001Good evening and welcome to the North Site Independent School District School Board meeting. If you would please stand for the prayer and the pledges. Trustee Gavvada will lead us. Almighty and merciful God, we ask your guidance and blessings upon this board, students, parents, patrons, teachers, and administrators as we are assembled here this evening in the common pursuit of this great nation's wealth, our children. Amen. 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 Texas flag. I pledge algiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you. You may be seated. Good evening and welcome to this regular meeting of the North Sight Board of Trustees. Before calling this
002meeting to order, the board would like to take just a moment to pref briefly review some of the rules for conducting our meeting. The order of business for this meeting is set out in the agenda. One item that you may notice on the agenda is the consent agenda. This item includes items that are considered routine and or are of a recurring nature. All of the items listed under the consent agenda will be acted upon in one motion. If there is a consent agenda item which 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. The purpose of this meeting is to conduct board business and for that reason it is held in public. It is not a public
003forum. However, we do provide opportunity for audience participation. If there is anyone here wishing to address the board regarding citizens to be heard, agenda item must complete a signup sheet prior to the start of the meeting. If there is anyone who would like to address the board during an agenda item, we ask that you please complete a signup sheet and ina indicate the agenda item 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 to speak to the board. We will review the rules for addressing the board later in the e in the meeting. Is there anyone here who would like to sign up for an agenda item and has not done so? Thank you. Uh trustees, if
004you don't mind, we would like to go to the recognition uh agenda item. Thank you. All right, let's start with our recognitions. Dr. Craft. Absolutely. Uh good evening, Madame Vice President, members of the board, and members of our community. Um we have several recognitions, uh both student groups as well as some of our u u uh highlights to uh share, accolades to share with uh some of our staff employees. So if I could ask the board to join us in front of the DAS, we'll go ahead and get started and uh Mr. Press is going to kick us off. Thank you, Dr. Craft. Members of the board, uh it is an honor for me to serve as your MC tonight. We are recognizing some outstanding staff and students and it's always so exciting to present
005before the board the incredible talents and accomplishments of our students, staff, and campuses. I would like to give a few instructions to the group. We have a large group tonight which we're very excited about. We are going to go in the order of the agenda. We've reserved for those of you who are parents or families the front row right to my left so that as your honore, your student comes up to receive their award, you're welcome to come up, take a picture. We ask that you return to your seat though so that others can use that front row to get their photographs. If you are an honore, you should have your certificate on your chair. You also have a pink name card that is uh with you and we're going to ask that you bring
006that up. That's what you're going to give to me on my left side. I'll call your name and once I've called your name as an honore, you're going to come to the front. You're going to be recognized by each of the trustees. If you have someone here that would like to get a photograph of you before you leave too quickly, we want to make sure that you can get a a photograph for your family and then we'll have you return on this side to my right back to your seat. And Mrs. Losa, who's right behind me, is going to help direct each of the rows when it's your time uh to come forward. So, as we begin this evening, we are first going to start with Laura Stephenson. Laura Stephenson is a dyslexia instruction specialist.
007She was selected as the region 20 dyslexia service provider of the year. This award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding commitment and effectiveness in serving students with dyslexia within the ESC region 20 area. The position of dyslexia instruction specialist is new this year. It allows Laura to provide speciallydesed instruction to students identified with dyslexia. Laura approaches each student with patience, empathy, and encouragement, creating a safe space where they feel comfortable taking risks in their learning. Students who previously struggled with reading or writing have shown significant progress under her care, which is a testament to her expertise and dedication. Please welcome Laura Stephenson, the 2025 region 20 dyslexia service provider of the [Applause] year. Next, Mattail RS, a fifth grade student at Cole Elementary School, is the reigning ESC region 20 Spanish spelling bee champion in
008the elementary school level. He now moves on and will serve as the region's representative in the 2025 Texas State Spanish spelling bee, which will take place in midJune at the Starlight Event Center in El Paso. Please congratulate Mattail RS for board recognition. I should add they wanted me to spell the word that won Matteo's championship and I said no. The Texas School Social Worker Association established a prestigious award to recognize and honor excellence in school-based social work practice. The 2025 Kathy Armenta Texas School Social Worker of the Year Award recipient is North Side's very own Heather Thatcher, who is the coordinator for the connections program serving students in homeless situations and foster care. This award is presented annually to a school social worker who exemplifies excellence and innovation in the field of school social work.
009Through strategic initiatives and innovative approaches, Heather has expanded identification efforts, implemented enrollment conferences to support students transitioning to new schools, and introduced data tracking tools to better meet students unique needs. Her leadership has resulted in a remarkable increase in identified students, providing them with critical support and stability. Please congratulate Heather Thatcher. Next we have Robert Clicker, a music teacher at Bronze Station in Oak Hills Terrace Elementary Schools who was selected by the Department of Texas Veterans of Foreign Wars as the K through 5ifth grade Smart Mayor Citizenship Education Teacher of the Year. Mr. Clicker's principal, Jack Funkhouser at Bronstation Elementary School states, "Robert exemplifies leadership, citizenship, and patriotism through his tireless dedication to fostering a sense of community, democratic values, and pride among his students. His military background as an Army veteran shines through his
010meticulous planning and direction of the annual Veterans Day ceremony. A cherished event that unites the campus and community, reinforcing the values of patriotism and respect. Congratulations, Robert Clicker, VFW Smart Mayor State Educator of the Year. Next, we are happy to recognize an outstanding group of thespian students from Taft, Okconor, and Clark high schools who have earned the prestigious Texas Theater Scholar Distinction presented by Texas Thespians. This award honors students who excel state, I'm sorry, all state. All state. This is not remember what I said. You'll hear it again in a minute. The Texas Music Educators Association, who collaborates with the Thespian Society, is the largest professional music educator organization in North America. Annually, this association conducts student auditions in concert band, jazz band, choir, and orchestra. The auditions are rigorous and test each musician's mental
011fortitude and music skills. Approximately 25,000 students audition for concert band, jazz band, uh, excuse me, concert band, jazz band, choir, and orchestra. 800 students are selected for one of these Allstate ensembles. Selection to Texas All State indicates student music achievement in the top 1% of student musicians in the state. It is the highest individual student music award that can be achieved in public school music education. Their audition work culminates with a command performance during the February Texas Music Educators Association clinic and conference held here in San Antonio. These students rehearse extremely difficult literature for only two days under the direction of world-renowned conductors and then performed these masterpieces before packed audiences in the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. 19 North Side student musicians were selected to this honor in 2025, representing eight of our district
012high schools. Please help me congratulate these students and their instructors as they come up for board recognition. And we begin with Rolene Angela Legion from Brandeise High School. Kevin Lynn [Applause] Miguel Gonzalez. [Applause] Jaden Wilcox. [Applause] Emma Deg Gucci Kelly, Anita Nazorian [Applause] Shami Trapovi. [Applause] Sharon Sudorsy. He's also the first one first. Damian Garay, who I'm told is also the first musician to be named at the mariachi level all state, [Applause] Chrisia Olsen [Applause] Nicole Baysa. [Applause] Ezra Kasanova. [Applause] Dylan [Applause] Hoon picture. Gabe Himenez. [Applause] Christian Morales. [Applause] Ezekiel [Applause] Galves. did ditto what I said earlier about the we are now happy to recognize an outstanding group of thespian students from Taft Okconor and Clark high schools who have earned the prestigious Texas theater scholar distinction. Presented by Texas Thespians. This award
013honors students who excel both academically and artistically. To achieve this distinction, students must maintain a minimum of 3.0 GPA while actively participating in their school's theater program, demonstrating dedication, leadership, and integrity. Those with a 3.5 GPA earn the vice president's list honor, while students with a perfect 4.0 GPA achieve achieve the president's u list recognition. These students embody the spirit of excellence in both academics and the arts. And we celebrate their hard work and commitment. And we begin this evening with Juliana A. Costa. Mia Ahern. [Applause] Claire Albbright. [Applause] Allison Chernell. [Applause] Benjamin Catrrell, [Applause] Isaac Deo [Applause] Oh, Trinity Irwin [Applause] Dominic Lopez [Applause] Cassandra Vida. [Applause] Ezekiel Antoine. Mika Edwards. [Applause] Sophia Gonzalez. [Applause] Mercedes Lab Boy. Juliana Logos. Alexandra Sarabia Chapa. Daniela Teesz. Yes. So nice to trustees. I believe that concludes
014our student recognitions. We would be remiss if we did not take a minute to recognize the individuals that helped them achieve their success, specifically their directors. I'd have the directors please stand and be acknowledged. And and of course we cannot leave out the group to my left and those are the family members, the parents, grandparents, siblings, anyone else here to support one of the honores. We recognize you and applaud you. That concludes our [Applause] recognitions. Congratulations to all our honores and thank you parents. And you know what? Y'all get to go home because you have to go to sleep. So you may leave. [Applause] No. It's a good thing it went out right now. Yeah, that was it. It's actually just about right. We'll have another large one next month. Um, so we'll need to
015be here once again. Well, when we get to it, you you bring it up. Okay. back up. Okay. Congratulations. How are you? still get you jump back up to superintendent report don't need public hearing appointment start rolling okay uh before we go into the superintendence report I would just like to welcome our three ambassadors who are here with us today thank you all for being here Dr. Craft Superintendence Report. Yes, ma'am. Um, I was really hoping that all the students and families were going to stick around for for this one, but guess we know how to clear a room uh partially to clear a room. Um, hope everyone had a a great spring break uh first and foremost. It's hard to believe it's it's been almost a month um since we last met and a
016lot has has transpired. Um, you know, we're well underway into the spring sports season to include baseball, softball, track, uh, all the all the spring sports. In fact, uh, tonight uh, we're wishing the best for the OKConor boys and girls soccer teams as well as John J uh, girls uh, and the Taft girls. They're actually, well, actually, they've already kicked off uh, they started uh, their second round playoff match uh, matches uh, here at 6:00. So, we wish them the best of luck. Um, I know that I'm speaking on behalf of of many of you who had the opportunity to um enjoy some of our basketball, but I don't think we had the opportunity to really u celebrate um our both of our two state semifinalist. Uh that being Harlem, the Harlem boys basketball team
017as well as the Brennan boys. And while they come up a little bit short, uh basketball when you get it to that level of play, um anything can happen any night. And so we're really really proud of our basketball teams as well as the John J. Mustang boys basketball team who competed in the regional finals um for the um 5A division. Um one of the things that I noted was really kind of unique with the 5A or excuse me 6A basketball. So this was the first year they divided the two divisions into small and large and like I say the 6A classification and to have like I say two representative teams as uh the uh state semi-finalist was really special which you can kind of think of as the the final four. Um, so speaking
018of final four, um, I know that our trustees are, uh, competing as we speak with the, um, I guess it was kind of an evolution, and I'll let you probably you speak to that here momentarily, but it was an evolution of the challenge for our third grade reading, uh, sponsored by Santo Sports uh, reading initiative, which we're very proud to announce that um, Burke Elementary School was a final four uh, recipient. So, um, congratulations to Burke. Like I say, I know that they worked very hard and again, thank you to our trustees who had the opportunity took the time to to read to our students. I think it was a really fun competition. Um, and and while it was a competition, really obviously the overall initiative was to encourage um our students to pick up
019a book and enjoy reading. Um um had the opportunity uh to uh visit with the Strauss uh eighth graders, seventh and eighth graders. Uh we had a a career day on the 28th and it was a great turnout. Really just want to say thank you to all of those uh in the community within the community that volunteer their time um to come and speak to our students and um really just inspire them in regards to career uh aspirations that they're they may be pursuing in the near future. Uh special shout out to those that helped pull off the uh elementary Lego robotics um competition that was held March 1st uh here at Paul Taylor. Um that was really a neat neat event. Uh if you didn't have the opportunity uh to see this event, uh
020there'll be another opportunity uh here in just a couple weeks. So um great event. Uh likewise that same day Steamfest uh which is sponsored by our John J uh sea students and it is completely studentled. Um really great turnout, lot of families. Of course it was a beautiful day. Um and they pretty well used the entire campus for all different types of uh of activities uh to include science, technology, uh engineering but also art um as well as mathematics. So it was a great turnout and congratulations like I say to Crystal Mitchell uh and sea. Um we had the opportunity this year once again to uh uh host our auxiliary staff uh with uh what we call the class conference and this is really a half day of professional development. Uh they had the opportunity
021uh to hear from uh a really interesting author by the name of Megan Johnson. uh she's a speaker but also speaks to um let me get this right uh generational leadership. Um and it was kind of an interesting aspect. She just talked about the different generations and kind of what those motivators are and and how how that um triggers workforce productivity. Um so it was a lot of fun. Uh special shout out uh to Clark High School uh the model UN uh team. They competed in the global citizens model UN simulation uh uh just this past week uh in New York City with over 2,000 students participating. Um and we had 23 honorable mentions and best position paper awards. Uh and the team was the overall best medium-siz delegation. So congratulations to Kevin Pumphrey and
022like I say Clark High School, the uh UN model team. That's uh pretty awesome. Uh again, another opportunity that we provide students that um it's a little bit um unorthodox, if you will. Um again, uh looking forward to this spring. Uh mark your calendars. We kicked off with our ambassadors for all of our campuses from all of our campuses and across our departments uh for this year's Nef Education Foundation fund run. That will be May 17th out at Northwest Vista. um they were our gracious host last year and it proved to be really a great venue for just an awesome family event. And so we uh had the opportunity yesterday to uh kick off with the ambassadors and uh they're going to start the recruitment and uh training process. So get your sneakers ready for
023the upcoming 5K on May 17th. Um thought I'd uh real quickly speak to just a few legislative updates. Um we are tracking very closely. Um, you of course probably saw or read about the executive order uh to um dismantle the Department of Education. And so obviously in my conversations particularly with Representative Castro and Representative Gonzalez is the continuity of services uh particularly with Title One special education uh funding and those programs. Um and so we're going to be closely monitoring that in the future. Uh I think that it's going to take quite a bit of time and probably congressional action for any real uh change of uh substantive, but we're going to be like I say uh following that very very closely. Um provided testimony over on House Bill 6. This was of course the
024chapter 37 reform that we had uh recently um spoke about last week. Um and a few that we're following pretty closely. Um, House Bill 7. Um, I anticipate that, like I say, this will be a bill that will be taken up this week. Uh, it provides really a new grievance code chapter and really stricter regulations on educator background checks. It's lacking a fiscal note at this point, but like I say, I anticipate that that will pick up inertia. Uh, our very own Representative Bernal has House Bill 2249. Uh, that really does a lot for educator recruitment uh, and retention. Um but again, it's going to have to have um a pretty sizable fiscal note and support. Um so we'll be tracking those uh pretty closely. Uh the big one that's going to be on the
025docket for the House uh public education committee is going to be House Bill 4. Um this is going to be the really the accountability academic accountability revamp bill. Um there'll be a working group tomorrow uh that is really uh looking at how to transform the accountability uh system. Um it's my understanding that this bill really has um a lot of iterations that are going to be uh revamped. Um as the bill has been proposed, it's not very good. Um I'll just say it. Um, and so it has a lot of refinement, a lot of work ahead of it, uh, to stand a chance. And so, um, that being said, I like I say, I do anticipate that it's going to, uh, start to work through the House Public Education Committee process next week. Um, and
026then there is a chance uh, as I already mentioned, House Bill 1, House Bill Two, particularly House Bill um, one pertaining to uh, ESAs and then House Bill Two, the school funding uh, vehicle. uh they may make it out of the House Public Education Committee uh by the end of this week uh potentially as early as Thursday. Um so um that being said uh as we'll know it'll have to go through u uh the um process of uh making it through the Senate and I anticipate that there will most definitely be a conference committee established for both of both of those pieces of legislation. Um we do have a um uh video moment. Um and this is the time of year that we really get to celebrate as we already have with many of our
027directors, our educators of the year. And so I know that you probably already had this on your calendar, but tomorrow night at the sports gym, we'll be recognized our elementary educators of the year. Um and then again on Thursday, we'll have our secondary educators of the year, which are always uh really, really special celebrations. Um, I have been told on good authority uh by our very own Barry Perez that uh Tina Turner uh Simply the Best uh will be a staple uh in that program. So um please come join us. Um, and that being said, I believe we have a video moment uh that is going to highlight uh several of our other educators of the year, which is uh through the uh HB educators excellence awards that we had uh the opportunity to recognize
028just here recently. We're going to spell good. This is what a typical day at Boone Elementary looks like for first grade teacher Cassandra Smith. Good. What's the beginning sound, guys? G. And this is what it looks like when HB shows up with a very big surprise. Congratulations. Smith was one of several North Side finalists in the HB Excellence and Education Awards, which is awesome. She's winning $1,000 for herself today and $1,000 for the school today. Can we give her a round of applause? HB likes to surprise their finalists with a big cash reward and a chance to compete in the final round against other educators from around the state. And it worked. Like, oh my goodness, what's happening? Is this for me? Really? Well, is this for somebody else? Did you get the wrong classroom?
029I'm pretty sure you did. But once the truth set in, the emotions took over. It feels really rewarding and I just feel really grateful and um I want to do like my part as a teacher to help other students know that it's possible to achieve what they want to achieve and that I believe in them like with all my heart. One, two, three, everyone wave. She says helping kids like these to succeed is all she ever wants to do. They mean the world to me. They're my heart. And the surprises continued. So, you should be finishing your painting into the drawing part. Over at Clark High School, art teacher Brandy Gonzalez Key was about to find out all her hard work is definitely getting noticed. I'm happy to inform you you're one of our finalists
030for the HB excellence and education. Get out of here. So, that's what I was thinking like we were going to film the lesson and I'm like I was thinking I missed an email and then I saw everybody else coming in and I'm like, "No, this is something else." and she's winning $1,000 for herself today and $1,000 for your school. I feel surprised and very fortunate that that there's recognition not only through the company through HB, but also through our school district and that there's a partnership there. And finally, we move to Marshall Law and Medical Services Magnet School. There you go. Ready? where HB had one more surprise for another very special educator. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh, what a wonderful surprise. Thank you. This one went to Principal Margaret Bray.
031This means so much to me. Um it's a it's truly a privilege to work with our students every day. Can we give her a big round of applause? It is really about meeting our students where they're at and helping them to get to the place that they want to be and I love it. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Yeah, absolutely. I was giving Ry a hard time earlier that while he was having the opportunity to to celebrate with Miss Smith and Miss Gonzalez and of course Miss Bray, I was on the road at 4:30 a.m. and then in a House Public Education Committee meeting that something was wrong with that uh relationship that we're have to get fixed. But no, we we really are so excited to be able to celebrate uh with some of our
032uh very best educators uh not only here in North Side, but in the state of Texas. And so congratulations. Uh please join us tomorrow if you're able. Uh and then again on Thursday. And uh with that that concludes my superintendent report. Thank you. Uh trustee reports doc Dr. Don. Okay. Thank you. Uh I want to just thank everyone that was able to come to the march on Saturday. We had students and teachers from all of the campuses at North Side represented and the Marshall students. Um it was really nice to be able to see um everyone come out on a Saturday when there were so many activities happening. And I also want to thank everyone that's running for school board. I think it's important that um we exercise our dem democratic opportunities to run for
033public office. it's uh not for the faint of heart and so congratulations to everyone. It's a lot of work. So um want to give you all a shout out and to our own um alumni Marcela who was also there at the march. I want to give her a shout out and all the students that are alumnide that were able to be present. So thank you all for all the hard work. And uh now that we're uh past spring break, let's just keep pushing for the next holiday. Thank you, Dr. Harl. Thank you. Um, you know, we kind of had a a little bit of a dry spell for a month or so and then hit the ground running with three a days as my kids used to say. Um, and so there was a lot
034and I'm kind of going backwards, but we got to host the San Antonio All-Star Basketball Game and all the skills competitions and um, David and Karen were there um, watching I think every high school, not I think, I know every one of our high schools had someone competing um, either in the all-star game or in the skills. It was it was just phenomenal. But it was really neat to kind of host this kind of citywide, countywide event and everyone was treated really, really well and very grateful and thank you. Thankful at the same time and then everyone made it home before the hail storm at the same time. Um, Los Leones was phenomenal. Uh, Friday, um, some of us judged and it was so hard. Um, I even went back and asked for more ribbons
035because It was almost like a, you know, couple thousand way tie. The the the students of all ages outdid themselves. Um, the next day was even more special because there was music. Um, a big shout out to the Clark Jazz Band and their director Justin Murphy. Um, they got a standing ovation. Um, because no one could sit down, but no, they really kept they kept the the audience entertained. the chalk drawing. Ellison, congratulations, got first place. Um, and um I loved um there was a Leyon Valley drummers um with under Eva Young as their director. They must have had 20 25 drums, but the day before watching them come in and laying out everything, there was like this excitement the day before and those little drummers were giggling and laughing and it really impacts our
036kids to be involved on that level. And that was an all day affair. Before that was the special ed resource fair and it was the largest we've ever had. We had overundu uh 80 families, over 70 vendors and support organizations that as I was walking around they were thanking us. They were thanking me on behalf of us for allowing them to be they were actually filled up this whole um north side activity center. And there were so many families that were um that that had been extended so much care and support by these organizations and everybody was really appreciative. The parent panel was very emotional. Um anyway, they offered so much um for our families, but 180 families that that's remarkable. Um, Friday I got to be a grandma and I went on um, where
037in the world is North Side GT or maybe it was Thursday. It's probably Yeah, no, it was Friday. Um, and they were at the San Antonio Museum of Art um, competing against other elementary schools and that was just wonderful for an art museum to let kids like get up close and personal to very breakable things. Um, but they did they did wonderful and I think it went on for a series of days because we're so large. But it was wonderful and of course uh Nicholas and Catalina were just um lucky that I brought them Chick-fil-A. So um it was lots of fun. Um got to read. We were keeping reading going but at OWI third grade with the Gators. Um Ursula um Sober is a phenomenal principal and I thought I was there to read
038one class and she thought I was there to read to multiple grade levels. So um I stayed and read um and a shout out to the kiddo who answered every one of my questions with Pickle. I'm still trying to figure him out. I won't say his name, but every question I asked, he said Pickle. And so it just made me laugh for the next couple of days. So and also I bought a few pickles. Um you mentioned the John J. um steam um fest that was phenomenal. The students totally like you said put it together. Um there was art and music, phenomenal music. They lived up to the the A in steam and the arts were well represented. Um what I loved is that um they actually did um it wasn't just a sit and
039get kind of booth. They actually had hands-on activities. And so you can actually tell by testing your saliva if you're hungry or not. And so um evidently my saliva showed that I was starving. And so I wasn't at the time, but then after that I became very hungry. But they were so cute and they were so sincere. And the families again it was jam-packed. Um academic decathlon was fun. That was so much fun. The the award ceremony and Dr. Craft was like the keynote speaker. Um I I upgraded you to keynote because it was the best speech. But um Warren took first place in the state of Texas. It was phenomenal. It was phenomenal. Um that's that that's a hard that's hard. You know, Connor and Clark did really really well. One other team was
040there. Connor Clark Health Careers also also came in first place for a small school. Yeah. So, thank you for finishing. I love that. Um the next that afternoon was bowling and so we have we're going to celebrate our bowling athletes. Um so you go from academic to Kathlon to bowling and it's really neat um to just see how our kids can be long in so many different things. So we'll honor the the state winners next word meaning I think Valerie is when yeah the bowlers come. Um Nef partnership was great. the um we honored those partners in our community that give back so much to North Side Museum Association was there. Several um just most wonderful people in our community were honored um including our former trustee Melissa Chumbley. So um uh shout out to
041the Nef Foundation for that. Um Bobby and I got to go to the um start start and stay strong rally. That was earlier in the year, but the finish strong Elementary and they work on a growth mindset and it's measured through attendance and service and then we were talked into reading. So Bobby and I did a partner read um which was which was lots of fun except he gave me a book where the strawberry died at the end because someone stepped on it. So I'm never going to trust him again with giving me a book. Um the kids were like looking at me and you know Bobby got the fun rock paper scissors book. Um and then last but not least um I was mentoring one of my kiddos at um Homesight at Insight and
042um there was a team practicing and I asked if I could just listen to them and they are actually the Tasky team. They told me they did their whole spiel which was phenomenal. They're getting ready to go to New York City and compete in the virtual enterprise international competition in a few weeks. And I know I just read a whole list of stuff, but can you imagine being a kiddo in North Side? Look how much you could belong into with um it's it's a little bit of everybody everything for everybody including the ones we honored earlier today uh earlier tonight. So, um, thank you very much for letting me kind of capture all of that. Thanks, David. Trusty Salceto. Yeah, I just got something real quick. I want to congratulate Miss Elizabeth Sanchez Lopez for
043a awesome job at Los. I know we got five five choices this year again, but we need five more, something different. I know we broke in Miss uh Miss Megan was initiated. Uh, got to see a big old event. I'm pretty sure you look all smiles. You had a real good time there. So congratulations. All right, Trustee Gavara. Thank you very much. Uh on February 28th, uh thanks to the good folks over at Northwest Crossing Elementary, they invited me to read to several groups of students. Got a chance to read several chapters of the popular book, The Wild Robot. It was pretty neat. It was The kids were excited. They I guess a movie had just come out also. Uh uh and uh so they were excited about that and it was great visiting. It
044was rather nostalgic because that's uh where my kids went to school, Northwest Crossing Elementary and my wife began her teaching career north side by teaching there at North Northwest Crossing. So that was pretty neat. I guess I did pretty good because they invited me back the following week uh to attend their literary night. But while attending that function, I was uh provided with a tour of their food pantry. uh they they uh uh you know they provide food products you know to to to families in need. So I love that initiative. So if anybody wants to consider you know donating to a worthwhile cause be uh you know please do so. So thank you to principal Priscilla and third grade ESL teacher uh Shannon Aap for inviting me there. Uh thanks to the good folks
045at Fernandez Elementary for having me over for the academic stream night on March 20th. Uh it was pretty neat too uh during the production they had tables set up where they were uh promoting some of our uh middle school mag magnet programs that evening. So that was uh that was pretty neat. Had a great time talking to teachers, students, parents. Thanks to principal Rebecca Zamora Varasa and Miss Olga Idrogo, STEM teacher for the invitation. uh the very next day and the next morning uh thanks to the good folks at u elementary they invited me to their star spirit rally bright and early in the morning there a lot of pride and enthusiasm there displayed so thank you principal Maline Bueno for that uh invitation there uh that evening went on over to judge a student
046artwork uh submitted for the 26th annual Loson festival uh again thank you uh Miss Sanchez Lopez for inviting us to partake in that. I thought I was going to be there for maybe an hour, but turned out to be a two and a half hours, right? There's so much there was so much to judge. I mean, incredible work by the students. It and to, you know, again, trustee Salo, we talked about how hard it was to judge only five products in two gyms, you know, so uh incredible though, you know, it uh great work by all students, you know, that submitted their work. So, thank you for the invitation. Judge there. Then the very next day, we have the festival. A lot of great, you know, uh, talented students sharing their artwork, music, singing, and
047dancing talents, excuse me. Uh, the arts have been incredible in the North Side School District. Uh, my kids were in the band and middle schools uh, that they attended, Connley and Jordan. My middle child continued, you know, as in the marching band and in the jazz band at Warren High School. And those skills propelled her to join the pep band at Dr. Harl's favorite university up the road down or up I35. I'm not as a Baylor grad. I'm not going to mention the school. No, I'm a proud Texas dad. You know, hook him. Um, and then uh at here uh at the end, I wanted to pay tribute uh to Mr. Nick Gamboa who unfortunately passed away on March the 13th. Uh Mr. Gambo was a super sub at Jones Middle School where he attended
048as a student. Uh he was a beloved member of the Jones community and everyone appreciated his passion for education and loyalty to the Jones campus. So we would like to extend our condolences to Mr. Gambbo family. That concludes my report. Trusty Freeman. Yeah, thank you Miss Sana. Um, so many things have we've already talked about regarding ACT. Our two um our two schools, Warren and um Health Careers High School. Great job. And to their sponsors, thank you so much, too. Uh my daughter way back in the day was an ACT student. And I've I talked to some of those students um that day that we were there. My daughter had said has always said that ACT deck every time there's every now and then something comes up that she remembers from academic decathlon and then
049so many skills that she learned through speaking and other things that they have done has really helped her um through the years. Those kids are were absolutely amazing and they work so hard um the entire year. So congratulations to all of them. Um and the the um Los Leone. So as some of my fellow trustees have said, those those are the very most difficult decisions I think that my goodness that I think we um make here sometimes at the DAS to be able to select five of the best out of hundreds and maybe a thousands of um pieces of art. I don't know how how many pieces do you know even yeah a lot two gymfuls and and yeah it's just it's unbelievable that um kids were very talented and the the um arts fest
050the next day was great I want to spend some time Mr. Blunt um is unable to be here tonight, but he asked me to bring some stats regarding or numbers regarding the um final four competition, some up to-date pieces. The um the literacy part of this has just been really great. As you know, Burke Elementary School is one of our one of the final four schools, which is really great. 88 um third graders had participated. They have read over 1.8 8 million minutes. Wow. Um in November there were started out as 306 schools and the goal for all of those that have participated was 25 million minutes and now it's over they they exceeded that um to 27 million so far. So, the um that award will take place at the the FanFest on April
051the 4th, and the winner will receive a $5,000 makeover for their library. So, that's that's going to be really exciting. Also, um over the holidays, there was a competition, individual competition that was sponsored. 940 students participated. 65 schools um represented 15 districts and 500,000 minutes from those 940 students and we had um a gal from Cole Elementary who read 7720 minutes Kaizen Moy. So congratulations to her um as well. And then Bobby had brought something interesting um to the had suggested to the NCAA. So we have talked about it and he and we had trustees that have participated and that was an interesting piece. You know as trustees there's so many things that we do not have control over like how much money we get from the state and various things but there's some things
052that we could actually make an impact on and reading to students is one of them. The whole goal is to be able to read to kids was to read to kids and get them excited about reading. I do know from um experience with this I I understand that some of our schools even though they're out of this final four, they still continue to read. They still continue to log their minutes and some of the schools are given um uh tokens for the kids and the kids are still excited. So maybe this will turn out to be really good. I know as trustees um uh we've had we had 32 trustees um at the very beginning that participated from Sigin, Gonzalez and San Antonio representing 160. Um, we've read to 160 schools from PE preK to
053fifth, including AL, ECC, and GT. Over 14,000 minutes um have been read. 14,000. And then that included um sometimes when we go to a school, we never know who we're going to read to. If it's an individual class, sometimes they will have us read to the entire grade level at one time. So, it's hard to say how many kids we've actually um uh impacted in so doing. Right now we're down to the final four. And interestingly enough, Bobby and I are are in the final four with um Ginger Fzenhan from East Central and Monica Ryan from Judson. And again, I can't remember if I said this, but even though some of our trustees that have not um advanced to the final four, everybody's still a lot of people are still reading. And it's really cool
054to be able to read to a a group of kids. And y'all might know this, but their eyes, you know, they just stare at you and sometimes you can hear a pin drop. One story I want to tell. And to warn maybe my fellow trustees and um maybe even um Jacob um from facilities, I read this book called If I Built a School. And as we read it, um, I had the kids think about what they might suggest maybe to a board member about a feature that they would add to their school to make it more awesome than what it is. And so in this one class, we went around and the teacher said, "Hey friends, you know what kind of writing would that be if you wrote?" And um, so it was an argumentative
055piece. And as we talked um so there might be some argumentative writings that come to the board from all of this for us to consider perhaps in our next renovation of some of our schools and I will tell you some of the things that we heard. Many of the things were like soccer fields, um places, uh student lounges like the teacher lounges, um food. Yeah. Um water water parks, game game areas where they could, you know, play their Nintendo. This one kid even said today, "I want to I want to be able to teleport myself from the time I get to school and then all of a sudden teleport to the end of the day." And and then I mentioned, yeah, learn everything that you should have learned and have. And he said, "Yes." So,
056anyway, it was really great. Um, and we've really enjoyed it. I know y'all have stories, too, so we need to continue to tell them. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, I'll I'll try to skip some of what everybody has said, but uh, on the final four, you're right, because I have an appointment in May to go red to a school. They texted me, could I come May the 11th or something? and I said, "Okay, I'm there." So, yes, we're still reading. Thank you, Carson Elementary. Also, uh Cable Elementary School, they wrote a grant, I guess, to to Texas. Yes. project and they partnered with James Avery and they built a portable little library box and James Avery is going to fill it with books all year long. Wow. And so we were there for that and
057that was amazing. So thank you James Avery and the Texas Yes project. Another fun thing that I went to that I had never seen, but I am going to say it so that maybe some of our other high schools will do this. Clark invited us to what they call a conversation. And this was a group of kids who describe or talk or answer questions about different projects that they personally are involved with. Some of the ones that were interesting was a young lady who started her own business. She took some pictures. She people kept complimenting her on her pictures. So she now has a little photography studio. And so she talked about that. Another one that was very interesting and and they have a list when you walk in the library and the kids are
058sitting there, they have a list of questions that you can ask regarding what they're going to discuss. Another one that had several people uh approach it and sit there and listen was a Jewish young man who explained how the Jewish religion works and what he goes through as a student. Another one was a young lady who was a military child and she talked about this is what happens when you're in the military. She was in the 11th grade and she had already been at eight schools. So she talked about the challenges that she faced and all of this is just in a like a 40inute period and every lunch period they trade off and the kids can come in and listen and it was really a a good type of conversation because they have so
059many newcomers and the newcomers were all participating and some of them wore the costume or dance outfit that they would wear in their community events. And I just felt like that was good because it tells high school seniors, you know what, we're all different, but we're all going to one school and we're all cougars in that particular case. So, I think that was really, really interesting. So, I commend the librarian, uh, Lucy Prud Prommore. Thank you. Uh Elizabeth and John, both of you are here and everybody has talked about it. But will you all stand so that if somebody doesn't know them? Thank you all. I think they learned everything when they were at Holmes High School if I recall. Uh the special ed resource fair. I got here at the very beginning because we
060had so many activities that day. So I came early and it was the parking lot was full and I thought what is going on? And I walk in and I found out very quickly what was going on. Those vendors were everywhere and just like Dr. Harold said, I went to thank each one of them for being here. They were thanking me because they were saying this is what communities need and North Side has taken the time to work with our most vulnerable kids and their families because not only was it a fair where they could talk with different vendors about games or or books or just health issues. Uh even city waterboard was here. Uh it was just so many different types of vendors who were here and the parents were so involved with talking
061to them. And then from what I understand, there was another session in the afternoon where former parents of North Sight graduates were talking to the parents who were had their children in on in our schools today and explaining how good the programs are and for them to just continue working with the school district. So I thank Valerie Rodriguez. she was uh the assistant director but she was here to explain everything to me to show me what everybody was doing and it was just so amazing to see the participation. So thank you spec uh department. I also went to the UIL 1 play at Reagan. I left here went to Reagan. Uh my granddaughter was in the UIL one act play and I believe Clark and and Brandeise were both there. They did not advance, but
062I thought they did really well. I'm just biased. Student voice. I just love our student voice. And we have two of them coming up this week also. So, I can't wait to hear what the kids share with us. San Antonio sports, it was an amazing event. And I think I was more excited because three of the four possibilities for like MVP were all North Sight kids. So that was fun to see them recognized. And there is we have a student who just today I believe they announced or last night the Fiesta poster winner is one of our students from Forester Elementary, Autumn Garcia, fourth grader. So she's going to have her drawing. And I think we've already recognized our sports. Uh thank you coaches. Thank you academic decathlon coaches because that is truly uh a
063work of love because that's lots of hours. So thank you all. So if with that being said uh Dr. Craft uh we have the consent no citizens to be heard. Yes ma'am. We believe citizens to be heard is important and meaningful and we will listen to what you have to say. We value your opinions although we are restrained by law from taking any action. Please address your remarks to the board. Confine your remarks to a northight policy or practice. Limit your remarks to three minutes. At three minutes, you will be asked to wrap up your remarks. Do not make personal attacks on individuals. So, Dr. Crap. Yes, ma'am. We have, I believe, six individuals citizens to uh be heard. Uh the first to sign up is William Barton. Good evening. My name is William Barton
064and I'm a recently retired uh teacher from North Side after 26 years. Most of that was at Warren and I'm here today as the president of the North Side local chapter of the Association of Texas Professional Educators. The Association of Texas Professional Educators is a statewide nonprofit organization with approximately 75,000 members which exists to serve the needs of Texas teachers, pair professionals, administrators, and all public educators. Approximately, 1100 of these members are in the north side ATP local chapter. In the upcoming schoolboard election, we sought to support candidates who were best able to serve the needs of the north side educational community regardless of political party or platform. In order to determine who the best candidates were, we sent out a questionnaire designed to evaluate the candidates's academic and leadership achievements, their connections to the
065North Side community, and their vision of both the immediate and long-term challenges which North Side is likely to face. This evening, I would like to simply express our sincere gratitude to all of the candidates who took the time to respond to our questions and to thank all of their candidates for their willingness to serve the North Side community. So, thank you very much for your responses and thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Marcelo Hernandez. I'm sorry, Marcela. Her name is I apologize. No, it's okay. All of the pens were like all messed up, so it's okay. Hi, good evening. My name is Marcela Nandez and I actually graduated from John Marshall Law Medical Services last June. Currently, I'm a freshman at UTSA majoring in Mexican-American studies. Now, this past Saturday, the city
066of San Antonio celebrated the 29th annual CESA Chavez March for Justice. We had thousands of people in attendance from infants to our elders all marching to honor CESA Chavez and the legacy that he has on our community. We had recordbreaking attendance in this year's march. Now more and more as a community, we are seeing how representation is a necessity and how it impacts our students in a positive way. I have been advocating for a school holiday honoring Cesar Chavez, not just for myself, but for our community as a whole. I believe that our students are our future and we must have district approved holidays that reflect our student population. Y'all serve the community of San Antonio and in turn serve these students. NISD's student population is close to 70% Latino or Hispanic. Our history is
067skimmed over or goes unmentioned completely in our social studies classes. Having a clearly expressed holiday honoring Chavez and the work he did for our community would show our students that they are capable of achieving greatness and excelling as leaders in their community. I'm sure you share the same sentiment of believing we can help make a difference in the lives of these students. One way to do this is to recognize a civil rights hero, Cesar Chavez, with the district approved school holiday for K through 12. Now, in a time of such division, it is our responsibility as community members to show our students to show these children that they will not be erased. This holiday is just one way to honor our students and the precious knowledge we are obligated to share with them. We must
068show our students that their diverse backgrounds are what contribute to the beautiful community that is NIST. Thank you, Candace Shance. I am going to beg your forgiveness because it is going to go slightly over the three, but I ask that you bear with me for this. My name is Candace Sean and I'm the science department coordinator at Garcia Middle School. I have been a middle school educator for 22 years, all of which have been at Northside at campuses that include Rayurn, Rudder, and Garcia. My job roles include eighth grade science teacher, science department coordinator, cross country coach, robotic sponsor, and eighth grade event sponsor. I state these job roles just to show that I am not a teacher that clocks in and out at contract time. I ask that you honor my commitment and loyalty
069to Northside by listening to my entire statement. As an educator, my role is to ensure all children receive equal access to a quality education and to provide said quality education for which I am trained. To do this, I need adequate time to prepare, present, and evaluate lessons, monitor and assess 150 to 185 students, adjust, retach, and reassess for mastery. A typical week of a northside middle school educator includes teaching from 8:40 to 3:55 with one 45minute conference period. But in reality, two of those conference periods each week are utilized for required PLC meetings. During these meetings, assessments are created, student data is disagregated, and possibly discussion occurs about a lesson. That leaves three 45minute conference periods to design a lesson, create the activities for the lesson, make copies, grade assignments, update the gradebook, contact parents,
070document said contact, complete a PLA for SE, complete a 504 feedback request form, etc. Further, this assumes you are not called to attend an AR 504 meeting staffing for a student or have a parent conference. In addition to our 8:40 to 355 duties, we have that what our contract refers to as quote other duties as assigned. These duties that we take on outside of contract time include before and after school academic coaching, morning duty, retach, retest opportunities, campus meetings such as faculty department committee, supervising clubs, and attending student activities like sporting events, concerts, and plays. After all of that, when despite the teacher's best efforts, a student is unsuccessful, why do we still look to the teacher and ask them to justify a student's failure? There's a disconnect in education today when the first question
071asked of teachers when a student fails is, "What did you do?" Instead, should we not be asking the student and parents, "What did you do?" But in the end, none of it matters because students are given course protection to earn that magic 70. If all a student has to do is Google it and click it with multiple opportunities, why should they work harder in class? The result is inflated grades and inaccurate representations of student abilities. I have spoken to the workload and frustration of teachers, but not the pay. I know the board works hard to create a budget that provides employees with increases in pay, but do you feel that the most recent increases have been commiserate with the increases in the general cost of living? If you're above midpoint, it's not even a 2%
072increase. I understand the need to entice new teachers with a higher pay scale, but what about rewarding those that have been loyal to North Side and continue to serve our district? Why is it that a teacher with over 20 years of experience is only making approximately $7,000 more than a new teacher with no experience? My experience is only worth about $350 a year. Yet, you expect me to be a mentor and train the new teacher. Northside shows a lack of value on knowledge and experience. While I see the need to incentivize teachers to come to this district, I don't understand why that had to come at a cost to others. I am referring to the teacher incentive aotment. My personal belief is that my pay should never be linked to student achievement as there are
073too many variables out of my control. However, the state of Texas has designed this flawed system and North Side has jumped on board. Ma'am, your time is up. Yes. And I'm asking for some grace here. Please, please honor my 22 years of experience. All of North Side. Go ahead. Thank you. You have alienated and devalued thousands of teachers in the district by using the teacher incentive aotment. You have basically stated that my content is not of importance and what I do in my classroom is not as significant or meaningful as what happens in a math or ELA classroom. Do I not read expository text in science? Do I not do mathematical calculations in science? As such, should I not be recognized as support staff and be eligible? Everyone on a campus plays a role in
074the student achievement. Yet we are not all eligible for these payment opportunities. You have created a district with extreme disparity in pay eligibility. Additionally, teachers awarded the extra pay will seek the benefit years down the road as they look to retirement. These bonus payments will boost their income which is then used for calculation of the retirement annuity. Again, additional income I am ineligible to receive and therefore my retirement payout will be less. I find that unacceptable. I have heard that other contents will be eligible in the future but that doesn't change the problem. Now, growth measures are available or can be designed for all content, but Northside has chosen to reward a select few. To add insult to injury, I'm required to lose six instructional days to administer a test that does not benefit me
075or my content. And the state has so little respect for our integrity as professionals to not even trust a teacher to administer the test to their own students for fear of cheating. That alone shows the flaws of this incentive based program. While I'm not ignorant to the fact that much of public education is dictated by state decisions, I'm looking to Northside to do better by its educators and support staff. As the future of public teachers looks more bleak given the political climate, North Side needs to look beyond an antiquated system where the concern is whether teachers are wearing jeans and instead find ways to financially reward all teachers and alleviate non-essential expectations. I never saw myself as one of those teachers that would retire and leave education just because I was eligible. But in two
076years, I will walk away without hesitation. At Northside, the practice has always been that a student zip code should not determine the quality of their education. As educators of North Side, our content should not determine our pay. We deserve equality in all aspects of our job. It is up to Northside to make decisions that provide that equality to all. Thank you. I appreciate the time. Thank you. carries the blocking. Last night on the news, there was a plea for 4,000 volunteers for the final four. In today's paper, the Texas Senate bill to require school boards select books for library was featured in the Express News. Talk about March Madness. Okay. I now ask that you join me in rooting for the volunteers. Okay. I'm wearing my team shirt for created by a Northside student purchased
077for Miss Stoke, the librarian, one of the founders of Library Palooa. T-shirt sales are part of funding for everything, but Friends of North Side Libraries, a designated fund of the North Side Education Foundation, Benny Cole, one of the NEF founders, helped with this. Mr. Cole, I know he's smiling down on us from heaven because you look at how many students were featured here tonight, the Spanish uh speaker. And I'm here tonight to suggest stories for the student media journalists and the national media journalists who are going to be here covering the final four. Uh my former student at Warren, Tony Crocker, 2009 elite 8 for the Oklahoma Sooners. His daughter published a book when she was in kindergarten, A Sky Full of Emotions at Cole Elementary. Tony's brother, Jaylen Crocker Johnson, also graduated from Warren.
078And unfortunately on Sunday night, the Colorado State team was eliminated. So now I'm definitely voting. I'm supporting the Tennessee Volunteers. I reached out to the co-principal keening to connect with Tony and found out that his daughter uh that Tony's daughter has now boundary change. Guess what? She's another elementary school. I believe I appointed Benny to the boundary committee. Okay. And I can hear Benny laughing because in 1995 he was also one of the chairs for the citizens bond committee in the 75th anniversary perspective. You know how they talk about the economic uh impact of the final four $400 million? Well, since that 95 bond that uh Benny was part of, $4.96 billion dollar have been passed by this North Side community and that is a result of the volunteers that continue to operate with the
079North Side fashion. Um, this year two student ambassador groups were established, journalists and reporters. Don't talk to the adults. Go talk to these ambassadors. Go talk to the student author ambassadors for Library Palooa. And go talk to them. Oh my gosh, I can't believe they were here tonight, the North Side student ambassadors, one from each school, because every single one of them tells the story much more effectively than we adults can. That's for sure. Okay. And shout out to the Balor grad. Hey, the story of Torian Prince who who plays uh played with the Lakers and LeBron and is now with the Bucks. He was homeless when he came to Warren High School. The volunteers we it can't be taken for granted. I'm sorry. Bobby Blunt is $15,800 in debt from his last campaign. I
080am not going to talk about that. I'm not talking about the adults in the debt. I'll do that April 4th after the students are featured. Thank you, Molina Espirita Azakar. Good evening. Uh my name is Molina Espiritto. I am the very proud president of North Side AFT. Um elections are the foundation of our democracy. They give the people a voice and the decisions that shape their lives. We have a saying. It goes nothing about us without us. Right now, we do not feel that this school board properly reflects our community, our voices, or our needs. Northside AFT is a union in Texas. Yes, unions are alive and well and thriving in Texas and in San Antonio. We are the second largest union in San Antonio, affiliated with the AFL CIO and the largest group representing
081educators in North Side ISD. Our voices do matter. Our union members matter. And if you claim to support employees, that must include our members as well. We stand for the foundations of democracy. We believe in organizing fair pay, worker rights, affordable child care, and proworker policies. Yet, for some reason, certain trustees on this board continue to attack our union. They send their allies in the community to spread lies and misinformation in an attempt to weaken us. As the president of this powerful union, I believe in the strength of our collective voice. But I also understand that the power of silence. I don't come to this podium and every meeting just to talk. But I will not remain silent while North Side AFT, the only local union in North Side, is repeatedly attacked on the disbus
082by trustees and their allies. The educators and support staff of North Side, our union, myself as a community organizer, a taxpayer, an activist, and a deeply involved parent, are not the enemy. We have taken the high road while being smeared and called liars by Miss Eldana. We have repeatedly reached out to incumbents, including Miss Freeman, only to be met with resistance or outright refusal to meet with me as a representative of North Aft. These trustees are criticizing us without even taking the time to understand who we are, what we stand for. Uh, you cannot be crit critical of something that you don't know. You cannot, if you refuse to learn, you still cannot be angry about what you refuse to understand. Elected officials have a duty to engage with the community, to listen, and to
083adapt based on the needs of those they serve. If you refuse to do that, you leave us no choice but to find leaders who will. Challenging incumbents in an election is not an attack. It is democracy. To suggest otherwise is nothing short of an assault on that very principle. Finally, I do not control media headlines. If you have concerns about how the media reports on issues, take that up with the media. Scott's here. Uh, what weakens us is division. What strengthens us is organizing and mobilizing against the real threats underfunding of public education, tax cuts for the wealthy, disguises parent choice, and harmful policies that fail our children. We can all agree on that. Northside AFT will always be on the right side of the fight, standing with teachers, support staff, families, and students. and
084we will not be silenced. Thank you. Last sign up, Barbara Owens. Good evening. My name is Barbara Owens and I am a parent of a special needs child who attends a North Side Independent School District High School. I am here today because we had reported an incident of cyber bullying/harassment to our child's school. The school came back with a ruling of no bullying, cyber bullying had occurred. We were informed that the vice principal, the principal, an assistant superintendent and an administrator for special education for the school collectively made this decision via a flowchart. We vehemently challenged that decision stating because of this incident, our child feared for their safety. We expressed our child's fear of being jumped at school or being forced into a physical altercation. We were reassured that if that happened, our child
085would not be punished, but could claim self-defense. We also challenged the school's safety plan. The safety plan entailed only two things. One, a stayaway contract between our child and only one other student. two, a fast pass for my child to leave five minutes early from class, hopefully limiting interactions during passing periods. However, the safety plan did not consider the other students involved in the incident who shared classes in a lunch period with our child. Because we as parents and our child feared for their safety, coupled with a lack of an appropriate safety plan, we have kept our child home. The school's decision has severely impacted our special needs child emotionally and academically. Our child is not able to access their accommodations laid out in their IEP and they are barred from a free and appropriate
086education provided by law. I know that bullying, harassment, and cyber bullying are important issues for North Side, especially with the request from North Side Independent School District to join a class action lawsuit against social media companies concerning cyber bullying. That is why I am coming humbly before you and sorry and request that the school board help in resolving this matter. Our special needs child is a senior and is currently not on track to graduate and is at risk for dropping out. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. Thank you, Miss Owens. We'll be following up with you. Yeah. And I didn't catch it was Barbara last name. I'm sorry. Barbara Owens. Owens. And what school? Marshall High School. Marshall. And then your child's name. I would Oh, okay. Sir, thank you. Can
087I just Thank you. That's all we have signed up for citizens to be heard. Okay, we have the consent agenda next. And I believe Mr. Salceo is this. Okay. Tennis courts. Tennis courts. Which one are you? N and contractor for tennis court upgrade. So you would like to pull that for discussion for discussion. Yes. So we're happy to discuss the tennis court upgrades. I know like I say this was an item discussed at the uh building uh committee meeting, the last building committee meeting. Uh Jacob Billy is here to like I say try to answer any questions that you may have. Okay. Yes sir. I noticed on the when I was looking up last night uh Albright is the lowest bid yet you gave it to recommendation RL road general contracting. Can you explain a
088little bit about that? Sure. So we do our competitive seal proposal obviously publicly advertise those projects through the SA Express to give everyone the equal opportunity to submit a bid. Our our practice is to go through an evaluation matrix that is published in our front-end specifications that are part of the contract documents and through that uh we do that evaluation to determine the best value contractor. So that isn't always the low bid but the best value and that value is determined not only by price but also by relative experience past performance with that contractor and their project management team as well as the subcontractors and suppliers that will be needed for that particular project. So in this particular case, uh, Albbright, although they were low bid, um, their packet was lacking quite a bit of
089information to allow us to evaluate them and give them points for certain categories. And so although their packet did share some information, um, based on the distribution of points, uh, they were not successful in being the best value contractor based on the total outcome out of a a scale of a 100. Okay. because I noticed you the A B CDE E the only lowest one was the A which is half of the points for experience relevant. Have they done work before? So they have done work they haven't done work with North Side. They're a new contractor uh that has started bidding our work. They're actually they actually bid our work back in 23. Um, and we actually had a debrief with these individuals back in May of 23 to have a discussion about previous packets
090that they've submitted in order to set them up for the best opportunity to be successful in the future. Um, so in that particular category that you're referencing, relevant experience, it's broken up into three categories. The first being uh experience as a contractor, just years in business, which is based off of their contractor qualification statement, which is part of their bid. Um, so they maximize points there. um they did lose about half points in representative projects and that's where we're looking at projects that are similar in nature, the contract amounts and the scope. And so based off that, our evaluation committee reviews all the projects that they've submitted in that particular packet and determined that there were only five projects that were um comparable uh and all their projects were commercial projects. None of them were
091K through 12 or education related. Um the other thing on the relevant experience was section A3 which is our project support and there we're looking for documented sufficient resources for that contractor to to successfully complete that project by the listed timelines. So there they'll put information about their company, where they're established, what tools they have available at their disposal to get that project complete, as well as their scheduling approach to ensure that they complete the project by the listed deadlines. And so in that this particular packet, I can't speak for others, this particular packet, they lacked any information that they submitted on that and it wasn't included. So therefore, we couldn't evaluate it. Um and uh that therefore they got zeros and so that's where they lost the other five points in that category. Okay.
092I just it was a $54,000 difference. I just wanted to make sure that we Sure. Sure. We we completely understand and any opportunity and like we share in building committee any opportunity that we have to have value engineering with these contractors once the board takes action and consent we try and do that to try and see if there's a possibility to close that gap between the low bid and the next or the best value contractor. Sometimes the contractor that is recommended could be the third or fourth bid to be honest with you. Uh, and it just depends on the history that that individual has submitting bids in the past because we're very scripted on what we're asking for and it's all laid out for them in the front-end specs. And then we also share that
093information in a voluntary pre-proposal conference that's made available to anybody to attend to further uh share where there are pitfalls and people submitting their packet. And so I want to stress again with these individuals, we have actually met and sat down with them and gone through one of their packets back in May. And it I'm not sure if that message didn't get to the folks that are putting that package together, but they were still lacking quite a bit of information to be able to evaluate them thoroughly. Okay. I just wanted some clarification. I missed the board meeting. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Jacob. You're welcome. Any other questions? If not, is there a motion to accept the consent agenda? Yes, ma'am. I do have a I do have a question um on number O regarding
094election services. Um I guess I I don't know that I've um seen this before, but it perhaps it it has been on um it says art under article 6 6.01 our deposit um for this upcoming election is $92,865 and some odds. it. There's a piece in there that says though that if um the cost of the election actually exceeds this then um we are responsible for any difference is has that always been in the contract? Do we know? Yes, ma'am. Um yes, that is standard in elections contracts. Basically, we are paying our percentage of the overall portion of the of the um election shared with the city of San Antonio, other school districts, um other entities. And so, that is standard language. I guess I I might ask is what could come up that might
095change that um dollar amount if you have to do a recount is one of the things that can happen. Okay. Um trying to think of other things, but that's the one that comes to mind. All right. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Is there a motion to accept the consent agenda? Madam President, I move that we accept um the agenda as read. Is there a second? Second. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we accept the consent agenda as read. All those in favor say I. I. I. All oppose by the same sign. Thank you. The agenda passes. facilities and operation. Yes, ma'am. Uh we also had the opportunity in a previous building committee to uh present uh to that committee the John Marshall High School renovations and upgrades. Uh this is a a really
096pretty complicated project, but we're pretty excited uh to be able to share the progress and then uh hopefully your consideration of uh the schematic design that's going to vastly improve the administrative complex and uh many of the classroom uh as well as uh additional parking that we've been able to um work in in conjunction with this project. So, Jacob, I'll let you take it away and then we'll jump right into Marshall High School renovations and additions. Thank you, Dr. Craft. Thank you, board. Um, so what we're bringing before you today is part of our 22 bond program. Uh, this was administrative and classroom replacements at John Marshall High School. Um, so what you'll be viewing today as I hand it over to Fluger Architects is the schematic design that was developed by the architect to
097be consistent with our master plan that was previously approved by this board. Um with this this is the the the next step in this project. Upon approval of the schematic design, we will then move towards trying to uh get the construction documents going so then we can generate a GMP and different amendments and bring them to you. We are anticipating at least two packages as part of this particular project. And I don't want to steal Raul's thunder, but um with those packages will vary from m making the building ready for demolition to actually building the new building. So this will kind of complete the front uh as you'll see here shortly. And I will share with you that this this uh schematic design was developed uh in conjunction with the department heads that are impacted
098as well as the campus administration both LMS as well as uh Marshall proper. And so with that uh Fluger Architects is our architect of record on this particular project. Mr. Raul Giannis is our um architect that will be presenting the schematic design to you. And so with that, uh I know we had discussions about Los Leonus. It was previously at Marshall. We may, and I just sent Miss uh Miss Lopez an email, we may have to relocate that temporarily because if this project kicks off, it it won't be necessarily already. So, um, so with that, I'll turn it over to Raul Giannis, and then we're here to answer any questions after the presentation. Thank you. Uh, good evening, uh, members of the board. Dr. Craft, uh, senior staff, uh, thank you for the opportunity to
099present to you all this evening. Um, just like, um, Jacob mentioned, we'll just kind of run through the, uh, quick summary of the project scope. Um, as discussed, um, so the project will consist of the demolition of a couple of buildings. Uh these are actually original buildings. So they've certainly have served their uh their life. Uh built in the uh late 40s early 50s. So buildings A which uh currently houses the administrative suite uh along with uh classroom building C which houses uh some general classrooms. Uh obviously with that we'll be coming back and constructing a new uh administrative suite um and some art classrooms as well uh to obviously displace um what was uh demoed out. Um, and like Jacob mentioned, we're also going to have the opportunity to uh uh uh construct a
100new parking lot uh addition and also provide some uh intersection uh intersection improvements as part of um uh existing Eert Road. Um that'll kind of help clean up that sort of front uh entry from a traffic standpoint. Uh and then we're we're also going to be looking at um sort of upgrading uh the perimeter sight fencing obviously to make sure that this campus is fully secured uh from a sort of perimeter uh sight fencing perspective. Uh and again like Jacob mentioned uh we want to make sure that we're consistent with the board approved uh master plan. Uh so here looking at an overall sort of site uh plan of the existing Marshall High School campus. uh looking at the uh campus site security. Like I mentioned, we're going to be evaluating uh and providing um
101uh perimeter sight fencing around the campus just to make sure that that's properly secured. Uh just make sure that we're we're uh keeping in tune with the district standards in in terms of uh fencing security. The area, did I do something? um the area uh of the parking lot uh that sort of green field uh that's right adjacent to the existing student parking uh right off Eert Road is the area that we're going to be looking at. So in a in a couple of slides we'll be looking at uh what that kind of looks like. Uh so one of the first things that we did was look at the existing uh program just do a little bit of an accounting of the spaces that are existing. So everything that you see here uh is the
102administration suite obviously undersized. they have all the spaces but they are undersized. Um the areas or the line items that are highlighted in in that sort of light green color um were previously constructed as part of the LMS project, the law and medical services building uh several years ago. Uh so we've got the benefit of keeping those building as part of um our original design. And I'll just kind of preface uh when we kind of go through the the floor plans is that the LMS building was actually uh designed uh with this new addition sort of in mind. So you'll kind of see some synergies uh with um our new building addition. Uh the other components item B there is just the existing classrooms. There are some um art classrooms uh some international language classrooms
103as well uh that are uh scheduled to be demolished in terms of that building and also some support spaces, plant manager uh custodial electrical uh spaces of that nature. That'll you'll see those in the new layout as well. Uh so overall we're looking at demoing out those two buildings roughly about right under 27,000 square feet. Uh so this is kind of what the demolition kind of looks like. So that main entry uh that sort of rotunda tower piece as you walk into Marshall High School. So immediately to your uh left kind of highlighted there uh building A and C is what we're uh currently proposing uh to demolish. Um uh just a quick note if we are kind of tight on real estate. So I wanted to kind of make sure everybody was kind of
104aware. Obviously we're kind of we're in between the magnet school. We're in between the library, the per performing arts uh and that courtyard that is heavily used by the campus. So we want to make sure that we um don't intrude into some of these spaces and make sure that the we maintain sort of the flow uh from the existing uh buildings. Uh so in terms of the floor plan of the existing building uh again building A houses the administrative suite uh it's a little bit of a split admin uh where we have the reception area uh general offices principal the AP suite all is housed on that sort of plan south uh right uh below the building a uh name and then right above that is the counselor suite. Uh so we've got something similar
105to that obviously with the upgraded or updated uh square footages. Um one thing I did want to note here, the area that's sort of highlighted um in red um because we do not want to encroach into that existing courtyard uh we are having to uh sort of remove a portion of that existing library to be able to build um our twotory uh building. Uh obviously we can't build on the existing first floor. So we need to kind of go from the ground up. So that's the area that uh we are going to be kind of displacing for at least one school year. Uh but all of those spaces will be uh making uh a return as part of a new layout. Uh and again, building C just houses um the uh international language classrooms uh
106that will be uh removed as part of this project. Um so the new program of spaces uh you'll see a lot of similarities between the existing um and the new obviously with updated uh square footages. So that square footage obviously does u increase uh and again those highlighted line items are all of the spaces that were constructed as part of the original uh LMS building. So we'll be able to utilize those as part of uh this project. We're also uh the art classrooms uh some of their support spaces as well as the plant manager, custodial um other support spaces um on the mechanical side. Uh you'll see those as part of the new layout as well. Uh so now we're looking at about 22,000 square feet uh just for these spaces um alone. Uh so
107in terms of the floor plan, so again this is a two-story volume. to the first floor uh right off that uh secured lobby main entry uh piece, the first administrative block. Um again, houses the uh attendance, the SRO, uh principal, the clinic, uh the AP uh suite as well. So, all of those are kind of combined together very similar to what uh they currently have obviously with uh the upgraded square footage. Uh and then on the other side of the sort of new um uh entry piece into the library uh we have the counselor suite uh as well uh with the career center and some sort of general offices as part of that program. Uh and then sort of highlighted in yellow are just some of the reconfiguration of spaces uh that we need to
108kind of do um of some of the existing spaces for the library. Those will kind of get reshuffled a little bit. um those two library uh pieces between or spaces between the uh library um and the auditorium that's a little bit of a dead uh deadend corridor almost u that I know that the campus kind of had expressed to us. Uh they have a very difficult time sort of managing that space just because it's just kind of a dead end corridor. Um so by providing this addition in those two classrooms in that area uh were able to eliminate that and making that a little bit easier for them to manage. Um, and like I mentioned, um, the off the, uh, main lobby space of the LMS building as you enter, uh, we're really kind of
109continuing that circulation, uh, really with the long hallway, uh, that'll connect and flow through the new building, uh, and also provide access into the, um, existing fine arts auditorium building as well. So, really just trying to, uh, connect sort of these two, uh, three pieces as well. On the second floor, uh we do have the art labs, um the teachers lounge. We also have some support spaces, uh restrooms, both student and staff, along with the plant manager. Uh so this kind of kind of works very well in terms of sort of consolidating these spaces on that second floor. Um, if you notice that area that says open to below, we'll see some interior renderings here in a minute. But, uh, because we are pretty narrow and again, we didn't want to encroach into that courtyard.
110Uh, we're trying to get a little creative in terms of not making this space really claustrophobic. Uh, so we're really kind of, um, in the circulation spaces really trying to create some openness and a little bit of a higher volume just to open up that space a little bit. It doesn't feel as claustrophobic. uh in terms of the sort of overall sort of site plan once the project is completed. Um obviously we're going to be looking at that new administration uh classroom addition sort of denoted in that number one. Uh I will say that the new footprint is smaller than the existing just because we are going with the twotory volume in lie of the one story. So we will be able to give back a little bit of um square footage I guess I'll
111say um to the courtyard. So, I know that's heavily used, uh, beloved from what I understand. So, we wanted to make sure we keep that intact and actually give them a little bit more sort of breathing room in there. Um, and then also, uh, we're going to be restoring some of the canopies. Um, the contractor will be able to, they will need to kind of access, uh, that courtyard to be able to build this building because it is pretty tight. Uh, but rest assured that that will, uh, be restored, um, once the project is completed. Uh and and as mentioned um in sort of item number three is those uh new parking lot improvements up at the front. Uh so now we're looking at adding approximately about 190 um uh very needed uh parking spaces
112to this campus. Um as well as uh upgrading the uh intersection and and uh traffic lights. I sort of denote it there. Number four, kind of extending John Marshall uh Drive as well as Bluebird as well and just really kind of cleaning up that front uh area just to make sure it's a little bit safer for uh for the public and obviously for anybody attending uh this campus. Uh so a couple of images. Um the top um sort of building elevation is the existing um the LMS building on the right hand side that sort of ratunda high space uh denoted as the main entry uh the library kind of at the forefront of the uh of the campus and the fine arts building on the lefth hand side. So as you can see u the
113existing admin area is at onetory volume. Uh our proposal is to go back in with twotory volume. uh this campus does have a very wellestablished architectural sort of language. So we wanted to make sure that we sort of maintain that and just kind of extended um that uh that same language just to make sure our intent always is to make sure that it all looks like it was built at the same time. And a lot of times that's not very easy to do but uh I think with this addition and that well established language it'll um makes it a little bit easier for us to be able to do that. uh a couple of uh sort of perspective views off the uh uh front entry of this uh campus. Again, the main entry on the
114right hand side, the library at the sort of foreground uh and the proposed addition kind of right behind that. And a quick view from the courtyard. Um, so one of the advantages of sort of having this building face a courtyard that will be secured uh will uh we do have are proposing some slightly larger uh windows that uh kind of does a couple of things for us. One, it obviously brings in some natural light into the building. Uh but also kind of provides some sort of uh additional sort of visibility in terms of security uh back out to that courtyard as well. Uh and then we'll also have an opportunity to uh provide some branding uh on this campus out to that uh out to the courtyard. Uh kind of denote it here with that
115M and we'll we'll be bringing back some options for y'all of kind of what that looks like. But really kind of looking that as a great opportunity for us to provide some additional branding uh on this campus. Uh a couple of interior uh renderings. Uh this is uh sort of standing on the second floor of the LMS building. Kind of looking towards uh the back end of the new addition courtyard on your right hand side. Those are a little bit of those larger windows that kind of uh allow that visibility into the courtyard. Some natural light. Uh the lang of the art classrooms on the lefth hand side. Again, creating a little bit of a higher volume there just to kind of open up the space uh make it a little bit more inviting. Uh
116this is a view from the uh base of the stair uh case at the open um stairs kind of looking into the entry of the uh library uh with the uh AP reception area on the left and the counselor reception on the right hand side. So again just really trying to open up the space as much as we can. Uh this is a view at the top of the stair now at the other end of the new addition kind of looking back towards the LMS building courtyard on your left. uh your art classrooms on your uh on your right hand side. And with that, I will open it up to any questions or comments. I just wanted to comment um in looking at what the existing program of spaces was and what the proposed program
117of spaces is. It looks like there'd be an additional teachers uh workroom area added, uh career center, book storage and the NAP secretary area. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. So, that'll be part of the expansion. That's correct. Be great. Yes, ma'am. Well, um, of course, this is this is my my high school, so um it's with a lump in the throat that I um I love I love how um you're working with us to preserve the you called it language. Yes. But I call it the heart. Yes. of of John Marshall. Um that courtyard. Um just walking around it the other day, we must have six different types of oak trees there. I mean it's it's magnificent. And I know when we took when we did our reunion tour, everyone felt that. Um and that
118everything flows. You you really like you said, you cannot Well, you can tell by the age of the brick and everything, but but it looks contiguous. It really looks like it was built at one time, just a little more worn in the back. E- building maybe, but um and I love um the natural light. Um really our kids need to be outside more and less shut in um with artificial light. So, the natural light, the the branding, I love the M, but I can see a great big ram horn there. Um, and I know it's too late to change the colors from marine to burnt orange, but um, it it is never too late. It's never too late. Yeah. No, no, that goes with the the heritage of Marshall. And, you know, for a lot
119of folks, you don't know that that that's our first high school, right? It was Northside High School and then became John Marshall and started the the, you know, lineage of naming it after Supreme Court justices. So, um, thank you very very much. It's I tried to nitpick. I couldn't find one thing and and uh Carla has some great questions. So, um yeah, it's it's gonna be wonderful for kids. Um the other thing too is nothing will be compromised with student safety. There's still I know you've worked that out with the principal, but um yes, uh during construction, yeah, we we've got a pretty uh clear and concise delineation plan um from um the construction side obviously to this being an operational campus. So, we've had a lot of discussions and meetings up to this point
120and we'll continue to have those right just to ensure the safety of the students. Okay. Thank you very much. Absolutely. I got a question. You see the admin/classroom replacement on the new proposed I only see three classrooms. Is that that is correct. And so at this point in time in in coordinating with resource planning, uh they identified that the class we have plenty of classroom existing classrooms throughout the rest of the campus. And so because we are removing art classrooms, those are critical to instruction. And so we're putting those back in to meet our current standards. Yeah. And those were obviously coordinated with Miss Lopez and her team. Program was basically we have uh seven international language classrooms, a special education, computer lab. We're losing all those. Yeah. So, what those are going to do
121is they're going to go back into those extra uh the the existing campus and we're actually going to build those out to accommodate those labs. So, based off the feedback that we got from resource planning, we're going to repurpose some existing general ed classrooms to make those language labs. Dr. Gaba, yes, you may have mentioned this before, but uh what's the timeline on the uh start to completion dates? So, we're looking at uh essentially getting shovels in the ground this summer. Uh so, June 2nd, I think, is going to be the first opportunity for them to get sort of on board. Um I I think the what we've discussed in terms of completion, uh we do have a CM with in in Joris on this project that's helping us with that timeline. Uh but we're
122kind of looking at the end of next summer is what we're kind of currently currently looking at in terms of schedule. Okay. Thank you. Absolutely, Miss Freeman. Thank you, Miss Sana. We talked about this in um building committee, but I I just wanted to be sure because we did um talk with um Elizabeth Sanchez Lopez about the art rooms being on the second floor. Is that right? Believe so. Yes, that is correct. We did. Okay. Just to um just to confirm that. And then that whole area, this is an arts area. I know that this is just we're not talking about the interior um part of this now, but it might be really challenge. Well, I know that you will bring us back something that will look like it was really creative and look like
123an artsy type um area in the front. So, I would hope that that would come through because it's right. It's stark white right now, but I know you Okay, we haven't picked colors. I know. I know. I know. I just wanted to We're going for a museum look. I'm just That was intentional. We'll be coming back with um interior finishes and colors. Okay. Well, we look forward to that. Thank you. Absolutely. Anyone else? Thank you all very much. Thank you all. business and finance. Miss Bradley, Dr. Crab. Yeah, I'm gonna Sorry. Yeah, if we if we can come back to that agenda item. Yeah, I think we need an approval. We're asking for that one consideration. Sorry. Sorry about that. Uh, okay. We've looked at this at building committee. We discussed it. We spent a
124lot of time on it and so I think we're now ready to uh accept a motion to proceed with a schematic design. So is there Miss Freeman moves that we accept it. Is there a second? Uh Mr. Salceto seconds. Uh any other discussion? All in favor for the schematic design to move forward signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Same sign. The motion passes and we are ready to move on. Thank you. Thank you. ready. Okay. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Uh we're ready to move on to uh 9A. Uh we wanted to follow up. I know that we had the opportunity uh at the called finance meeting and again thank you for your uh engagement and participation but we wanted to go ahead and follow up and provide a little bit uh greater context
125uh with I know a lot of information uh that are um really the the big components of this upcoming year fiscal year 26 uh budget planning. And so we're going to continue to work pretty hard. Um, I wanted to provide again just a little bit of legislative context even though there hasn't been since our last meeting a lot of movement. I do anticipate uh House Bill 2 to eventually come out of House Public Education Committee which it was uh left standing. Um I don't foresee still a significant uh Senate school finance uh bill and again uh the filing deadline has passed and so uh really as a result uh when you look at the uh components of House Bill 2, particularly the increase to the basic aotment of $220, we've got some work to do.
126I I think that it's definitely safe to say um that we are not going to be provided the adequate resources to close um what you will see with the next item upwards of a hundred um possibly a little over a hundred million dollar deficit budget. Um and so um that is what really is triggering our need to start making uh some corrections. Um, now I wish I could tell you and and had this crystal ball that our state legislators are going to uh ease our budgetary woes, but I just I just don't foresee that in uh the cards at this point. Um so again this recap um and also kind of a deeper dive into particularly uh how we go about supporting our students um academia as well as all of the opportunities and uh
127extracurricular co-curricular programming. uh keep in mind that that our operating budget uh typically uh consists of about 89% operating expenditures. And so when we talk about the business, if you will, of public education, it's a people business. And that being said, I want to again reiterate uh that our objective is yes to be able to protect the integrity of all of our programming. Um but also to protect uh jobs and uh that is and will be and will continue to be our mission in the sense of we are going to ensure that everyone has a job. Again, it may look a little bit different and may be a different capacity next year. Um, but I think that this presentation that we're going to jump into, uh, will help, like I say, provide, uh, that context.
128Uh, this is going to take, like I say, some strategic maneuvering. Um, and while we talk big numbers, please know that behind the scenes, we're having to look by program by program, um, campus by campus, which the campuses have, uh, received, uh, their allocations as of last week based on our most recent finance committee meeting. Um, there's there's a lot of moving parts. Um, and so like I say, while we're talking a 50,000 ft view, please know that there's a lot of detail uh that uh has to be worked through as a as an organization. So let's uh jump into if we can go to the next slide. This is just a reminder um and I know that that question uh arises well you know we've been able to um in essence operate on a
129proposed uh and budget or excuse me board approved deficit budget what has been the significant change what I can point to uh to in 2324 is one that 38 um and I'm sorry my eyes $ 38.6 million that is a realized deficit. Um that is a that is a real uh deficit budget. And so with that being said, what I can also say is is that we used continuity of instruction to shore that up. uh as you're well aware um and we anticipate again in 2425 to again use the continuity of obstruction which was very wisely a designated fund balance uh to be able to make the corrections particularly as our esser funds expired as they have uh this past September. how the how is really we've we really have tightened up our budgeting process.
130And so again, circling back to that 89% personnel related expenditures, if you remember our former deputy superintendent over um uh business finance, um articulated we were we tightened the circle. Well, what that you can you can relate that to is is that we started budgeting a vacancy factor at about a 90% fill rate. And so even though we may have allocations on the books, we were only budgeting to pay for the personnel related expenditures at about a 90% rate because that's those were the struggles and to some degree still are the struggles that we're having in filling those those positions. So if you kind of think about um typically uh or budgeting at 100% you would have seen a much larger surplus at the end of the year which arguably can be funds that could
131be used to increase teacher compensation to increase programmatic offerings support etc. So, so it's tricky to try to hit the budget right at say a 99.9% um uh variance, particularly when we're talking about really a $1.1 billion operating budget. So, it it became tighter um and so that deficit that was proposed um which was higher than the 38 uh.6 million was actually realized. And I can say that looking at our vacancy versus fill rates um this year we will again we will realize another deficit budget. Now, I don't know that it will be to the degree of the hund00 million uh that, like I say, we'll discuss here momentarily, but it will absolutely be a realized deficit budget. to jump down again that continuity of instruction. Uh we've been utilizing um to really um elongate
132um the positions particularly funded through ESSER some of the programs uh uh that we purchased or or have used ESSER funds to to fund but that also is going to in essence expire. And so again, that designated continuity of instruction fund fund balance is outside of our three months operating expenditures. So we go to the next slide. The the next piece of the conversation again at that time uh we were estimating that we were at about a $39.6 million savings uh with these adjustments. So again, really honing in and looking at how do we reduce central office related expenditures um uh programs positions initially added with er funds uh we're h having to scale back and again this is not to mean that we're we're uh implementing a reduction in force but we are looking
133at reprogramming i.e. uh jobs being maintained uh but taking on a different look. Uh we are going to be reducing the overtime compensatory time um as well as putting a pause on uh contracted surveys uh services. The staffing ratios um is really what I want to uh concentrate again provide pro providing a little bit more context as to how we need to start adjusting our glide path. Um and so if we can go to the next slide. Um um these graphs uh really I think articulate why we're looking at staffing and staffing ratios uh really as as more of a a budgeting lever um more so than this is exactly what you can expect to see across departments and within classrooms uh next year. And I'll explain a little bit more uh here momentarily, but
134the blue line obviously represents um and I know this is hard to see in the screen before us, but the blue line obviously represents our current staffing uh in in 2324. Um uh it's about stable for 2425. Um but this is taper data that we have realized. I mean this this is real data. So, I want to make sure that not to confuse that these are not allocations. These are actual field positions. Um, these are actual employees that that were working for North Side ISD. And you can see our student population. We're at an inverse relationship. This is not a sustainable glide path. Now again and I made it very clear in our cabinet meeting and leadership meeting this is not fingerpointing. If you can look to see um in 2020 21 2022 um and
135then 20 uh 2120 excuse me 2020 2021 we're on a very very uh associated glide path 2122 and then we start to to change well that again we know what happened during that time period we were provided er funds and so we were able to provide some additional support services to try to get students back on track. Now, we've got to start making those those corrections. Uh particularly as we know that, like I say, the legislature is not going to provide uh significant additional funding. All right, if we can go to the next slide. Um I know that the question uh has been asked, okay, well, classrooms. um how is it why is it that we're looking to adjust uh the staffing ratios particularly um in our core business and the classrooms and it's a
136very valid question um and I think that the answer to that question is again is is if you look at how we're decreasing our student enrollment we've continued to increase our classroom teachers and so again not to sound like a broken record but that is just not a sustainable path and I wish it were but we we just can't. In fact, um it is very safe to say at this point uh in our conversations with resource planning that we are going to realize um a projected enrollment next year of less than 100,000 students. Um there are a lot of variables that are hard to project i.e. what does an education savings account i.e. voucher look like? But um I would tell you that just as we current our current enrollment is just under 100,000 students,
137we will be less than 100,000 students. And so we've got to start again making this correction in FTEEs, which is why those adjustments even though going to like I say a 25 to1 preK through 4th, 26:1 fifth grade, uh moving from a 25.25 25 ratio to a 26.5 ratio at middle school high school 26.5 to 28. If you look at averages across campuses which again we can provide that information provide that data were not close. um the current ratios that we uh use to staff. There are a few classes that that have realized those actual ratios. But as you have seen going in and reading to classes, we don't have classes that in most cases are 22 plus students particularly in the elementary classes that that you're uh that you're visiting. Um, so when I
138say that this is a budgeting lever, a a budgeting mechanism in order for us to be able to provide allocations to the campuses to begin the staffing conversations and really the movement of personnel in preparation for next year. We've got to have that in the formula uh to be able to budget and account for really like I say 89% of our operating uh budget. Okay, we go to the next slide. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry, Miss Sonia. Go ahead, Miss Freeman. Um so do we what's not shown here is the specific um job categories of the staffs and so do do we know with the with that projective incre project well the increase that we did have it's not projected the increase in staffing were those certain types of positions that were increased? Yeah, that's a
139that's a great question, Miss Freeman. Um, uh, yes. So, again, let me let me back up. These are certified teachers. But to kind of provide some again a little bit greater context, um as of now we currently have 793 collaborative teachers pushing into classrooms to support our 17,600 special education students. So these are special education certified individuals that are uh staffed uh at the elementary level on a 15 to1 ratio, the secondary 17 to1 ratio um that are working in conjunction with another teacher in the classroom. So we may have say a high school I'll just pick on biology because I was a biology teacher. Uh Dr. Dara, um, Kinder Spirit, you know, we may have 28 students in the classroom where we have two teachers. Um, so we have general ed teacher providing instruction
140along with a collaborative certified special education teacher providing that support. Um, and that number is continually increasing. So the answer to your question is yes. uh we and we can provide specified data uh kind of explaining by level uh even by discipline by support um but these are classroom teachers that is is we're demonstrating this graphic. So with that though we know that our special ed population is increased. So do these does the increase support the increase in the special ed? And that's the that's the work that we're we're at right now is is is that in proportion is that in proportion with the students whose IEPs call for a collaborative environment um and is that tracking with how we're staffing. That's the work ahead and and we've got some work ahead of us. Okay.
141Um, at the same time, what I will say is is that what we're trying to do is put together a staffing model budget um that is within our means. Um, because if we don't, we will continue to realize a deficit budget and and like I say, we just can't stay um we can't sustain the glide path that that we're on. Okay, we can go to the next slide. I'm sorry. Real quick question. So, um, campuses got their projections. Yes. Um, and I assume, um, let's say, um, Marshall is is projected they need to to lose 18 teachers, let's just say, how would that occur? Through attrition or would they be transferred to another school? I mean, no one's going to be out of their job. Yeah, it's it's going to be a combination. Okay. Um
142I I don't know that there's anything that extreme and Rey I know that you're already having conversations with uh the principles but in working through their master schedule we have to look at certifications uh obviously uh yes through attrition keeping in mind that we will hire approximately 900 new teachers uh between now going into next school year and so there will be a lot of movement I mean it's it's going to be a combination movement but not out of the district no um So the other question I had is um it's 1 to 22 up until fourth grade. Would we um take that school by school and go waver just as we are with waivers? So that would still stay the same. And and again I think that it's it where we lose economy of
143scale is when we say have only two or three third grade sections. that becomes really difficult in that equation depending on how many say third graders uh we have well do we have two sections or do we have three sections um and and those are the scenarios that we're going to have to really pay closely attention to going forward whereas when you have a little bit larger say seven sections that math works out to be not only much more evenly dispersed but much closer to an actual staffing ratio. Um, good good question. Anyone else? Actually, someone asked me, um, so if they're displaced, they we're going to do our our best to place them somewhere else, some positions that are being eliminated. Is that correct? Yeah, absolutely. And like I say, um, and I I'll
144get to a couple more slides here momentarily and explain and try to articulate a little bit more clearly, but again, we are in the we are going to protect jobs. Um, it's just with ESSER funds now expired with our continuity of instruction designated fund balance also u expiring, if you will, uh, being expended. Um, we've got to start making adjustments. Um, and I think that through attrition based on the number of new teachers uh that we bring to North Side each uh year that we'll be able to do so effectively and it's going to be a lot of work um between now and the start of the school year, but we'll be able to get there. Question Karen has a question. Miss Freeman, thank you. Okay. So, I I had asked about teachers. Um, regarding
145campus administration. Um, we certainly haven't seen this in a while, but I do know that like for instance, our high schools u may have a different ratio with administration perhaps in some of our elementary schools. We've got an we've got one elementary school that might that might come close to the number of students that we have at our high schools. Are we going to start looking at the ratio of campus administration with the idea that sometimes sometimes in the smaller schools you do need additional administration depending on the staffing of the rest of the population? Yeah, absolutely. And again, as I mentioned, I think at the uh finance called meeting, there are going to be there will be some exceptions. Um, like I say, if we have a um comprehensive improvement uh campus um that
146needs additional support, I mean, that's where we're going to, like I say, use the scalpel and and be really precise in what is it the that campus and really the student learners need uh precisely um um which are going to be individualized conversations. I mean, it may not be just a simple ratio thing depending on the depending on the composition of the campus. That's exactly right. And the needs and and the number of even support um personnel that they have or specialists. Exactly. And that's why again the the ratios that were presented last week again those are those are really budgeting mechanisms. I I don't I don't and Megan you might want to jump in and but that that provides the framework for us to be able to begin like I say the allocation process
147communication process with campuses um but then also really what is what are the parameters of the budget that is like I say comprised of 89% of a billion dollars so $890 million um and like I say in the in the as you well know um while our teachers and our teacher workforce is our core business um it's a little over half of what goes into supporting our learners across the district. Um so we have to look at all the positions which I I'll uh quickly look at professional support staff and this is where this slide you'll see um contextually again what are these types of positions um and again uh student population not that that is not changing but what has to start changing is is we have to get off this increased um yeartoyear
148year um support staff because we really need to be in line and the best way I know how to articulate this is is if you look at the 101,000 students and you go back to okay well where were we at 101,000 students you almost have to go back to 2012 13 2013 2014 and then look at well what was the professional support staff at that time because because that's where we will be based on our projections next year. Um and and granted while yes we have uh garnered some additional revenue keeping in mind that that's relative to also not since 2019 have we increased the base a lotment but there has been some additional revenue but we've also garnered increased salaries over the course of that time. So we've got to be careful about trying
149to make those apples to apples comparisons, but it's relative. But the at the at risk population though has changed. That's true. And that is one uh aspect that our legislators really need to understand because we're trying to apply a very similar uh premise at the legislative at the state level with the legislative process. And what's not really truly being recognized is how our student demographics have changed and are continuing to change. I.e. with an increase in student uh receiving special education services, with an increase in bilingual uh students, uh LEP students. Um and and so again, these are these are efforts that we're pushing. Um but we're not seeing a lot of movement legislatively that makes me feel really confident that these programs are going to be fully funded. I mean, as you well know,
150for the last two years, it's been very clearly articulated, reported that the state is underfunding special education by over $2 billion. In fact, I can tell you this that based on our uh idea uh special education entitlement, uh we are using $79 million to supplement theund I believe it's 103 uh Megan million uhund$ 107 million. So, we're supplementing the $17 million that we receive as a result of IDA entitlement uh by $79 million. So, that gives you kind of perspective again as just how underfunded the program uh really is. And we're not unique in North Side in relationship to other districts across the state. So, again, um we've got to start working on making some corrections. I know that the campus administration is always you know questionable how are we increasing uh the campus administration.
151Well, you can actually see that we were coming down uh in 2020 2021. Um the increase from 22 23 to 23 24 keep in mind we've opened uh magnets and we'll be opening another magnet uh uh going forward next year uh with uh media and digital graphics. I I think that you know that question becomes well do we continue to offer the all of the programs of choice that we're very fortunate to be able to offer and I will argue yes we need to try to protect those programs those are programs that are being sought after and particularly um in the future if we truly uh pursue open enrollment those are going to be programs that I believe are only going to help help our efforts uh in the in the in the future I
152I do have Miss Sonia. I'm sorry, Miss Freeman. Um just a request to I know we haven't talked about um we haven't talked about any adjustments to programs, but I know in the past um we had a program that was um moved or discontinued at one time and the board did not know that. Um so if we're going to have any change in programming, you will inform the board. Yeah, absolutely. And that's again This is why this information I believe is so important uh to be discussed um because it does kind of lay the groundwork and provides at least again that larger perspective uh context as to okay as decisions further decisions and and subsequent information is being brought forward this is why I I do think that um if we're really diligent about how
153we go about staffing going into next year. Um, and then dependent upon what happens this legislative session, we can make these adjustments. Now, that's not to say that it's going to be the most comfortable um, uh, period that we've ever experienced, but we can make these adjustments, and I think that we can make these adjustments and continue to offer the fidelity of programming and choice um, that we've been accustomed to. We've just got to get more efficient. It's just it's really just that simple even though it's not. Ask a real quick question. Dr. Harl, um I I don't know if this was answered or we talked about it in committee or um at the last meeting, but this would also include um board involvement or just communication uh with programs that were esser funded like
154the seeds program and some of those um positions that are now so much a part of our campuses and wraparound services for families. Yes, ma'am. We have actually already turned in for the Friday notes the list of those items that are in that item. Thank you very much. Appreciate and we'll have another like I say finance committee between now and the next uh board meeting if we're able to. Um, and like I say, we we can definitely discuss that uh along with many of the other program entitlements that um like I say will be a deeper dive into um really the the federal finances. Um educational aids. Um it's the next slide. Oh, I'm sorry. Let me back up. Uh central administration, we've actually reduced uh central administration. Um, and again, we we've put a
155hold on any additional hires or not additional hires, filling uh vacancies. We're reviewing those vacancies and we'll fill uh critical need areas, but you you won't see um an increase in central administration going forward, particularly, like I say, uh until we work through um some of the really heavy lifting uh with the overall staffing picture. As far as the educational aids, um again, um this has been dictated and driven really in in large part by uh definitely needs. Um and again, these are filled positions. Um we've got to start making some adjustments. Um, now that's not to say that we're going to uh cut services, reduce services, but we've got to start looking at how do we gain uh efficiencies. Um, because like I say, our student population doesn't reflect uh where we are from
156a staffing standpoint. And again, the best way I can describe this is is if you just start looking back to when were we at in and around 100,000 students. Not to say that's the benchmark, but it does provide a point of relativity um that that's that's what we need to start looking to get back towards in line uh with. And then I think we've got uh our last slide. Uh we all know that our auxiliary staff are so important uh to how we are able to function, operate, support everything associated with uh program across uh North Side. We're actually in in pretty good shape. and and this graphic I wanted to go ahead and just highlight that um 2022 23 to 23 24 is a little bit misleading in the sense that we've actually experienced
157greater fill rates of vacant positions this this past these past two years than we have in quite some time. In fact, uh whether it be transportation, school nutrition, custodial services, I mean, we're we're actually doing much better in filling uh vacancies. And so, I don't want to say that we're on the wrong path trend. I want to be real careful in the sense that we're doing pretty well. We're doing much better. Um we need to work to retain uh uh this this workforce. the part of the workforce, but we're not overstaffed. Uh, and so I just want to be real careful in uh how how this is being conveyed. Um, so all all that being said, um, we're going to continue to work. Um, I know that uh one of the questions uh that um
158we've got to answer is, you know, the the timing. Uh, what is the the timing? Well, over the course of the next three, four weeks, um, we're going to be taking a really deep, uh, hard look at a granular from a granular perspective of how can we look to be more efficient? Uh, how can we look to be more efficient with district level support services? Um, that, you know, in many cases, we may have certified instructors that, um, can actually help us with filling vacancies that we currently have. that we know that we will have in classrooms uh going into next school year. And again, um we're going to maintain, we're going to protect jobs. Um but we've got to start correcting the glide path um knowing that, like I say, our student population is
159going to be either stagnant um or slightly lower than uh we are this year. That being said, I I'll pause and and try to answer any questions, but we wanted to, like I say, I wanted to follow up because I know there were a lot of questions as to, you know, the staffing ratios. It's a little bit deeper than staffing ratios. The the staffing ratios, like I say, are formuladriven and really primarily a a function or a budgetary function uh to be able to begin really the deeper dive in conversations. Miss Freeman, thank you. Um, any reason why we didn't include 2425 on here? It's current data. So, this is PE's data we Yeah, we we wanted to use and the other piece is is that we look at staffing on a weekly basis in
160cabinet and there are significant fluctuations. So, trying to pinpoint and I'll just provide a quick example. um teaching vacancies. We may have 120 one week and we may have 140 two weeks later and we may be back down to 100 3 weeks later. So it's it's just it's it's um when you have 7,000 teachers, it's constantly moving. And so this is static data because it's pings reported data. And so we just felt like that this would provide a really clear um image uh to be able to assess. Dr. Gavvada, at the last uh cold meeting, I believe the next day, the following day, y'all were going to have discussions with one of the ratings agencies. How did that go? I know that they know the pressures that all Texas public schools districts are facing, but
161what were the specifics, you know, with us here at North? They held us constant so we maintained our rating. Yes. So that was great news. That's great news. Yes. Thank you. And and like I say, we're going to work to to bring a budget that we feel like we'll be able to work within our means. Now, I cannot promise at this point that it's going to be a zero balanced budget. There may still be a proposed uh deficit, but it will not be a $101 million deficit budget. uh because again we will not sustain that and uh Dr. Gua thank you for that question because to your point um if we do it just becomes much more difficult to correct um without running into some true financial hardships uh going forward. And so like I
162said we've got to start making the adjustments well in advance uh which is what we're proposing to continue to do. Any other questions? Dr. Craft, Miss Bradley, thank you. That's uh those were really good slides. Dr. Craft, thank you for sharing that. More information to come. Like I say, it we're going to be um incredibly busy in preparing, like I say, a proposed uh budget. And I know that, like I say, you have questions, please, please ask. Um and we're going to continue to, like I say, watch the legislative process in the meantime. and um push uh and and um continue to be hopeful that they're going to appropriately resource public education. Um but at the same time, contrary to last session, we've got to be mobilizing on this one. Okay. We have a proposed
163budget amendment. Yes, ma'am. So tonight we are bringing forward a budget amendment to support the facilities maintenance and operations to provide their needed funding to allow them to provide their expected services through the end of this fiscal year. So some of the reasons we need this budget amendment is contracting for our vacant positions is more expensive than filling the positions through traditional employment. We've seen inflation and as part of our bid responses from the prior year bids for the same types of goods, we're seeing significant inflation on those items that are being bid. We're seeing increased maintenance needs at the campuses and we've started doing some replacement versus what we were able to do repairs on previously for some obsolete equipment. And so Jacob will provide us some additional specific information if the board would
164like to have specifics on this, but unfortunately this budget amendment will add $5 million to the expenditure budget. But we do believe it will get us all the way through August 31st. Um we talked about possibly bringing it to UN pieces and decided no, let's just go ahead and get what we need to get to the end of the year. uh so that we can continue working on post hopefully reducing that deficit as we get closer to the years um your end as I'm working with Tiffany and Jake on how can we bring that deficit to a lower number but unfortunately this budget amendment does increase that deficit to $101 million as Dr. Craft was talking about and Jacob is prepared to talk about details if you want to explain it to us please. Thank
165you. Sure. So, uh, Megan hit on some key items, uh, and I do have some examples for each, so that way it can kind of paint the picture of why we are where we are right now. Um, I looked at the numbers that we have in our maintenance budget dating back to precoid and going back to even like 2012, 2011. And starting in 2014, there was a increase in the budget every year. Now, it's fluctuated depending on what's going on in the economy and so forth, but of late we postcoid um we've been hit with a lot of inflation. Obviously, you're hearing tariffs and all that stuff out there going on. And so, those are bumping up prices on goods and services across the market and across really the nation. And so, um, when it
166comes to those types of things, inflation, obviously that that hits our widgets, the repair parts and those types of things, items that we're storing in our warehouse, as well as items that we're purchasing that are not your general use items that we have to go to box stores or or whatnot for. And so, a couple examples that I have there is um, we call them Bard units, but they're the HVAC units that are associated with your portables. um over the last couple years that those units have gone from being roughly $3,500 a unit to now $5,500 a unit. So we're purchasing on average 30 to 40 of those a year depending on on uh whether or not they can be repaired. And so that's a constant cost that we're having to to bear because we
167have over 200 portables throughout this district as big as we are. Um the other one, believe it or not, is ceiling tiles. Um, over the last few years, the ceiling tiles have gone from a price of three $386 uh dollars a truckload to uh822, so more than doubled. Um, and so those are real realistic costs that we're encountering. Um, and those are items that we do store in our warehouse to try and keep them moving so they're available as the need comes. Um, as Miss Bradley mentioned, contracted services, uh, that is a huge hit that we're dealing with just to offset our vacancies. And so, obviously, it is always more expensive to deal with contracted services. And so, one example that I do want to give you there is the plumbing shop. So, from 2013
168to 2023, I know that's a big span, but over the course of that 10-year span, we were averaging about $11,000 in contracted services on the plumbing side. So, this is just one shop that I'm giving you an example of. um over last year uh from 2024 and that was obviously no staff shortages, we were pretty pretty well uh filled as far as vacancies went. Um but in 2024 and 2025, we've had some fluctuation in staff in that particular department. Um where vacancies were as high as 60% on the plumbing side. So obviously we got to still take care of work orders. We still got to address needs at the campus level so that kids and staff have restrooms. Um that vacancy rate is currently at 40%. So, it's actually improved, but the contracted services last
169fiscal year 2324 jumped from that 11K 11,000 average to 164,000 just last year. Moving forward to this year with our our where we're projecting to be and where we stand currently, we're projecting to be closer to $537,000 in just plumbing contracted services. Now, I will point that part of this is attributed to the issues that we have with vapes. Um, vapes obviously are are are plaguing our youth right now. Shops are popping up in every corner. And what's happening as students are getting caught. They're flushing those down the toilet. Well, those don't flush very well. So, they either get caught in the toilet, which requires you to remove the entire toilet in order to get to the vape that's clogged it, or it actually makes it down to the main line and creates a much
170larger clog that then requires a contractor that has a jettison to come hydrojet that line because it's not something that you can address with an augur. Um, so those are challenges and we've calc we we've now started to document those by categorizing those work orders as vandalism so that we can track what the dollars that are spent. Um, but I can tell you that right now we have spent up to 180K on remediation to date related to vapes. Um, and so again, we're documenting those types of things. Um, Dr. Craft did ask me what a machine costs if we wanted to buy one in-house. They're roughly about a hundred to $120,000 just to have one as for North Side to use. You would know how to use it? Yes. I mean, our plumbers would be
171well verssed, but yes, that usually requires us to do it after hours. But it's not something you can traditionally do during the course of the day because you're actually hydrating the main line at the campus. So restrooms would have to be decommissioned for a period of time. Are we considering? So we're looking into those options right now seeing who has them available. Um but for now because of the immediate emergency need, we're having to to contract that out. We haven't had to do that in the past. We haven't had to have that type of equipment in the past. So yes, we're now investigating that much further. Um, another thing that I wanted to bring to your attention that Megan um, mentioned that I think is another alarming number is the bid services. So, this is
172your traditional inspections for fire alarm, fire sprinkler, your elevator compliance, your mowing contracts, those types of things. Items that are competitively bid amongst multiple vendors. And this year, we're projected to be at a $1.23 million increase from last year alone, just in bidding those. So that's just the cost of doing business has gone up. So of that 5 million that is a big chunk of that number. And so these are just some examples. I have I have more but um I wanted to share some of that because that is that is what our maintenance department I've challenged them to see what we can do to bring that cost down and see if we could bring that request for that budget amendment of 5 million down. And that is based off of trending data for the
173last two years that is postcoid that's not been skewed by COVID data questions. I feel for y'all on the vaping because I've heard it over and over and I don't know really what we can recommend. You know, I just hope our parents realize that it's a serious problem and that they need to start checking backpacks and blue jeans and wherever to to find them because I know that you and I have talked about this at one particular campus that has older plumbing and so it happens frequently at that campus. My recommendation to legislators has been to outlaw vapes, period. I wish they would listen because I think there's going to be long-term health implications that we just haven't realized yet. No questions for Jacob. Thank you. Thank you for sharing the bad news with us.
174Thank you for listening. Okay. So, the budget amendment is for approval. So, we're going to need a motion. Miss Sonia, I move that we approve the budget the budget amendment as presented. Is there a second? Second. Dr. Gavvada. Uh, Miss Freeman moved and Mr. Dr. Gavvada second. Any discussion? If not, we'll vote. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed by the same sign. The motion carries. Thank you for approving the proposed budget amendment. Dr. Craft. Uh yes. Uh very briefly um and in regards to uh uh 10A. Um, I know that Miss Apata was not able to uh join us this evening and like I said, we had the opportunity for Candace the announcements at the last meeting, but we wanted to afford her that opportunity, but like I say, she was
175not able to uh make it uh this evening. And so, uh, in regards to future agenda items, our next regular scheduled meeting uh is the 22nd of April. Uh we're going to have a pretty neat opportunity to uh recognize uh some of our MK uh trial team uh winners uh from Marshall High School, LMS, our academic decathlon winners, uh Scholastic Art winners uh as well as the 2425 board of trustee future teacher scholarship uh presentation. So uh we'll have quite a few students with us. We'll we'll plan on meeting here at U activity center one more time uh this year at least one more time. Um we've got a really lengthy consent agenda been upon contingent upon building committee policy committee meetings our finance committee meeting that we're going to be working to to schedule.
176Um so uh a few other items we will plan on bringing forward the JSEA uh guaranteed maximum price the schematic design for the fine arts replacement for Clark High School uh the Seymar uh for the cafeteria kitchen athletic replacement at Holmes High School. So obviously you'll see that we're gearing up for a lot of the work uh to commence uh into the summer months. uh believe from a business finance standpoint, we'll need to bring forward a depository contract and I'm sure that we'll have yet another uh budget update uh by the time we get to the 22nd of April. And then again uh based on policy uh policy meeting, we do have update um 123 that we're currently working through TASBY update 123 as well as the open enrollment uh policy uh that will be
177ready for your consideration along with our communication campaign efforts. question. Okay. Question, Miss Freeman. Yes. Regarding the extra finance, the the finance committee meeting. So, we do have a called meeting in April. Will that be finance? We absolutely essentially centered We absolutely could. And that was a a a great question that we actually discussed this morning in cabinet. Uh if you are in agreement, we could we could actually absolutely make that a called meeting similar to what we did last month. Um, and I believe the date, let me Megan, do you remember off top of your April 8th? April 8th. Um, if that works for your calendars, um, we we can make that work. What What else was there on that meeting? Uh, we could there's really not um, at this point. Now, that's not
178to say that we might not add a couple of items, but they won't be I don't know of anything that's really timely. They can't wait until the 22nd. So we could use the ETH really to focus primarily on fiscal year 26 in budget planning. I think that would be helpful if that's okay with the rest of the board. Is that all right? I'm okay with the 8th. We'll work to we'll work to schedule it and thank you. Get it ready. Okay. Well, if uh there's no other question, then we'll go into executive session. So, the board of trustees on March the 25th, 2025, beginning at 8 uh 8:55 will convene in close meeting in accordance with Texas Government Code section 551.071, 551.072, 551.073, 551.074, 551.076, 551.082, 082 551.084 551.089. The board of trustees on March
17925th, 2025 beginning at 9:14 p.m. uh will reconvene an open meeting. Is there any action to be taken? Dr. Gavvada. I move I move that the board approve the settlement agreement in the matter styled Ligu versus North Side Independent School District docket number 59 CV 009 393 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas San Antonio Division as discussed in closed session. Is there a second? It's been moved and seconded that we approve the motion. All in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed by the same sign. The motion passes. The board ended its meeting at 10:16 p.m. I'm sorry, 9:16 p.m.