still don't like that word charter. >> I know. >> Nobody does. >> Bring it over and over again. >> It's a turnoff. There's no question. >> That's all I have. Yeah, >> I'm just wondering I'm um is there any data that shows that having these
162programs in schools I I hear the initial payment then the the funding sounds great but um do we have any data that that the success of these programs increase enrollment or um you know What if you know as far as um what does that success look like? Like if this was something that we were considering um for cast teach I know this is the initial part of it but do we even have a vision of once we do like what does it look like? I'm sure we're not just going to wait until is there a vision already in place like or or or something that says like you know in if this happens in the next 5 years this is what it's going to look like in the next three years this is what it's
163it's going to look like. >> Yeah absolutely. So uh as we work through the spending plan we have to have specific benchmarks or measurements outlined for for success indicators. Um and so we'll dust off uh that plan uh that we really have started working in getting into uh like I say right around this time uh last year. You know I think that initially again with the program serving right over 300 students currently. This is its first senior class. Um we wanted to launch a strong program. I know that in our previous conversations uh the need for additional internship counseling support um uh services that are very much um direct more direct hands-on helping students um attain experiences uh whether that be field-based experiences uh at some of our campuses um will be prioritized and Jerry
164I You've probably had uh further conversations with both uh Erica and Jean as to you know what what is it that we would work to accomplish with these additional funds because they would be allocated to the program at cast. I mean this wouldn't be just general fund revenue that we would capture for the general fund. So, and Jerry, I don't know if you want to >> come to the mic. Jerry, if you're going to speak, please >> expand upon hear >> in the meantime. Dr. Hustle. >> Hello. Okay. So, my concerns are of course like cast teach I know that by pulling those students out of Stevens High School, like Stevens right now is rated as a D school. And so by pulling these high achieving 300 students that are going to, you know, meet
165their CCRM goals like that would then bring Steven's high school possibly to a lower report card level. And so that obviously concerns me. Um, also just looking at like most 1882s are for schools that are struggling and I don't foresee or see based off the information as CASS teaches one of those type of schools. Um, and I get, you know, funding is needed to be able to provide for specific CT programming and things like that, but cast teach, we have the people like their teachers like we have like >> we like that. I understand that for like other programs like you know, welding or like some sort of program that there is this high demand or HVAC. some programs that I know would need like additional individuals and additional funding. Um I cast teach a
166little bit more difficult and I mean obviously on my end I have like really like three questions to just kind of ask and kind of just think of like how does this real really align with our district values and community needs. So does the agreement preserve like teacher protections and student equity knowing that the principal would not principal is obviously the one individual that we would have no control over but in reality the principal is the individual that has the control over the teachers and the students. So it like in turn doesn't that also mean we would lose some control of that? And is the funding gain worth the loss of direct governance of the campus? >> Yeah, those those are all very valid questions. Um >> we don't expect you to >> Yeah. No,
167no, no. Yeah. Yeah. No, sorry. Those were just like like more just like questions for the board. Like >> when we're Yeah. When we're thinking Sorry. Yeah. when we're thinking of this, these are questions that >> I'll just speak very very honestly as a superintendent early on in my career. One of the things I learned to do very quickly is you better learn how to count. Um it doesn't sound like this is a policy matter that we're interested in in pursuing. So I again th this was from my perspective this is an opportunity for additional funding >> and I get that >> that's that's that's really what it's the same rationale from last year. Does it, you know, >> what would you >> does it does it, you know, fall in in line with our
168values and our goals and our Well, I mean, we want the program to be successful and I think it will be >> the additional funding is real funding. Um, but again, I can count. >> Yeah. Well, and can I just just So, like, you know, yes, I do understand 1882 money is a lot of money. Like I do get that per students amount. Like my discussion will always be like I get that the program needs additional money and what I always bring up I feel like you know like what about a PTK or ECHS like it brings in additional money. It doesn't bring into the amount of an 1882 but we're talking like 50 to 300 per student. We're talking initial startup grants for 500 to 100,000 like and with programs like cast teach which
169we're talking about like how much money is needed for them to be you know thriving and be connected with Stevens High School and be able to really still be part of that community. So you know I get 1882 and you know I it's just cast each like in my mind I'm like that's a lot to be losing when I feel like it's such a successful program already the way it's set up and I feel like there's other avenues that could be taken to help in those financial situations. >> Absolutely. And the program will be successful. This is not a um a pitch to ensure that the there's a appropriate funding for the program to be successful. That's not it. It it would the additional funding be nice to have? I think so. Beyond that, you
170know, I understand the affiliation with a charter. I understand the governance concerns. Completely understand the supervision uh aspect and and like I say, it just once again I'm not I would love to have some grandiose rationale for why this is coming for before you. It is truly a funding. So the but if what would change if this >> what would change with the schools? It would continue as is if this doesn't go through. Correct. We just >> Well, I think that there would the additional funding and that's what to Miss Zapata's um question. >> I I do think that there could be additional support applied. You know, I think a very warranted question is is is it does it move the needle? Does it does it raise um academic progress for this particular group of
171students? You know, they would have their own accountability rating, which we've run the math. They would probably be an A or B campus. Would it have a negative impact on Stevens? Probably. I don't know that it would with the number of students in scale. I don't know that it would be that significant, but I mean it would have an impact. I mean these are higher achieving uh students in regards to uh star testing. Um like I say um it would be additional support. Um an academic adviser. I know that's been a a a personnel unit that uh the principal has requested for the last couple of years and and we're just we're just not in a financial position to be able to provide uh that assistance. I know that there's been a lot of desire
172to start um kind of a coaching thread strand more aggressively than we have. Again, it's great idea. It's just how how much do we try to afford um without sacrificing the integrity of other programs um particularly magnet programs. So >> Jerry, do you want to add anything to that? I'm sorry. >> Sure, if I may. Jerry standing there for 30 minutes. >> Enjoy the front row. >> Uh I think an important piece is this policy just allows organizations to apply. So this policy is not to bring on cast as a partner. It's just having the opportunity that the district is open to organizations applying because once we have a policy in place, then we do a call for quality schools. And so on the website we can be as specific to say um school high
173schools that uh incorporate PBL uh may apply that's very specific right it's cast teach you know meets that criteria then uh there's application there's uh interviews there's a process there but there's also a contract that has to be developed that has to go to the board to get approved so having this policy just to see okay let's see if they can come up with a contract that that interest you the uh excuse me that interests you all and then so it can end right there if you say we're not you know looking at the contract is not where we want to go. So really this policy is like I said just the opportunity to move forward to have them be able to apply but the bottom line is a contract has to go before you
174before we're able to bring them on. >> So are aren't they part of us already though at Say that one time. >> They're already part of our school. So >> yeah Right. Right. Right. So, we're a little bit of of an advantage. We already have the school. Um, even though we can still apply for the startup grant uh that Dr. Craft mentioned is several hundred,000. Um, but yeah, so that's and we have a good partnership with them. So, don't I mean, we don't see a lot of changes. Um, we have talked about some random pieces of where we could use this money. For example, these students are being educated to work in typical, excuse me, specific environments. So transportation to those environments, you know, it' be nice to have a shuttle bus uh in which,
175you know, you would need a CDL that could take students to early childhood or to secondary schools or what may have you. So um as well as the personnel that Dr. Craft mentioned. So we've had some ideas that we've talked about, but we can get more specific if that be the case. If >> Dr. Harl, >> I'm sorry that I'm sorry. I was just going to suggest the field-based experiences is where is we are seeing the the senior class metriculate is where we're kind of struggling um because they're obviously um very specialized um they need to be differentiated um and it's just it's logistically somewhat challenging keeping in mind working around a student's regular regular class load schedule >> and I don't know how many of these schools are in the There's 97 in the
176state >> of 1882s. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Yeah. Um, so one of the things we did talk about is um and I I agree. I don't like the word charter. This happens to be a partnership with a nonprofit and so I think um that that's kind of something and you alluded to it, the devil's in the details. And so there's a lot of control the board has in the partnership even though it's called a charter. Um, I do think it one of the things we talked about is it does open the door for some other opportunities once we have this policy because we do have a couple high school campuses that are losing enrollment and to establish other me um magnets that money would come in handy. And of course, you said you put out
177a it's like an RFP or RFQ, right, that says um for example, for CAST teach, it might say um something da da da with project-based learning. And so that's kind of meant to be part of part of that um presentation like a year ago was how can this school be an incubator to share based on relationships and equity and student agency with other you know schools in the area. So that kind of incubator idea and that's one of the purposes it could serve. Um the other would open the door um to what Dr. Hasso said. There could be other entities out there to help us with other magnets in the future or even partnering with uh like a mental health um uh like clarity to have a facility where our own kids could receive services.
178That's very costly. Going the 1882 route the way I understood it would help defer those costs. Um, and I know you said one time, but I know three of the Kes schools just got an additional amount this year quite a bit. So, um, it could be more than one year, and I don't have enough information to to expand on that, but um, >> just wanted to make it those points. >> Yes, ma'am. To that point. So, when we do the call for quality schools, you can do it once a year. So, if we decide to expand that, then for um, this would be for 2627, right? couldn't do this for this year be 26 27. So for 2728 if you wanted to put another description that would align with what you just said about mental
179health etc. Um that then that's what your caption would be and um camp or excuse me organizations that meet that criteria would then apply and we go through the same process >> but we still have to have a policy in order to >> you got to have a policy in order to do it. Yes ma'am. >> And um Mrs. Freeman. Thank you. Um just to my fellow board members, we as Dr. Craft said, we did discuss this in the past. Um we didn't get to this particular stage. I appreciate the questions about because I have a lot of reserv I'm going to be very honest. I have a lot of reservations about such a partnership. But what I think we didn't do at the time was actually get into the details as to how the
180additional funds could help us and what the or if we had a a partnership and then um specifically what would need to happen because with these agreements we can always say no we don't want to be part of it under certain circumstances even after we've entered into an agreement. So I think there's some in in my mind I think there's some things that I would personally I would like to explore them further but we don't explore them until we actually we don't have time to look at that right now um for the following for the following year if we don't get the policy online because of the because of the time frame. So this doesn't commit us. But >> no, no, no. The policy in no shape, form or fashion commits the board to any
181further action. We just can't go about preparing an application to submit without the policy in place. Um so again, this is one that >> could you school us would be nice. Well, like for example, uh I have a I have to go with and then I'll ask my question. But like I'm curious, how did this happen to begin with if we didn't have this policy? Just just a think a thought. Okay, Mrs. Sapata. >> Well, now let me answer the question though. Uh we've began exploring it if I'm not mistaken in an academics meeting. Uh this has been a a topic of conversation in the sense of we're one of two cast we have one of two cast partnerships that are not 1882 agreements. >> Okay. >> It's a non 18. It can exist. The
182partnership can exist without this. Okay. >> Yes. >> Yeah. As as ours does. >> I'm sorry. >> That's why I was like how do we get Cass if we didn't you know >> as as ours currently uh does exist and and it's great. Um I mean it's like I say it's a great program. It's a great working relationship. Um >> yeah, >> Mrs. part of I'm sorry. >> I'm sorry. Go ahead, sir. >> I was just going to say so, um depending on where we go with, uh looking at UTSA, North Vista, um in terms of the the dual credit cost. That's another expense that you know that the money can be used for. >> So 1882 would fall under that per to >> well that you could use some of the money for to
183help with those expenses. So, for example, we'll spend about $44,000 this year with UTSA to get our students dual credit. >> To make some adjustments in the future, but >> that so can help with those expenses as well. >> Yeah. >> Really? >> More to come on that front. >> Oh, Mrs. Thank you, sir. >> Jerry, you had mentioned that it kind of opens the door, right? If we don't and and I know it I hear that it's not a commitment. It just kind of lets us see opportunities that come our way. What in particular are there any opportunities that you can see of that you think that um I guess you would want to come our way or anything that you think that would what other >> No, I mean um honestly I haven't
184I haven't gone down that road yet. we do we've been looking at cast since last year and so just knowing that we have that that option would be something I would definitely like to dive into but and to see what interests are out there to see what organizations are out there to support if if y'all were interested in looking at having these organizations partner with our magnets then I would definitely love to get to work on that but no ma'am just looked at cast so far because um that's been the discussion between the cast organization and North Side uh since last year was just looking at this. >> Yeah, I I would probably be a little bit more cautious uh because to me it's all about that partnership and relationship which we already have in
185existence uh with CAST. Um and it's it's got a a proven reputable track uh record with uh our program at Stevens. Um, what I want to be careful of is not looking up in a year or two years and having to undo a whole bunch of 1882 agreements that were probably not great working relationships with the partnering institutes. Um, that just made it difficult for it to be successful. >> That's happened too in other districts. My other question is just as like a constituent now putting my mama rope hat on, would I get $10,000 if this becomes a charter? >> Like you know what I'm saying? Like with this voucher thing happening like what is that cor is there any kind of relationship? I'm questioning like that part of it. >> Well, the $10,000 would
186be applicable for an education savings account which is going to be a private institution. >> So this wouldn't >> nothing to do >> this wouldn't have anything to do as a consumer. >> Yeah. Okay. And with Dr. Hustle, >> um I feel like >> the like when we brought up like charging for changing the names, you know, a wise man said and it kind of made me think of this like scenario like this policy kind of relates to like once we start placing ads on our pretty buildings, like it really opens it up for other individuals to come in and really kind of, you know, it really opens us up. And so it's just kind of like a related theme. I also like, you know, in all openness because like as many of you know
187as when I ran like I have a nineto-ive like I have a regular job and I just need to like make sure everybody knows that because I don't want that to anyway like I want you all to be fully aware where my comments are like if they're where this knowledge where this information is coming from. So obviously I work I have a 9 to5 I work with PES and ECHS's I work with schools that are 1882s. Um, so I mean I do know like you know there are three schools in San Antonio area that are 1882s and then out of the other 38 other ISDs I work with the rest are ECS or PEX. And so just, you know, bringing it back like, you know, North Side has one ECHS and versus like 36 little
188ISDs here in the San Antonio area that have multiple ECHs and PEK programs that bring in additional money that are able to fund that are able to provide these programs. And that is the the essence of PEK models is to provide advisory committees of individuals that partner with like clarity that partner with North Side that partner based on the industry those students are in. And so I feel like a lot of the things that you all are mentioning are in essence like a PEK model. And so I just have to mention that because that is the primary focus of a PEK to build those industry relationships so the students get those experience are able to have those firsthand experiences. And so, you know, if I I just 1882s for me are always looked at like
189schools that are need those additional two years of like, hey, we're not going to look at your report card for the next two years. So, you have that additional time like and I just don't see most of our schools falling within that. So, >> you're saying PEKs are not 1882s. If you recommend PEX versus >> then that's why. Yeah. like just because of the fact that the things that you all are mentioning like we need more industry partners, we need more this, we need more like flexibility when it comes to things like those are primarily what PEX do with no requirement for some other organization to come in and be, you know, in the pot. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Blunt. >> Yeah. Just and just sort of follow what you just add to
190a little bit. So my last job um I think y'all know was to grow innovation in Texas in a in all the emerging technologies AI, cyber, quantum etc. So I got to meet with a lot of the corporations especially in Austin, Dallas, etc. One thing and Dr. Craft may know better than I do to some extent a number of those large corporations put some pretty significant dollars and agreements with school districts and some even build some pretty unique facilities in Austin area etc. So, I don't know if that's another option that we also would explore. Uh, possibly that's even outside of what we're talking about. Um, but given North Side's reputation, um, literally across the nation, I can tell you that for a fact, >> there's some really great opportunities along those particular lines >>
191independent from a formal 188 partnership. That's a good point. >> Y, >> I like the conversation, Miss. >> Um, just to kind of I agree. I think we need to expand on um just looking at what we have. I don't think we're personally I don't I don't think um personally I don't think there's enough data to show that you know it's it's going to improve what's already working for us. I know it's a you know I know uh you talk about money but I just kind of feel like it's I think we're giving too much and I don't feel like everybody's warm and fuzzy right now. I just feel like we have a lot to offer and we just need to kind of hone in on those things and maybe be a more aggressive like
192what Bobby said with industries and and you know we've never I don't think we've had a talk about um PEX or you know really gave that a serious thought but um I think that would probably be in our best interest >> and we've talked about like strengthening our partnerships with our local colleges and unities iversities. So I think we that's great to continue to explore that. Mrs. Freeman, >> let's review the timeline. I'm sorry. >> The timeline on this again, the deadline for um next if if we were going to at least explore another level here. Um what is that deadline? Assuming we had if we had a policy, what would >> the next deadline that we would have to meet be? >> We would need to have the policy in place second reading September
19323rd, which would then allow us to submit a letter of intent to TA in October and go through a quite a few other steps. Um, November 11th, we would look to bring a contract forward for the board uh to consider. And then the end of November, we would submit an application to TA um for a CSP grant uh to be an initial award amount of about $900,000. So that's roughly the timeline. So, we're not we would not be looking uh even looking at a contract until November. >> Correct. Yeah. I I just I it >> again this is not a [Laughter] I I I'm will admit I'm again you know this I'm very humble. I can count I we got it. >> Okay. Dr. Hassel you press the button. Okay. Any other buttons? Okay. Great
194conversation, Jerry. Thank you for sitting there forever. Thanks, >> Jerry. >> Oh, Dr. Harl. >> Yeah, just real quick, um, would there be anything because we would have we could have an academics meeting before the next meeting. So, if anybody might want to know like we're throwing things out like PEK and um, industry partners and some things like that. Would it help if if there was a discussion or a comparison chart or something or even have some experts come from um different areas to talk about the different services that might be provided to and with North Side um >> on an all call for any partners that want to partner with us. two or three of the ones that were mentioned for sure or some sort of comparison chart or >> um >> to hear
195from kind of the horse's mouth or even have Erica Erica Alvarez our principal at Cass teach um >> academics >> something like that >> is your committee >> do what well I'm just asking um if it would help I mean I'm thinking it would help but if no >> I think so I think I would love to hear >> it it would be a long academic makes me >> well and we're going to have a real meaty one in probably earlier or October that'll be the House Bill 3 annual report. It'll be our map BOI data and all of that. >> And so so are you thinking more Dr. Harl that you would want kind of that presentation and explanation in in such a time that then if this policy were to be brought back
196people would have more clarity. >> Yeah, I think so. I think so. >> Sure. I think we could. Yeah, because I think there's some assumption some assuming and some assumptions and then there's some facts and this would be an opportunity to have some of those >> answered and even I think before someone wanted to see a sample um what a charter looks like. I think the one was it you Laura? >> Not a sample but I want to see like what is it? What is it? >> Yeah. >> Number wise. >> Yeah. in the long term. >> Some more details. >> The benefit of doing this versus not >> I think so >> financially. So that would be Megan. >> Okay. Thank you so much y'all. Great conversation and next we have an enrollment update.
197Oh, Mrs. Freeman. >> Just one more thing. So going forward, this is just first reading. The plan would be to bring it back the for second reading and then before that explore other maybe learn more about what this benefit or whatever and other partnerships. Is that what I'm hearing? >> I think in between I was thinking in between so that >> that's what I meant >> right >> clarity around >> to inform >> my read is this policy is dead. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Maybe I'm misreading. >> Okay. This is the second attempt. We've >> brought this for consideration. >> This is not time sensitive. >> I >> we'll do as the board desires, but >> timesensitive to do the review. >> I don't think there is a second reading. >> Is there are
198we are we going forward? I'm misounting vote to move to the >> if we go forward with a second reading which doesn't commit us to anything. It just goes forward to the second reading. >> It does. Yeah, we we can place it on the agenda for a second reading. >> I need two people. So, >> I had injured insole, I guess. So, okay. >> Would help with having more information. We can we can bring it to the September 23rd meeting for a second reading. >> Probably not a consent agenda item, second reading, but >> No, stop. So, yes, I have Dr. Harl and Mrs. Freeman that want to bring this to a second reading. >> We we'll bring it to a second reading with some additional information, >> sample contract. Um, like I said, we
199we can we can dust off >> kind of what we had. You did that before you >> last year. All right. Enrollment um uh seeing that we're like I say through the first two and a half weeks of school, uh we wanted to provide really a quick update where we are currently with enrollment. Uh we're about a thousand students off of our projected enrollment. So um Dr. Fay and Debbie McNary uh have looked at uh numbers, historical numbers and um this is like I say for information but really an opportunity uh to take a look at enrollment patterns and uh discuss trends and then um moving forward. So >> do we have the ability to that >> is it okay thank you Do you have your We moved on. Sorry. >> Sorry. >> Oh, no.
200>> So, we have the graph pulled up of historical enrollment. Um, and we continue. Um, >> I need my glasses. >> Me, too. Actually, although I've got it, >> can you zoom zoom it in? >> And so, as Dr. Craft said, we are about a thousand we're a little over a thousand of projected enrollment. Um we're thousand from where we are projected to be enrolled. Um actually it's 1,200 today. Is that right Debbie? >> Actually I have tonight's number so it's a little bit better. >> There you go. What is the actual number? >> Today we're at 97404 which over yesterday. >> Okay. >> Keep them coming. >> You can come up to the podium. >> Keep them coming >> so that so that you can be recorded and everybody can hear. Thank you Debbie.
201So we have that graph which uh shows traditional um some declines in the past couple years. A lot of this has to do with declining birth rates. Um if you look at our enrollment in kinder um first grade and please understand that those grades metriculate through the system. And so as those numbers decline, you're going to see declining numbers in in future years and the other grade levels as well. And so, um, do y'all have any questions on this one slide? Because we have two other documents that we'll actually one other document we'll probably take you through. >> Yeah, I'm going to be a little bit unfair, but I'm just curious. Is our full buildout like it used to be about 150,000 or so. >> So, years ago, we used to say around 150 and
202then we lowered that to around 120,000 because of the um introduction of charter schools and the impact we were seeing. So when you used to see us bring like in bond planning that graph kind of went to a peak and then kind of leveled off. And what's happened over time is we have a larger outflow to charters than we had in the past. So that continues to lower that. And when you look at where enrollment is in North Side versus where enrollment is in charter schools and then all the the other things going on with choice in in our state. Um we probably have reached our peak and you've seen the decline. The biggest drop that you see, the large drop was the COVID year and we did not recover following. >> Okay. But but
203still, no, I'm with you on that. But if we did fully build out, would it still be about >> or have the plants changed so much to where it's probably >> We still have lots to build and we are continuing to build the growth we're seeing from new growth has slowed right as we're getting closer to build out of single family and multif family land. >> Um what we have seen in more recent years, Mr. is that the growth we get from new students is no longer covering the growth we see in outflow. >> Okay. >> Students that we're losing >> is the um I'm sorry, last question that I have. Um so is our biggest loss I know we say across the whole district but the biggest loss is it really between6004 from Calabra
204to Petranco and out that way because that was our big that used to be the fastest growing zip code >> that is our high growth area. That's where the most recent schools have opened. If you look at the larger schools, they're still in that area, but we're seeing we have as of last year, we had over 16,000 students sitting in charters that lived in the north side or reported as living in the north side um boundaries. So those students had they had we not had that large influx going to charter, that's where you saw the old numbers you were used to seeing. So we still have growth, we still have new development happening, right? But the students that we bring in from that, okay, >> is now less than the students that are leaving. >>
205Okay. Okay. Good. Thank you. >> Miss, did you have a question? >> Um, our >> our highest um at the peak we were what was the number there? 107 10 >> our peak before you get um looked at the influx from or the impact of COVID, we were just sitting under 107,000 students. Um, and then the drop from COVID. So, the actual peak was 106,863 students, and that was in 1920. The year CO hit that spring. >> And the first year we actually had a loss of enrollment was the year prior to that in 1819. And then um you said 16,000 students or >> about 16,500 students were reported in the 2425 school year as enrolled in charter schools but reported as living in North Side. >> Mrs. Freeman. >> Yeah, thank you. Um the
206charter schools have definitely made a large impact, >> but I know that we're seeing a decline in the birth rate. >> Um do you have the numbers on that specific? not with me tonight, but we do follow that. >> We do follow that. Yes. And that is that is not just a problem for or a challenge for Bear County. That's the state and nationally as well. >> Correct. And then I I guess I wonder well as we go forward um as we look at the numbers in our lower grade levels. That'd be interesting to >> have that discussion. >> Yeah, if we can pull up that other table. Um >> I don't know if we're ready. Are we ready? >> Yeah, we can pull it up. Um because it gets to your point, Miss Freeman
207preisc. >> So this is probably more numbers than you want to look at, but Dr. Crawford had asked me to do some, you know, analysis. Here's your enrollment. And you can if you'll scroll down on this document, Monica. >> Okay. If you'll scroll down to the bottom of page two, if you look at that total line, um that tells you the first grade level is the EE grade, which is our ECSE special needs students, 850. They'll continue to grow. They grow all year long. Three is three. Students come in when they turn three for special needs. But if you'll look at um the third column, the 2520, that was our prek enrollment as of um last on Friday and the projection was 2943, which is very similar a little um to what we had last
208year. So we're sitting about 423 low in prek. Um prek will continue to grow a little bit between now and base day, which is September 12th, the fifth Friday. Um but I suspect based on past growth, we'll be sitting around 300 to 350 low probably in preK. We will grow. We do grow around 100 additional students in prek as the year goes on, but it is significantly low. Um, when you look at the kindergarten figures, we're at 5911. We're projected 6126. Um, we'll likely end up about 160 low in kindergarten, but those are trends as um Dr. Craft and and Dr. Fay alluded to, right? Your early grade levels then that's what you build on. We t typically grow a little going into first grade, but as those classes continue to get smaller and smaller,
209that flows through. Um you you principles will tell you we talk about our our largest kindergarten classes are now in high school and leaving and have already gone through. So that's where you're starting to see the flow of kids affecting enrollment even in the upper grade levels. >> I just have a question. And I don't know if you can speak to specific schools, but like what's happening at Meadow Village? >> So, we're still we haven't hit base day yet. We'll do some analysis that when we get to that point on individual neighborhoods and was it our projection that's off what happened in an area? Um, so specific neighborhoods um I I can't or specific schools, not all of those can I actually address like I do know in some of the medical center school areas
210we are seeing some lower numbers in our newcomer refugee students in that community that we're targeting. We've been researching some of that. So those those kind of conversations we can be prepared to have in the coming days. Not quite yet. >> Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much. >> Yes, ma'am. >> I'm looking at 10% in the statistics. >> Sure. And it and it is um when you're a really small school to begin with, right? It doesn't take much to hit that 10% threshold. >> Exactly. >> And and some of those like I can tell you specifically at Meadow Village, their pre-K numbers are really really low and that may make up a large chunk of that. So we'll do some analysis and when we look at that we look at pre-k we look at kinder
211and then we look at first through fifth grades just because of the uniqueness of prek and kindergarten. >> So our key date is September >> um September 12th is the what we consider base day. That's what our projection is is uh targeting. That's the fifth Friday of school. Typically um historically our enrollment starts to level off at that point. Um it kind of takes a few weeks to balance. We've grown over I don't know what did I say 3,800 kids already in two weeks. there's a lot of activity going. >> Yeah. And then that's typical in our district. So it takes us a couple weeks to kind of level that off and kind of have a a stable point to go forward. Um so that's our what we consider our base day. >> Thank you,
212Miss Sabata. >> Thank you for putting this together. This is very nice. I enjoy I mean it's a lot of data, but >> um what are our numbers from the open uh >> 300 >> from the open enrollment? >> Open enrollment. So that's ongoing. Um we are daily processing those working with our Sassy department, our SIS department. Um I didn't look at that today. I think on Friday we're around 250 students coded as open enrollment transfers into the district at that point in time. But that doesn't necessarily mean those are all all the families who have been approved. So there's a process, right? Do we have room? They're approved, but then the parent has to show up to the school and complete the registration, bring their documents, that kind of thing. So there's a little
213bit of a lag time. Not all parents come on the first week or so of school. So, we're continuing to work through and process those and there we are still getting applications although it's slowed since school started. That continues daily. >> We also had some of our high schools uh closed um but we have recently opened those boundaries. The only one that remains closed is Harland because it's over 150 over >> projection. Projection. So, and that just happened I think this week, yesterday probably. >> That's interesting. >> Um Mrs. Freeman. >> Um, so another question regarding um how different things affect enrollment. I know at previous times you've said that some of our neighborhoods aren't turning over like they used to. I look at my own neighborhood and I when we moved in a lot
214of kids and then now there are a lot of retirees and nobody's selling their house. Exactly. >> Um do we have any hard data though? I mean that's anecdotal and >> yeah no we do different areas so um we call that turnover right so in a typical neighborhood if you think of like a bell curve right you build a neighborhood um it goes very quickly young families what are the amenities think of like the area where elementary is right lots of amenities it builds very quickly it overy yields it starts to level off and then people stay in their homes kids age out and then at some point in time you start to see turnover again people are leaving they're older they're selling their homes and new families are coming in and so we do
215and that varies depending upon price points, geography. So we do study different areas like that. Um what we're seeing right now look at the price of homes that have increased significantly. The mortgage rates etc. affordability of moving up either moving from a rental home into your starter home or from the starter home into your next home become is more challenging for people right now. So again that's not unique to North Side. That's a very common thing we're seeing in that area. People are holding on to their homes in a lot of areas much longer than they would have because it's too expensive to move up or move to the next level of home, if you will. >> It's just an interesting to complete the story. >> Yeah. And each each community neighborhood has its own
216nuances. I I think that this segus though into kind of a more broad conversation in the sense of we are this fall going to have to start really looking at efficiencies. That's not to say that there's a recommendation forthcoming to consolidate or close or reconfigure, repurpose. I mean, we we can go through all the definitions, but we do, especially as we're looking forward at finishing up the 22 bond program and then potentially proposing a 26 bond program, we we need to look at efficiencies because when we start having campuses that are falling not only a little bit below 300 students, but significantly below 300 students, not to say that's the That's the line of demarcation. Keeping in mind that many of these campuses the capacity is right around that number. But what we've got to
217take a look at just how efficient from an operational standpoint are are the camp smaller campuses. Um and so that's that's going to be like I say a task before us. >> And our biggest um our largest enrollment job is at the elementary school. >> Yes. >> Uh >> level. >> Yes. percentage-wise. I mean, it's yes, we're seeing the the early grades are the biggest challenge. Um, high schools, if you look, if you compared like the last three years, the enrollment at high schools, you're starting to see that decline a little bit in high schools just as a whole. And that's that flow of kids. Remember, I mentioned that the largest kindergart the last largest kindergarten class or classes or two or three years that were all pretty similar, our high school are out of
218high school now. So just because the flow of kids, high schools, you're starting to see most of our high schools were sitting at 28, 2,900, 3,000 kids. That's not the case right now because you're starting to see that impact hitting that area as well. Middle schools are smaller than they were a few years ago and that's that smaller class flowing through as that cohort gets there. Um, but elementary, we've seen the largest loss. Same thing with COVID. We lost the largest number of kids we lost during with the COVID period was elementary kids and we just did not return to the numbers. that's going to >> and yeah that will continue right then think about your kindergarten class right as they flow through that's that cohort as I talk about that >> because nothing's we're
219not growing >> and you know there are changes that happen we typically lose kids from fifth to sixth grade we gain kids from 8th to 9th grade sometimes you know those are just kind of system things that you see but the overall loss in enrollment is u significant at the elementary level >> okay >> and we'll continue to publish I'm sorry >> you go ahead >> well I was going we'll continue to publish these updates in uh Friday newsletter and I believe we we make sure it goes in the last week of each month as far as an enrollment update. Um so for your information >> yeah I was just I was just fascinated to learn you know during these learning tree visits on how factors impact that you don't realize at time you know
220learning right now is growing because of some things that have been done with the program but on the other hand you look at some of the schools that you were talking about inside of 410 um where we had grants before and maybe have lost that but a charter school offered it and picked up a program then you've lost that group you're talking about to prek to first grade and a number of our schools inside of 410 are facing that. So it's just fascinating to see how other things impact also. >> Yeah. >> Lots of challenges. >> Dr. Hassel. >> Yeah. I just wanted to So our prek starts at four years old. >> That's correct. >> Okay. So is there any like you know information or studies of like we're losing them maybe because they're
221starting at another school and then they start at three years old somewhere. So why would I leave that school that I'm at from 3 years old when I go to fourth year old? Obviously not a question or not a like something I expect to answer. It's just something to think about. And then also like do we do specific ads for prek? Like I will I mean I will be honest like if it wasn't for prek like my first language was Spanish like I spoke not a lick of English and so without prek like and my mother putting me in a pre-K program like I would never be where I am right now. And so I feel like many times we forget that, you know, when a parent has the option of like, well, you're three
222or four and I want to keep you here at the house, but really what being three or four years old, being in prek really does for you is such a big thing. And so I just don't know if we have specific marketing towards prek, three to four year old. There there have been very targeted marketing okay even before COVID when we really when we were starting to expand a full day prek lots and lots of work from our communications team campuses doing things you know prek roundup kindergarten roundup all those things happen in the spring and I think Christina could address better than I can that's ongoing >> we do do specific targeting and we've done emails and social media We also have some partnerships with some medical offices and pediatricians um to share our
223information with them. We so we do focus this year a lot of that focus also came with open enrollment and letting families know that they could join our prek families. >> Perfect. And then my next question is like what is the strategy we're doing to get those thousand kids back? Because I know like with smaller districts they're out knocking doors. They're out like with truency like trying to figure out like what happened to these. I know a thousand's kids a lot. Like I'm not going to like I'm not I'm not saying I'm just I know a thousand kids is a lot of kids but I also know a thousand kids is a lot of kids. So >> with 20 >> Yeah, I know. Do do we split up the list? Do we all go like
224where do they live? Where like what do we So just like a what is the strategy that the district is doing? And then I guess my last question is really just like are we losing any kids to online and I know with the new state or forget legislation I forget what it was but the idea of like online school that now the district can do so thoughts ideas but if you want to so I cannot answer where north side is with the creation of our own online model because that is something that districts across Texas are doing they're pick because it's funded now which which is wonderful because that we do know that that did work for some kids, right? And so, uh, I would say a certain percentage of the kids that didn't come
225back after COVID chose to go like a K12 model that's online. Um, the second thing is I actually did a date in the life of a lever code uh, person today in our district um, at Stevens High School actually because I'm very in tune with what happens with no shows. And if you work at a high school, you're very in tune with what happens with no shows. And then actually the other piece of data that we pulled today was levers that were in our system last year that left us during the year but are not picked up anywhere else in the state of Texas. And so let's say a lever last year left early May. They were coded as going to another Texas public high school but they didn't go. So those are now dropouts
226on record. And so we have created lists of of those just at one high school today. And I was wanting to understand our process for what we do. So the principal was there and so there's a certain day that most of this will be cleaned up because we're still waiting for TSDS to pick up the the new enroles. Um and then after that, um talked to this particular principal and then also senior staff about maybe creating a campaign to do block walking as a district, uh to go out and and and and that's at a high school secondary because we've always been worried about levers and and no-shows at the 7 through 12th level. I did speak to elementary principles um last uh or this past Monday. Monday, Tuesday. >> Yeah. last Thursday. It's all
227running together. It's my one-month anniversary today. >> Yay. >> And um and because that is something that elementary schools have never tracked, meaning you you're because we're not accountable to them if they don't go anywhere else, right? Whereas the state on sec 7 through 8, you're accountable through accountability reports. And so, um we are pulling that data as well right now. So, as far as strategy and next steps, uh, don't have that in place yet because I want to better understand our data, but certainly we are looking to do something a little bit different at North Side this year than we have done in the past. >> And I was actually one of the employees at a high school here that was the tracker and the lever person as an attendance committee member. And what
228we did is we called we called twice and then at the third one then it was like, let's try to do a home visit. And then we had the family liaison try to go out and reach that family at the door. But there was I don't know if we still have those folks in place that are able to do the outreach, but that was very effective and knocking on the doors is very effective because you find out if they moved or whatever. Like >> so what I was told today um was that campuses that receive some and I don't know truth reality of this. I haven't confirmed this. um is campuses who were receiving federal dollars actually uh can afford to to have someone on staff that goes out and does that during school day.
229Uh whereas the campus I was at today is not one of those campuses. So that is done completely by admin or by adults >> or volunteers. Yeah. >> Right. By volunteers, right? And so uh that will definitely be something that we're working through as a district because I don't think it's been done before and maybe I'm wrong but we do it in pockets, right? Um, and it would be really nice if when we were doing block walking, we had a targeted list of kids. And I've done it before uh and hopefully we can uh garner some great momentum this year uh through that process, but then do it all in the same weekend. Sorry. So, it's a north side effort and not just a Stevens High School effort or a you know, middle school effort
230somewhere, but it's a complete district effort. And so, I'm hopeful. >> Well, let us know how we can support that. I appreciate that. I can buy breakfast for school for the whole district,000 employees. >> Thank you. I'll take you up on that. >> Food works. Thank you so much. >> And we have another question, Mrs. Zaka. >> No, that's a I that's great. Those are things I want to hear like what what are we doing? What's our plan? Not only in the short term, but in the long term. I you know, charters right now is you know, not our friends. And guess what's coming around the corner? Vouchers. And so I think this is where we need to be aggressive and we need to like you said uh Dr. Fay is I mean we need
231to do it as a district and make it something where we get people I mean and plenty of people want to help. That's just plenty of people want to help. You have um organizations um corporations people want to help North Side. North Side is is is a staple here in San Antonio. So, I think now is a time that we really need to be aggressive and we need to look into partnering with people and not and and and welcoming um organizations that want to help us and and working with them and uh because we we need a plan and we need it quick. >> Um >> and you know, like I even say to your point, Mrs. Sabata, what about our PTA? Like all of those they do so much organizations. We >> definitely they're
232already there. like we haven't really tapped into all the other school um >> associations like there's a lot of >> I think what you're also is a retention specialist. We probably need those at our high schools, you know, people that that's what they focus on. Um so >> I believe we have them in some places. I'm not sure that's what we call them, but um we have a graduation co I don't know enough about it yet to speak intelligently. So, but I could not agree more. >> Okay, >> Dr. Har. >> Um yeah, I was just going to mention a couple things. Um when when I've been part of that in another district in the past, we also included student groups. >> Um students talking to students about coming back and we always had safety
233officers with us and we had um staff. So kids were were well taken care of and it was really it was almost fun but there was something magical about kids getting kids coming back. >> Um so I just wanted to mention that if we do some sort of campaign. The other is um when you were talking earlier about the magnet school um and it how fast it filled up. Did we primarily get kids from within our district >> about the middle school Jordan? >> Yeah the middle school. >> Uh yesord. So >> we have we I say that when I surveyed I don't I don't have the numbers. You probably have >> I don't but I can pull them >> but there were a lot the vast majority were in district. >> Okay. >> Most
234of our the new magnets at the middle school there was a lot of interest from internal right but we'll pull all that kind of data after the base day provide that. >> Yeah I think I think the middle school magnets that we've been creating have really I mean we're keeping kids um >> this one's popular. >> Yeah >> it's very popular. In fact, it's at capacity. They're they're asking requesting to expand and >> Well, now we need elementary school magnets. No, >> need need to get back to them. >> That's all the questions I have for this item. >> Like say we we'll provide an update on a weekly or a monthly basis uh with Friday letter. So, thanks Debbie. >> Thank you. >> Our next item is uh innovation district of innovation amendment. >>
235Yeah. And I >> So Dr. Fay had the opportunity to meet with uh our uh committee uh DOI committee. U >> yes uh met with the DOI committee last Thursday. Um and so we have two amendments that we're making to our district of innovation plan or that we're hoping to make tonight. Um so I won't cover the whole plan, but we did uh do a district of innovation um uh application uh if you will beginning in 2023 April. And so that plan um is in existence as is through the year of 2028. Um and the one of the things that we have to do if we want to amend the plan is we have to take it through a committee. It has to pass through committee which is our DOI committee and then we have
236to bring it to board for approval. Uh it doesn't get submitted to you know any um it we have to submit the plan to tea but the plan doesn't actually get kicked back for approval or anything like that. So the first thing um is a result of House Bill Six. Uh and in our original plan, we had uh that we would remove the requirement to name a campus behavior coordinator uh in our district. House Bill 6 removed that requirement uh indicating that all districts now had to name the the campus behavior coordinator. And so uh we have to remove that one as part of our amendment. um we will be naming our behavior coordinator on all campuses as our associate principal and so um so that you you guys know where that information lives. Uh
237the other amendment has to do with our grievance policies and so this will impact all three grievance policies. DGBA uh which is our employee grievance policy, our FNG which is students and then uh GF which is uh community. And so within that, what we're basically doing because we had to have something on paper by September 1 is we're saying we want to um to um remove that um that requirement of Senate Bill 12, take this through our DOI, continue to use the current grievance policies that we have in place as we navigate what's going to come out from the TASBY update, which should be coming in late October. So, we should be getting something from TASBY that is explaining to us how we're supposed to go about doing that. But that that bill dealing with
238grievances is pretty significant. It would bring about significant change to the district and our practices. And we're not sure how that kind of lines up with what we're prepared and capable of doing right now. So, our request tonight is to go ahead and add the grievance policy to our DI district of innovation um u exception um so that we can navigate through the next couple weeks and months as we try to figure out what that policy actually means and so I'll take questions that you guys have. Mrs. So, it's this is this is uh it's not set in stone. Could still be changed. >> Absolutely. And we plan on bringing it back through uh our policy committee uh for conversations as those get released uh because we can make we can make change agree to
239some not some all kinds of things with each individual policy. So, I fe I feel like it it may be a little bit of a lengthy process, but it's probably one well worth taking our time to do. Yeah, it's Senate Bill 12 is a lot to unpack >> and it's going to result in stemming policies and policy recommendations that's going to cover a variety of of different aspects. I anticipate uh the update uh the next TASBY policy update. This is going to be definitely one that's going to be addressed. I'm I'm not I'm a little bit apprehensive as to just how much flexibility we're actually going to be provided. >> So So I would anticipate that by approving the DOI uh recommendations tonight, you're likely through policy and then once again with the TASBY policy
240update going to see uh the grievance procedures again. >> Yeah. >> Um this this semester. >> Yeah. But this does provide us like I say the opportunity to continue uh to implement our grievance procedures policy uh as as we have. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And when we meet in policy, we'll be bringing some statistics to the board to see as well for consideration uh so that y'all know what the volume is that we deal with as a big district. So this item does call for discussion and action and possible approval. >> Yes. And the changes, >> we would be removing removing the grievance uh we would be asking for an exemption from the grievance uh policy uh not grievance policy through the grievance requirements as a result of Senate Bill 12 and basically saying
241we will use our current policies that are in practice for all three policies and then we'll be bringing it back through our policy committee beginning in October >> as an amendment >> as policy potential changes. >> Okay. >> So, today we're just removing the requirement for us to change our policy and we're keeping our policies through this exemption. >> That's the amendment. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I say the lack of flexibility may be what's forthcoming. >> Yes. >> Once we have TASBY guidance with Okay. >> the next legislative update. >> Do we have any motions? >> Yeah. I move I'll move approval of the district amendment as presented. >> I have one question. I'm sorry, Mr. Zata. >> I hit my little butt. >> Okay. Mrs. is about. >> Um, so here where
242in the blue it says current current policy does not include a deadline to hold hearings. That's our current policy. So everything in the blue we're going to keep or we're keeping until we can Yes. That that would be our current everything in blue which is in your executive content uh would be stuff that we currently have. Okay. >> Yeah. Okay, that was >> we have one um do we have a second motion or another motion? >> I would second. >> Okay. All right. So, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. >> Thank you. Alex, there'll probably be a followup uh in the near future. All right. So, now we have our next item on the add a superintendent. >> Yes, madam president. Uh members of the board, uh we um
243like I say as a result of our uh team of eight um training captured uh to the best of our abilities uh or encapsulated what will uh be formulated into our 2526 board superintendent goals. Um, one thing that I want to point out is we were discussing this in and amongst senior staff. We want we will be applying individual metrics to each objective um similar to what you see with the 2030 um and 70% college career military ready uh with up partnerships. Um you'll also see um a 1% uh annual increase in teacher retention and administrators uh which actually would put us uh exceeding the state uh retention. Um but we're going to apply individual metrics actually as a part of our district improvement plan because for example that first bullet that's going to be
244really difficult to outline in probably less than three or four pages. Um and we're trying to keep these um kind of at a high uh overview 50,000 foot view if you will that then become incorporated and driving our district improvement plan which is going to be much more smart goal oriented. Um, so these are in draft format uh for your um review and question. And like I say, our intent would be to bring these back with any revisions to the September 23rd uh board meeting for consideration and approval. >> Do we have any discussion? >> Okay. If you have comments, please just let us know. Let me let me know. >> This Mrs. Freeman, this is up for approval. >> Well, we what we'd like it's in draft format. You can take action tonight, but
245like I say, I think we wanted to provide this for review and then bring them back on the 23rd uh for actual ratification. >> Mrs. Aata. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Um going through this it says on uh number two okay you mentioned that about increasing the retention of teachers and administrators 1% that's what you had just mentioned um >> yeah so that's that's a little bit more obviously sub uh objective measurable smart goal format it's just when we start looking at like for example that first bullet and increasing performance and star assessments I mean that's going to be pretty voluous That's going to be >> on the the fourth bullet under number two, prioritizing competitive compensation and benefit packages throughout the budgeting process. This is also to include the raising of the wages, correct? Like
246what we had >> Yeah. And so what we're looking at right now >> $15 >> is is we're looking at the classification of those positions that are actually below $15 >> just to see one are they appropriately classified and two obviously if we start making these recommendations you know what does that shift in essence what is the associated cost >> so I think it was 18 to 19 positions that Uh we were going to look at making adjustments to to a few. >> Wasn't that I think it was a few more than that. I want to say it was about 180. >> I was going to say there were there were quite a few. We are actually >> Pace the button. >> Yeah. >> We'll see. So um my team is planning after we had
247the budget approved, we will start that work in September. And my goal is to bring back a recommendation in October um or November that would show you exactly where we are and what work we've been able to do to meet that goal. >> I want to say it was a little bit less than 200. >> I was going to say I I need to go back and it's been too many months since I've looked at it. I was thinking it was around 50 something, but >> Okay. Okay. But again, let me look at it before I I don't want to misquote. >> And then on the third one, the first um bullet safety measures previously approved through the bond. What are these measures that were previously approved through the bond programs? >> Oh, uh so
248like your uh door alarms. >> Okay. >> Uh security vestibules, uh bullet resistant um glazing or film. >> Um >> where's Jacob? And I'll >> do you want that listed, doc, miss about is that what you're asking? >> Well, I just wanted to know because >> perimeter fencing, non-scalable >> are those are those already implemented? >> Not yet. We're we're working. >> Okay. Yeah, we're not there yet. >> We don't have the manpower, right? When you mentioned that that visit like to install the security like we have to go school by >> door hardware. Yeah. >> Campus by campus. >> Um we've got some work to do. >> Yeah. And then um on the last bullet to explore and implement innovative instructional methods uh blended learning opportunities to real world experiences for students. What are
249you what are you thinking of? Yeah, as an example, um I I think that especially as we were just discussing with CAST teach, I mean there need to be we need to try to work to expand field-based experiences for students. Um I think that there are a lot of opportunities in particularly CTE um the CTE uh field experiences that uh we can really I think start working to capitalize that are not to say that we don't offer like for example I'm thinking about the career construction career academy. I mean they've got a great shop and but it's kind of a unique different experience to be able to experience it actually at a job site. Um and so I think the expansion of those type of opportunities is just an area that we need to work
250to focus as much as we can. And then the last uh sorry the last one number four expanding marketing opportunities just um I know again just kind of what we were talking about earlier. How how are we marketing the great things that we're doing? Um just adding more I guess to that. I think >> yeah I think we want to expand upon the uh excellence without boundaries um and that that's a prime example you know I think that the personal contact uh has the potential as Dr. Fay was articulating to impact um some families. Um but I do think that we're going to have to continue to make a concerted effort through social media channels because that's that's where a lot of individuals uh families uh parents receive their information. Um so a multitude of
251>> I like the videos, the fun videos that are coming out like the transportation video of the lady that did the bus and then this luxury car. I thought it was very very fun. >> Well, and I think that, you know, kind of lessons learned. I'm even going to try to work to cut down my weekly updates. >> Oh, she's the director. >> As I'm, you know, get out on campuses and bragging on campuses. >> Six, seven minutes is just too long to stay engaged. So, >> yeah, those short clips have been coming, Barry. >> Cut it, cut it down. Attention span's short now. >> All right. Okay. Any other questions? So, we're going to keep this as a draft. >> Yeah, we'll bring it back on the 23rd. Uh, if that's okay. Uh, like
252I said, we'll clean up a little bit of language. If you have any further suggestions, just feel free to let us know. >> Add a number one. >> Some typo. >> Oh, yeah. Thank you. Like say it's in draft format. Thank you. I haven't gotten my red pen yet on this one. So, >> please do. >> Okay. Very good. Thank you so much. And future agenda. >> Yeah. So, future agenda items again uh with September the texted uh con um conference uh which used to be TASA TASBY. Uh we would like to recognize our outgoing North Side Leadership Academy graduates. um if that's okay. >> Yes. >> Um we've got our signing of the decision of respect um which Kimberly Ridgely will will provide some information in regards to that week of recognition. Our code
253of ethics um which we usually sign a large poster board for both actually. Um uh consent agenda we're we'll continue to work on based on committee meetings. Uh, one of the challenges I know that Jacob was going to get with you, Mr. Salceto, was the 17th with our building committee. It looks like you may be the only one that's able to attend. >> Okay. So, we might look to reschedu that. Uh, we're thinking we might bring a staffing update in uh just as we did with enrollment. Uh, looking at where we are with staffing, particularly student teacher ratios. Uh we have a DEICRT compliance piece. Again, this is a result of the 89th legislative session that we're continuing to work through along with a mental health services consent form that we need to bring forward.
254That's now a legal requirement. Um we typically bring our board operating procedures for review. Uh there will be the opportunity uh for the bearer appraisal district. There will be a nomination process for a representative. Dave is he's still Dave Ganon is still our representative and is good for another year. One more year, but there's going to be opportunity for a nomination uh I believe it's an at large position, >> a second nomination. >> Yeah, it's just a nomination and then we'll cast votes uh thereafter. Um and then we'll have a few uh couple of appointments for assistant principal and academic dean. That's what like I say we have in the works for the 23rd. We'll bring back like I say the uh policy uh matters as as discussed um this evening. >> All right. Thank
255you so much. That concludes this part of the meeting. Um now we're going to move to executive session. So thank you all for coming. Have a great evening. So, the board of trustees on August 26 beginning at 9:39 p.m. will convenient and open meeting. No action was taken in closed session regarding our agenda items discussed in closed session. Is there a motion to come before the board? >> Mrs. Freeman, >> I would move approval of um appointments as discussed in executive session. Any seconds? >> Second. >> Okay. Uh all um vote in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any further discussion? I forgot to ask. All opposed. Okay. Motion passes. It is now 9:40 and our trustee meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Good night.