Northwest ISD Board Meeting - April 27, 2026

001Good evening. I call this meeting of the Northwest Independent School District to order at 5:00 p.m. Let the record show that a quorum of board members is present and that this meeting has been duly called and that notice of the meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code 551. At this time, the board will move to close session. The board will convene in closed session pursuant to Texas Government Code Chapter 551, including sections 551.071, consultation with the board's attorney, and 551.072, real estate matters, 551.074, personnel matters, and 551.076, security devices or security audits. Good evening, everyone. It is 6:30 and we will now reconvene for our regular meeting. It's time now for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance. Guys, I'm going to invite you to rise and

002if you'd like to, please join me in a word of prayer as we open our meeting this evening. Heavenly Father, we just come to you humbly, Lord, with great thanksgiving. There are so many blessings that are showered upon the families and our staff, our communities in Northwest ISD, Lord. Uh we pray uh at this time of the year in particular, but really all times of the year for your heads of protection, particularly around our students and our staff, Lord. Help us to get through and and get to uh summer as the rest of the semester ends very quickly, Lord. We pray this evening for wisdom for our board of trustees as they make decisions and hear reports. Uh we just pray that you bless them with your wisdom to make godly decisions. All these things

003we pray in the Lord's name. Amen. Okay, and I'll ask you guys to remain uh standing, but I want to introduce you to Ethan Washington, a second-grade student uh from uh sorry, Haslet Elementary School, and Iyan uh Nuralla, uh a fifth-grade student from Haslet. Would you guys come on down? Would y'all come to the podium? They're going to help us with the pledges this evening. As they're coming up, uh Ethan Washington, uh it and thank you parents, Caitlin and Patrick Washington, for being here. His Ethan's favorite subject is math. Um he likes to play soccer and his proud principal, Ms. Busby, says that Ethan's been recognized by his teacher as a true Eagle leader that leads by example uh and he's consistently including others and demonstrating respect in all that he does. Uh his genuine

004kindness and positive energy makes a lasting impact at Haslet Elementary every day. I met Ethan this evening and I will concur um that he's got a great energy and thank you for your kindness, Ethan. The world needs that. So, he's going to help us also, Iyan uh Nuralla. Uh his parents, uh Kim and uh Binuta, I think I said that okay. Um and Iyan's favorite subject is math. He also likes to play soccer, ride his scooter, uh play video games, and uh play the piano. So, what is your favorite thing to play, Iyan? I don't really have one. >> That's okay. All right, you're you're learning, right? You're learning to play the piano. That's pretty cool. Um and his proud principal said that Iyan's an outstanding member of the campus, a member of leadership club,

005and he consistently demonstrates kindness, integrity, and a strong work ethic. And he's represented the school at multiple district events, including placing in the top five at the district spelling bee. So, congrats on that. That's awesome. Uh but I love this. His patience and encouragement towards his peers makes him not only a dedicated student, but also a true leader among his classmates. So, uh if you two gentlemen will lead us in the pledges, we'll join you. So, Iyan, you'll start us off. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Awesome. Can we give them a warm

006round of applause? Good job, guys. You all may be seated. Thank you. And if you'll hang there, gentlemen, for just a second, our board president, Ms. Murphy, is going to give you a token of appreciation and then we'll hand it over to Mr. Tozzi and team. Got a bunch of great recognitions to start our meeting off this evening. Good evening, President Murphy, Dr. Fast, members of the board. As Dr. Fast alluded to, we have a lot of great recognitions. Uh end-of-the-year celebrations are going on and lots of end-of-the-year festivities. Uh so, as you on the board know, and as many in the audience know, uh our creative media production program is one of the tops in the state and the nation uh and this year is no different. Uh so, NHS TV is the daily

007show that Northwest High School's creative media production program runs. And I had to look this up. For more than a decade, they've been going to the Student Broadcast Network. They have the Broadcast Excellence Awards. And they have won some sort of award at either the state, the regional level, regional US level, or the the national level. And this year, they placed in the top 10 in the nation in the best live daily show. Uh every March, the Student Television Network hosts the Broadcast Excellence Awards and they went there. They performed in the top 10 in the nation. Uh at this conference, there were more than 4,000 students, 242 schools, and a professional media expert judged each nomination for the award, critiquing them for 10 areas, such as storytelling, technical skills, and creativity, all of which

008NHS TV earned accolades for. And it's something that anyone who's been to our stadium knows the quality of that program. It's many of the same students, not all of them, but we always hear, even this weekend that at an event that I know many of our trustees were at, uh how great they do at everything, whether it's the daily show, whether it's something else they have going on at the stadium. And they've won other individual awards that we'll recognize at the Board of Trustee Awards coming up in the next few weeks, but this is just for the the overall award for the best live daily show. But I will turn it over to them. I'll bring this mic over and if you would say your name and grade level as you walk up and then

009pass the mic to the next person. Hi, I'm Austin Morissette and I am a senior. I'm going to UT Austin in the fall and I'm majoring in journalism. I'm Mia Chambala. I'm going to Texas A&M University and I'm studying business marketing. I'm Landry Barnell. I'm going to Baylor University studying volleyball. I am Avery Bellan. I'm going to the University of Oklahoma to study journalism in the fall. Hello, I'm Oliver Hardy and I'm going to be going to UT Austin to study film. Hello, I am Jayden Castaneda and I am a senior. Hi, my name is Jayda. I'm going to Dallas Baptist University to run track and I plan on studying public health. Hi, I'm Daly Hodge. I'm a senior. I plan on going to Abilene Christian University to study um advertisement public relations. Hi, I'm

010Brooklyn. I'll be attending the University of Oklahoma to study creative media production. Hi, I'm Bella Lara. I'll be going to Texas State in the fall and I'll be studying criminal justice. Hi, I'm Francesca. I'm going to LSU and I'm studying political science. Hi, I'm Zoe Banas and I'm a junior. Hi there, I'm Rex Smith and I'm also a junior. Hi, I'm Willard Teague and I'm also a junior. I'm Jackson Ables and I'm also a junior. My name is Autumn Reese and I'm also a junior. Hi, I'm Annika Rucker and I am also a junior. I'm Brett Calvert and I'm a junior. I'm Braden Hatfield and I'm also a junior. I'm Merritt Mack and I'm a junior. I'm Catalina Downey and I'm also a junior. I'm Canyon Rivera and believe it or not, I'm also a

011junior. And I'm Drake Samford Cunningham and you probably could have guessed it, but I am a junior. >> [groaning] >> And we have their teachers, Taylor Caballero and Josh Gaston, here. And if any of the parents want to come up and take a photo, we do have a camera that we're taking it with that we'll share with you, but if you want to come up with your camera or smartphone, take a photo, you're more than welcome. Here we go. One, two, three. >> [groaning] [sighs] >> All right, next up I'll turn it over to Linda Lee for our guest educators of the semester. Good evening. It's such a privilege to present our guest educators of the semester and honor them tonight. Each campus has chosen the one guest educator that has made the greatest impact

012on their campus this semester. These outstanding guest educators are dependable, professional, and flexible, consistently stepping in wherever needed, often at a moment's notice, while maintaining strong instructional practices and classroom management. Many of these GEs have worked every single day of the school year. They build meaningful relationships with students and staff through compassion, respect, and a genuine commitment to student success, creating a positive and supportive learning environment. Above all, they go beyond expectations and beyond simply filling a classroom. They maintain a positive attitude, strong initiative, and [clears throat] deep dedication to their school community, making them invaluable members of our campuses. So, from Beck Elementary, Jenny Terrell. From Berkshire Elementary, Elizabeth Eaves. Carter Elementary, Katherine Clark. >> [groaning] >> Clara Love Elementary, Katherine Vasquez. Cox Elementary, Taylor Rogers. And also from Cox, Lisa Reed. >> [groaning]

013>> Curtis Elementary, Caroline Hair. Daniel Elementary, Tonya Hicks. Granger Elementary, Ruth Farmer. Haslet Elementary, Lee Mobley. Here is Elementary, Daryl Ryan. Justin Elementary, Theresa Embry. Prairie View Elementary, Autumn Harper. Lake View Elementary, Krista Freeze. Lance Thompson Elementary, Courtney Guest. Perrin Elementary, Stacy Esparza. Peterson Elementary, Mary Ann Aldridge. Roanoke Elementary, Carla Reyes. Schluter Elementary, Maria Brewster. Sendera Ranch Elementary, Devony Carbone. Thompson Elementary, Amanda Sims. >> [sighs] >> Leo Adams Middle School, James Christensen. Chisholm Trail Middle School, Shaylee Enax. Medlin Middle School, Giselle Santini. Pike Middle School, Donna Inglaterra. Tidwell Middle School, Melissa Woodley. Wilson Middle School, Sarah Gale. Weddington Middle School, Jose Nunez. >> [sighs] >> Byron Nelson High School, Richard Harper. Northwest High School, Scott Hughes. Special Programs Center, Todd Kotch. And Steel uh Early College High School, Shannon Hallmark. Thank you all for consistently

014putting kids first. We're so grateful for your dedication and your service to our students and staff, and it's a true honor to recognize you all tonight. No, you're good. Yeah. >> [groaning] >> All right, I'll go ahead and keep going. One of those guest educators is actually someone honored this weekend for being part of Byron Nelson's 2019 championship team, so that's pretty cool. But now we have three professional award winners. They've won four awards, but these are our staff members. They've done great things for us. So, we'll begin with Audra Bell for earning the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented Administrator of the Gifted Award, the top honor in her profession. The Administrator of the Gifted Award is presented annually to the stop top school district official or campus administrator responsible for creating and

015championing exemplary services to gifted students. This award is only presented to one honoree per year, and this year's statewide winner is Audra Bell, Northwest ISD's Advanced Academics Coordinator. Audra oversees our gifted education programs, acceleration, PSAT, SAT, Destination Imagination, UIL Academics, Honors Programs, and AP Programs. So, she's definitely a champion of all those gifted and talented programs. Next, we'll recognize two science educators. Uh The Science Teacher Association of Texas three statewide award winners this year, two of them were from Northwest ISD. So, of the two science education or of the three science education award winners for the entire state, we got two of them, which is pretty impressive. So, I'll begin with the Outstanding Elementary Science Teacher of the Year, which as you can guess by the name is from our for an Outstanding Elementary Science

016Educator uh who exemplifies education and teaching science that includes public schools, private schools, charter schools. So, there are thousands of teachers eligible for this award. This year's award winner is Carissa Smith, a second grade teacher at Lake View Elementary School. She earned the award for her creativity in the classroom, commitment to professional growth, and dedication to supporting young learners. She recently published a book, Sophia and the Mystery of the Stripes. It shows the power of exploration and wonder, and that's one of the tools she can use in her classroom to illustrate science concepts to students. >> [sighs] >> Next, we have someone who won two science awards, Kelly Suarez, a curriculum coordinator for Northwest ISD. First, she earned the Distinguished Leadership in Science Education Award, also from STAT. >> [sighs] >> She supports more than

017550 elementary teachers by guiding curriculum implementation, modeling research-based instructional strategies, support supporting planning and assessment, and more. She also earned the Texas Science Education Leadership Association's Outstanding Leadership in Science Education Award. This award recognizes and honors the TSELA member who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in science education at the school, district, regional, or national level. There's just one winner of each of these awards this year, and both of them go to Kelly Suarez. >> [sighs] >> So, for our final recognition, uh this is our United Way of Denton County Annual Employee Giving Campaign. This year, our staff donated $12,366. This is a campaign that's conducted every year, and it benefits students and families from across our communities. While we coordinate with the United Way of Denton County, the campaign benefits United Ways of Tarrant and Wise

018Counties as well, because we cover all those counties. So, here with us from United Way of Denton County is Mark Bryant, Development Manager, to recognize the donation from our staff. Thanks. Appreciate it. So, now we'll transition into our new campus or district leadership introductions, and we'll start with the new principal of Sendera Ranch Elementary School, Kenny Dwyer, who's been serving on the role in the role on an interim basis, and previously she was assistant principal at the school for 6 years. Good evening, President Murphy, trustees, and Dr. Faust. I'm honored to stand before you as the new principal of Sendera Ranch Elementary. Serving this community for the past several years has been one of the greatest privileges of my career, and to continue that journey in this new role is deeply meaningful to me. Sendera

019Ranch is a special place built on strong relationships, dedicated educators, supportive families, and students who bring joy and possibility into our building each day. I'm committed to honoring the strong foundation already in place, while continuing to move our campus forward. I believe schools change lives when every child feels safe, known, challenged, and inspired to grow. My goal is to support our teachers, partner closely with families, and ensure that every student receives the high-quality learning experience they deserve. Thank you for your trust, your leadership, and your commitment to the students and staff of NISD. I am grateful for this opportunity, and excited for all that lies ahead for Sendera Ranch Elementary. >> [groaning] [sighs] >> Next, you'll hear from Brittany Curley, the new principal of Carter Elementary School. She currently serves as AP at Peterson Elementary

020School, a role she held for the past 4 years. Thank you so much, Anthony. Members of the board and Dr. Faust, I want to take this opportunity to say thank you so much for selecting me as our new Carter principal. Um I plan to put our students first every single day, because they're what matters the most um in our district. We will build upon what our previous leadership at Carter has laid before us to continue success academically, behaviorally, socially, and build leaders of tomorrow. I'm so excited for this opportunity and cannot thank you enough for putting your trust in me. Thank you so much. Next up, you'll hear from Danny Fercossi, our next principal of Worthington Middle School. He currently serves as a principal of Leadership Academy at Mitchell Boulevard Elementary School in Fort Worth,

021a role he held for the past 6 years. No turning back now, Dr. Faust. Good evening, President Murphy, members of the board, Dr. Faust, and the Northwest ISD leadership team. I want to begin by thanking you for this opportunity. I'm truly honored to join Northwest Independent School District and to serve as the next principal of Worthington Middle School. I also want to express my gratitude to Dr. Faust, Dr. Griffin, Mr. Hill, and the interview panels for believing in me and entrusting me with this opportunity. I had the chance to visit Worthington on Friday, and I'll tell you it didn't take long to see how special that campus is. You can feel the culture, the pride, and the commitment for both the staff and the students. It is clear that a strong foundation has been built,

022and I'm excited to lend my hand in carrying on the excellent that that exists. I bring 18 years of experience in middle school education, 6 years as a principal, but more importantly, I come in with a mindset of listening, learning, and building relationships. Before I try to leave my fingerprint on Worthington, I want to fully understand the fingerprints that are already there, and the work that has gone on into building the campus that exists. I'm also joining Northwest ISD not just as an educator, but as a parent. I have one child at Eaton High School, and another at Wilson Middle School. I knew it was time for me to not only serve my own children, but all of the children in this community. And I will continue to do what I've done for the past

02325 years. Arrive on campus each day with the mindset that when I leave, I've done something to benefit our students and our staff. I am honored and blessed to continue to be a parent of Northwest children, and now a servant leader to teachers and students and staff alike. Thank you again for the opportunity. I'm proud to be part of Northwest ISD, and look forward to the work ahead at Worthington. >> [sighs] >> Next, you'll hear from Michelle Jennings, our new principal of Barksdale Middle School. She currently serves as an AP at Worthington Middle School, a campus she helped open in 2023, and she previously served as an AP at Wilson Middle School. It's a long walk from back there. Good evening, Dr. Faust, President Murphy, and members of the board. Thank you for your trust

024and confidence in me as the principal of Barksdale Middle School. It is truly an honor to stand before you tonight, and I'm incredibly grateful for your support, not just at this moment, but throughout my journey with Northwest ISD as a campus leader, a teacher, and also a parent. This board has always put kids first. Opening a brand new school is a rare and exciting opportunity, and I could not be more proud to lead Barksdale through that year. There's something special about starting from the ground up, building traditions, creating a culture, and setting the tone for what the campus will become for years to come. As Broncos, we're going to embrace the idea of taking charge and blazing a trail. That means we're not just opening a school, we're creating a place where students are empowered

025to lead, the staff feel valued and supported, and high expectations are paired with strong relationships. It's about building something that lasts. After spending the majority of my career in middle school, I can tell you there's no place I'd rather be. It's full of energy, growth, and just enough unpredictability to make things interesting. But, it's also where students begin to discover who they are, and that's a responsibility I take seriously. Northwest ISD holds a special place in my heart, because my family is also part of this community. Both of my daughters are graduates of this district, so I understand the impact our schools have, not just academically, but personally, and I'm committed to ensuring every student at Barksdale has the same opportunity to succeed and feel supported. Thank you again for this opportunity. I am excited,

026I am grateful, and I'm ready to lead Barksdale and charge the team and blaze a trail together. Thank you. And for our final new leader introduction, you'll hear from Cynthia Hollis, our new Executive Director of Student Affairs. She joins us from Fort Worth ISD, where she currently leads Title IX matters, and she has an extensive background as an investigator, having previously worked for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Thank you, Mr. Tosi. Good evening, President Murphy, members of the board, and district leadership. Thank you for your trust and the opportunity to serve as the Executive Director of Student Affairs and Title IX Coordinator. I'm truly honored to be here. My work has centered on investigations and student safety, and those experiences have really shaped how I approach this role. I've spent much of

027my career in situations where people are navigating difficult, often emotional circumstances, and where it's critical that processes are fair, decisions are thoughtful, and people feel heard. In my current role, I've continued that work, supporting leaders, managing complex cases, and helping ensure that our systems are clear, consistent, and grounded in policy. What I believe at my core is that this work matters because of the people behind it. Whether it's a student, a parent, or an employee, every concern deserves to be handled with integrity, clarity, and respect. Strong systems are important, but they have to be human-centered, too. I'm excited to partner with campus and district leaders to continue building systems that people can trust, where expectations are clear, processes are consistent, and students feel both safe and supported. Thank you again. I'm grateful for the opportunity

028and look forward to the work ahead. Okay, that concludes our recognitions for this evening, and I have to give everyone another round of applause, please. We have some great new leaders coming into this district, so please one more round of applause. Congratulations to everyone. Okay, we'll move to item six, which is public testimony, public comment on agenda and non-agenda items, and we do have one this evening. I'm going to read the following script, and then I'll call the speaker up. Public testimony and public comments are an opportunity for the public to address the board on any agenda item or matter not on the board agenda. The board may place reasonable constraints on the length of presentations as long as it does not unfairly discriminate among speakers based on viewpoint. Please, uh people who wish to

029speak must have signed up and complete a public request to speak form before the meeting begins and identify the topic they wish to address with the board. Each presentation is limited to 3 minutes. Speakers requiring language translation will be limited to 6 minutes. Speakers should refrain from mentioning by name an employee or student about whom they are complaining. Our first speaker is uh Ms. Carrie Griffith. Would you please step to the podium and state your name and address? So, my name is Carrie Griffith, and I work for a nonprofit called Bible in the Classroom. Did you say my address? You wanted that? It's 1903 Rocky Court, Corinth, Texas 76208. I'm here today because we work with school districts in trying to get a Bible literacy class in the public high school. Currently, there are 26

030school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that offer this class. Back in 2007, the state passed a law, and it was House Bill uh 1287, allowing um public high schools to teach a literature class about the Bible, or a literacy class about the Bible. It's not a theology class, it's not a religious class. It's simply a class that teaches students about the Bible, how it has influenced Western civilization, the actual culture that we live in, our music, our art, our history, our government, things like that. It can be taught in the history department, or it can be taught in the English department. I'm here today because I travel around to the school districts that are directly connected to you guys, that already offer this class. I speak to churches in these school districts, and every

031time I speak, there's a kid at Northwest ISD in the audience who says, "Do we have that class?" And I have to say, "No, you don't." And so, I would like to know, how do we get Northwest ISD to adopt this class? What is your protocol? Grapevine-Colleyville offer the class. Southlake Carroll offers the class. Keller offers the class. Lewisville offers the class. Argyle offers the class. Eagle Mountain-Saginaw just adopted the class, and Birdville is in the works of trying to get it adopted. And so, um I think it would be a great service to your students to allow this class. Kids who take it do better in English in college. And why is that? Well, so much of our English literature is based on biblical references. If you were to take the AP exam, in

032fact, 60% of the allusions on that exam are biblical. How many kids know the story of Cain and Abel? If you don't know the story of Cain and Abel, then how do you know what someone means when they say, "I'm not my brother's keeper?" And so, this class helps that child who's wanting to go on into college and seek education. I'm here with people with red shirts in your community that want this class. We came in solidarity. And so, I'm going to ask Dr. Faust, I've emailed you a couple of times, and I've not received a response. I would love to set up a meeting to visit with you to see, how do we go about getting curriculum adopted? I've also got some petitions of kids and people in the community that want this class,

033and my business card. May I present it to you? This is the actual textbook that is allowed to be taught. Not every school district uses this textbook. Argyle has their own creation, but I can tell you time and time and time again, when I'm out in the community talking to churches, I'm just reminded how awesome this class is when the kids come up to me and they're like, "Man, that was such a fun class. That's such a great teacher." Again, it can be taught in social studies, it can be taught in the English department. It's a humanities approach to the Bible. And the great thing about the class is the school district gets to decide how it's taught, 9th through 12th grade, high school level, and which department. So, with that, thank you. Thank you.

034Okay, thank you for coming tonight, Carrie. Okay, we will now move to item seven, which is the consent agenda. Uh Madam President, Mr. Schleuter, are there any board members that have an item they would like to remove for discussion? No. Seeing none, I move to approve the consent agenda as submitted. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Schleuter and a second by Dr. Roush to approve the consent agenda as submitted. All in favor? Sorry, we're working the kinks out of the the digital system again. Great, thank you. That's 7 to 0. Thank you, board. Item eight is to consider any item removed from the consent agenda, and there were none, so we will move now to nine, which is our discussion action agenda for the evening. And item A is new employer paid benefit report.

035Mr. Patusick, nice to see you. Thank you, Mrs. Murphy. Good evening, board. So, I'd like to show um a new employee benefit paid for by the district for all employees, and kind of go through this a little bit of what we're proposing. Again, this program has four four different options, two or four different pieces to it. All of these will benefit all employees. So, I think we hear a lot of times, "Well, I don't take the insurance from the district." This plan is for all employees, so it actually gives some benefit for those that are still are not in the active care solution. So, the first part of this is currently our dental plan, our basic life, and our voluntary life, some of the plans that uh employees can opt into and pay for. We're

036still out for bid on those, waiting to see what changes. Um I do believe that dental will increase. Um you can see here, dental had a 97% loss ratio, and that's pretty high in the insurance business. So, going to I have a feeling that one will go up. However, basic life and voluntary life, I think will continue to stay the same. But here's here's some of the things that we would like to include looking at as proposed benefits for all employees. The first one includes a critical illness plan. This would be paid for by all employees. Do you want me to stop, Mrs. Murphy? Okay, just making sure. Okay. Um a critical illness plan. And what this is is any employee in the district would have this critical illness plan, and for any incident that

037causes that meets the criteria for a critical illness, that includes a heart attack, a cancer diagnosis, organ failure, major critical illness, they immediately would get a check from the insurance company for $5,000. So, as their medical expenses are planning to be 20,000 plus, or if they have a high deductible plan with a max out of pocket of 7,000, this money would go straight to them, and they can use it however they see fit. The second part of this plan would be a hospital plan. Anytime an employee goes to the hospital for any reason and they're admitted, they immediately get $500 upon admission, plus so much each night they have to stay. This can be a number of different situations that come up through the year. It's not a one-time, and you can't use it again

038for that year. The next one is an accident policy. This one's a little bit harder to explain because it varies by every type of injury, accident, situation, but this also goes to every employee. If an employee was to have an accident, um maybe slip on the ice and hurt their ankle, and they have to go to the hospital, they would get covered by the hospital plan as well as any sort of fracture in that ankle, any surgery, they get a dollar figure for each type of injury. So, this would be a plan that goes for all employees in the district. So, why is this a little bit different? The cost of insurance across the country is of course going through the roof, and I think TRS, we've all seen what it's done, and we've done

039everything we can to try to chase those premium dollars and try to chase our contribution amount. We're one of the highest in the area. The thing is, we can't continue to keep up with the increasing cost of premiums. So, what can we provide that helps employees in maybe another way? So, what we're calling this is more of a layered approach of a different type of benefit that goes on top of their normal health insurance. I think this also gives us a little bit more of a standing out. Very few districts across the state are doing anything like this. Right now, about 67% of all employees out there looking for a job say that in insurance benefits are one of the top things that they're considering. It's also more likely that you have a three times

040percent more likelihood of keeping an employee, and then of course, they stay longer. 78% stay longer due to their benefits package. This just shows currently how some of the employees have already bought some of these programs. It just kind of gives you the number of those employees buying that. So, those employees would no longer have to buy it, it would be part of their plan, so it would save them money in that instance. The fourth part of this program is a little bit unique as well. It's um it's called the active care challenge. Because of rising deductibles, um TRS active care has gone up really high, we've already talked about that, as well as out-of-pocket maximums, and then of course, limited employer contributions. So, all the things I talked about in the beginning are on

041this slide. And then of course, there's always the employee stress and or district's stress from financial anxiety because of a medical diagnosis, which also increases absenteeism and productivity. So again, kind of another quick coverage here, the employer paid critical illness, $5,000 immediately, and you can see here it covers things like heart attack, stroke, cancer, major organ failure, and some others. There's no restriction on what you use it for. They literally just will send you a $5,000 check. You can use it on bills, mortgage, child care, lost wages, anything you need. It helps bridge that gap between what TRS pays and what you actually have to pay for your medical um situation. And of course, being employer paid means it's not payroll deducted, the employee does not pay anything, the district is paying for this insurance

042for each and every employee. Here's the hospital plan I talked about. Again, $500 if you're admitted, then 100 nights for each night you're there. So again, if you're admitted, it automatically triggers the benefit, and you will get either a check or a direct deposit straight to the employee. No reimbursement, no maze, nothing you got to jump through, it automatically comes, and again, offsets some of your deductibles and your co-pays. Accident, again, emergency room visits, it covers urgent care visits, any type of fracture, dislocation, lacerations, ambulance trips. If you have to follow up with a physician, any type of rehab you need to do, so all those things have dollar figures that they get paid out for each time. So again, it helps go against the cost of your pre- uh your deductible and or co-pays.

043And this is the last one. This is program four that I haven't talked about yet. There is a Teladoc or telehealth medicine where you can connect with physicians via the phone anytime, any day, there's no ER, no co-pay. Right now, TRS has this option, but we have to pay a co-pay. This is no co-pay. The other thing about this is, again, like I said before, even if you're not on our TRS, you get this benefit. So, those employees that maybe have insurance from the market or from their spouse still would be able to call our telehealth from this program, as well as behavior support. Number one growing health challenge in the education workforce is behavior health. You can get actually have confidential counseling and therapy sessions. Again, this goes for all of our employees, whether

044you take TRS or you do not. So, prescription consultants, they can do that help telehealth visits, reducing some pharmacy costs and unnecessary trips to the urgent care. You can get a lot of your everyday prescriptions through this. And then of course, it goes back to the district level impact. The other unique thing about this one is, this also, like I said, is not tied to if you are part of our insurance, but it covers anybody in your household. So, if you do not carry insurance, but you're an employee, and you have a child that needs a Teladoc, you can use this because they're in your household. So, it goes for anybody in your household can get these four things right here for free. So, it's a benefit for all employees. We heard a lot in

045the listening sessions of how can we make the benefit package more um desirable? What can we do for the insurance as itself, which we have no control over, right? But this is layering some things on top of that if if something comes up, you have something else to help with that, as well as we got a lot of I don't take your insurance, so I don't think that I really get much of a benefit. Well, here now we're providing a benefit for all employees, whether you take our health insurance or not. So, this kind of kind of shows you a little bit of how it's layered on top. You have your TRS active care, or if you're covered outside of our active care solution somewhere else, and then you have these plans that sit on

046top of it, a hospital indemnity, a critical illness, accident, and of course, the telehealth and behavior. All of these together will run us about $17 a month, $17.22 per employee per month. So, if you remember in our last budget workshop, I left a placeholder in there for this plan, and that's what that number came from, is a $17.22 per employee per month. And that is the presentation. If I could answer any questions for you. So, if the different layers, so if you removed a layer or two, it would reduce that price down, is that what you're saying? >> That is correct. Okay. So, when I when I look at this, one of the things that popped out to me was the the thought of Wait, wait, how many how many people are on the TRS

047for us right now? Um 2,200, if I remember correctly, it's 2,300. >> so out of those 2,200, I I don't know if you know the answer to this or if anybody does, but it's like how many of those people would actually need those the hospital in the in the you know, in the different types of services like that, because when I look at something like this, I go, we're we're pulling out a small segment to spend money on when the larger segment is never going to use it typically on an annual basis. It's a good question. I I would argue that it's for everybody, and everybody would use it at some point. When I say that if you're in a car accident, hospital, ambulance, broke leg, all those things would fall under there. If you

048had some sort of critical illness, if you just use the telehealth or the prescription, I think anybody would use that at some form or fashion. I think the big kicker here is that dollars would help when it the family or the employee is going through a tough time medically, emergency. I think the high deductible plan is a $7,000 max out-of-pocket just for employee only, $13,000 plus for a family. So, if you have one major incident, you're already out 7 or 13,000 like that. Here gives some cushion to that, maybe not quite the financial anxiety. So, is it for everybody every year? No, but just like any insurance, I haven't used my plan in 6 years, 7 years being here, but if I did have an emergency, this would help with the unexpected costs that come

049from a hospital visit, all of those things. And like you said, it's a subsection of that 2,200 that would might use it, but you also forget about the other 1,800 employees that don't get any benefit that now may use this benefit that weren't getting it before. So, that's one of the things about increasing the premiums, they only affects about 66% of the employees, where this will go for 100% of all employees. Okay. And the the the telehealth piece and all that, I think is excellent. I think that's great. Uh to not have to access some of that, so I I do think that that's a really good thing. It's just my only concern is the the other piece of spending money on something that isn't going to get used a lot. Um when you need

050it, you need it, right? Just like when you need car insurance, you need car insurance. Um but you might go 15 years without needing it. Um so, that that would be my only thing that I would look at as as this moves forward of going to different segments of this. Um is you know, were there two claims on this? Were there no claims on this? And if that's removed after the first year, what does that look like, you know, moving forward from a 17 to a $15 a person type deal? >> Yes, sir. I understand that. I would also say that I I'll be real interested, cuz your numbers were pretty low about how many would use it. It's super um I think probably over 50% of our people made claims on their insurance last

051year. So, at some point, I think this would come into play, as well as let's say you have a worker's comp injury, which I don't remember how many worker's comp injuries we had this year, but immediately if there's a worker's comp injury, we can hand them, "Hey, don't forget about your accident policy that also helps cover for whatever you just had." So, you get that benefit on both sides. So, I would There's going to be quite a bit of usage and protection for all of our employees both if there's a workers' comp injury and the unexpected car accident, health issues, so forth. Do I believe everybody's going to be super excited about this day one? I do not just because it's insurance and if you don't use it, you don't see it and you don't

052understand it. But, I think once we have some people that have some catastrophic events and they start having that um comfort of having that money come in, I think you're going to see the um the big benefit of it at that point. Thank thank you for all the work you put into it. Yes, sir. Thank you. Uh you mentioned the telehealth could be used by anybody in your household. The behavioral health, is that also true? Yes, ma'am. On that last slide that had the prescriptions, the telehealth, I guess I could just go back to it since I have the little clicker here. Um all of these four things are anybody in your household whether you're on our TRS ActiveCare or not. The other ones are employee only. So, critical. But, you can buy up if

053you want to include your kids or your spouse. So, you can add to that. But, that's all included um for the employee. This is for anybody in your household, this slide. You mentioned that this would benefit those that do not have our insurance. Do you find that our employees that do not have our insurance, it is because they have better insurance with their spouse? I would I would argue that that's probably the majority. [music] Um there are some that can go to the market that also can get a better deal because young, healthy, no problems, the market's going to give them a really low rate. So, there are some instances that may that may be the benefit. But, I would say the majority is because a spouse um has a very good plan from the

054private sector that they choose to go that route. This will then subsidize that plan for them as well. So, you feel like some might abandon their good benefits through their spouse to take this out or No, because we're paying for this for every employee and this just goes on top of whatever their medical is. They will get this even if they're not on our TRS ActiveCare. So, I think they will stay on their spouse's primary insurance and then this will all be a benefit for them that they can layer on top of their private insurance of whatever they have. Okay. Um I So, I see that it does overlap a lot like it it sounds like um the benefit some of the benefits do overlap what they already have. So, that's like double coverage in

055some of the in some of the areas, wouldn't would you say that that exists? >> I think there's some double benefit, but I don't think there's double coverage. And what I mean by that is if I get cancer, I'm going to be out who knows probably 20 or 30,000 dollars month one. Well, then I get a 5,000 dollar check, but I'll also get some money for my hospital stay. I'll also get some money for some my visits, right? If I have a car accident and I have to have knee surgery, yes, I may go in the hospital, I may have an ambulance ride that's covered or get some money for. I may also have surgery and some physical therapy and I get some for that. But, none of that's covered under our insurance in the

056sense of they automatically pay for. You have to meet a deductible and your co-pays first. So, that's where all of these plans help take that burden off of you of that unexpected, that 9,000, that 8,000, the big dollar figures that come in on those type of plans. So, do you feel that this is sustainable if we were to begin this and it would be sustainable for future future budgets? I do. It's It's kind of like Mr. Dearing was saying, there's economies of scale in this where in everybody's not going to use it in the each year, right? So, you're you should have a benefit where this doesn't have huge price increases and they should be able to continue this. We've seen that in the private side where they buy up that those are not going

057up because of that same type thing. So, this is very sustainable and it should be something that we can layer on top of that. As we continue to go forward, I don't know what TRS ActiveCare is going to do, but I have a feeling it's it's definitely not going down anywhere in the near future. Well, and and I I really had the same question that Mr. Dearing had about if the after let's say we're on it for a year and the first year we've not had much usage, you know, is there a way that uh that you could adjust or uh Yes, ma'am. >> and where it's not as costly or you know, or I don't know what kind of adjustments that you would make, but I I his question is mine, too. What if

058we needed to change it? You hate to give a benefit and then take it away. >> [clears throat] >> You know, I I I don't like to do that to our employees to to give them a benefit and then a year later take it away. 100% I would never recommend something I didn't think we could sustain for that very reason. It's just like giving a raise. I try to very be methodical on the same thing here. The one thing about this is if for some reason nobody used the critical illness, we didn't have anybody get cancer, no one had a heart attack, no one had anything like that, then yes, I could say, "You know what? We don't want that part of the plan next year. We lower that, the premium goes down, we pay

059less." Or if there is lower usage, I can argue with the insurance companies, "Hey, can we rebid this because you can see your exposure was not that high. Let's lower the price." So, that's always just like you do your supplemental benefits, dental, vision, those things, we can still negotiate those things based on usage. Okay. Um I had a senior moment. I have another question and I've lost it. I'll think of it later. Okay, someone else has a question. Mr. Dearing, I got I have several questions. Um is this self-insured or we uh is it Are we purchasing insurance or something? >> It's purchasing. Yes, it's through >> an Aflac type thing or I would call it similar to that, but it's not like it's not Aflac and it's not private. It's employer paid, but it's

060similar in the program. Okay, is have we identified a company yet that we're Yes, we have and I want to say it's MetLife. MetLife, okay. Um Sorry, give me just a second. I'm taking notes so that I don't have to ask these again to you down the road. So, I you said 17-ish dollars per month. >> 17.22. 17.22. What What uh what are you estimating that to be? 832,000 [clears throat] if I remember off the top of my head. And what? Oh, wait. 826. I was off. But, but north the district pays for this. The Our employees do not pay for this at all. So, this is out of our budget. Okay. Um And again, just want to uh ver- verify not just TRS enrollees, it's everybody and are they automatically enrolled? So, what will

061happen is yes, there's an auto there's an enrollment just like we have a life insurance policy we pay for every employee right now. Yeah. It'd be the exact same thing. The only thing they would have to do is just like they do now, put a beneficiary in like they do for their life insurance and also put us who's also in their household for this part right here. So, they would have to do that in our open enrollment period and everything else we would be taking care of. Okay, so that then that's my next question. So, these four uh boxes, this is for a household so kids and spouses? That is correct. >> But, everything else before that, that is employee only >> employee only unless they buy up. Now, the employee can't opt to buy

062into that plan for their spouse or buy into it for their kids, but it would be at their cost. What's uh do you know what that price would be? I do not have that information, no. But, we've had that for years. In fact, that's what this slide right here was showing. How many of those people take part in these plans? So, you can see here there's 74 that do the accident plan. And a lot of that's for their kids, I'll be honest. Or a lot of that's because they know they're going to have a a baby and they're going to be in the hospital, so they pick up a plan like that. There's a lot of those kind of things that are in here. Now, they won't have to buy it unless they want to

063do it for their kids or their spouse. >> Okay. So, someone like my spouse, we we we're off of a Southwest insurance. She'll just sign do the paperwork she needs to do to be in the school year, so she's in this car accident. Southwest, we do the Southwest insurance paperwork and then there's this paperwork that she would need to do uh for just for herself only. And so, I guess that was the other question was what kind of paperwork after the fact is there? It's super simple. Cuz when you use like say TRS or something like that, the the medical offices do all that for you and then you just get the bill down the road. But, how does how does it work for them? >> So, the good thing is this is a very

064easy process through our third parties, First Financial. They set this all up as well as our benefits department will be able to walk them through it and help them. Um in fact, like I talked about on the workers' comp, if something like that happens, we can immediately just hand them, "Hey, make sure you fill this out that way it's completed at that time." So, we've got a plan in place, but it's it's real simple. It's not like going through your major carrier and having to go through all the benefits explanations explanation of benefits, your EOB. You don't have to do all that. Okay. >> [sighs] >> So, I just I want to make sure that kind of what what Dianne was talking or Mrs. Hatfield was talking about, you know, a few years ago we

065were self-insured and it got cost us a lot of money. This is no We're just paying a monthly premium based on per employee. We're not self-insured at all. This is That is correct. >> Okay. We're just a customer. We are just a customer and I and we go through our third party and they take care of all of it. So, you you used TRS Active as an example earlier. Do you off the top of your head, know what the monthly premium or monthly, um, what's the word? Is that right? Premium for a family of four? Or for a family of >> Well, family of family of three or family of 18 cost the same. That's just that's how family works. >> I'm trying to figure out the benefits cuz cuz so if they're involved if

066they if they sign up for TRS Active, they pay that monthly premium. Just kind of curious what that is. Then we as a district re- reimburse them 300 something? 355 a month. We don't reimburse them. We we pay it straight up. And then I think for a family plan is over $1,200 on the high deductible plan. Now, I'm shooting from the hip on that. You probably know better than me. $1,200 a a year? >> Well, I heard higher in the back. Higher than that. Maybe 1,600 a month. Well, 1,600 a month. 1,600 a month. >> It's high. Okay. And but then this will be on top of all that for catastrophic That is for for any use. It's not just catastrophic. >> Well, I mean for usually something that's Well, can you go back to

067the ones where the, um, the examples? This one right here? Or individual out like this? No, the one that shows what what what's covered. This kind of gives you a real quick snapshot of all three. >> Okay. The one that's hard to explain is that accident one. Cuz you can see up there it says fracture, ER visit, injury. I'm telling you you could break a pinky and have to go into urgent care and they splint it. You're going to get paid for that broken pinky. Or you sprain an ankle and you just get it checked out and have an MRI, you're going to get a check for that amount. Each thing differs on the amount. Um, we went through a bunch of them that day about oh, if it's a shoulder or it's a knee

068or if it's an ankle or it's a tooth or it's an eye. Okay. >> There's it's different for each thing on the amount. >> the the employee would pay first and then they would reim- be be reimbursed after the fact or No. They just show that they had this at the vet and they pay them for it immediately. If you get a diagnosis of cancer, you show that you got a diagnosis of cancer, you get a check for $5,000. You go to the hospital, you show that you had the hospital visit, they eat they wire the money or give you a check right then for that amount within days. This is not a what what you pay or what you don't pay. Okay. I like it. Who Who's idea was this? Where did this come

069from? I've been looking at it for a little bit. >> So you're going to take credit? >> no, it was a team effort, but we were looking at it and then our first financial our administrators I've challenged them on quite a few things and one of them was I need to get something more creative for our employees. What can we offer? So we sat down at the table and looked at a lot of different options and this was the best one currently. There's some other things we're looking at for down the road, but um, this was the first one that we were able I think to to put into play. Well, I I like this cuz, you know, uh, you know, we just approved a 2% raise and but we don't know what the TRS

070increase is going to be. We know it's going to be an increase, they always are. But is it going is it TRS increase going to wipe out that 2% raise when it's all said and done? So this is a good benefit to stack on top of that. So Okay. I'll have more questions, I'm sure. And I'll reach out by through emails and whatnot until until the the next meeting. Thank you. We will get you answers. I thought of a question. Yes, ma'am. Do you bid these separately individually or do you always bid them as the whole package? So our insurance company, First Financial, bids all our bids for us and gets competitive. So they bid this to a number of different carriers. And now it's kind of like I'm going to use a line from

071Jake from State Farm, bundling your home and auto. It's kind of the same type thing. You're bundling all these programs together, you're getting a better rate from one company. Okay. So that's kind of how they did it as they went through and said, "Hey, what's out there? What can we bid? What's it going to cost?" And then well, if you get one, it's this, but if you get two or three, it's this. So they went through that whole process and did the bid. And that's what we pay them for is to go out and do all those bids and get us the most competitive rates. And so they would come back with a a package for and it could change companies over the >> 100% just like you remember dental. And this is a good

072example, dental dental for us had a 97% [clears throat] loss rate. That's way high in the insurance world. So you can see they're asking the carrier that we use now is asking for a 27% increase. And we're like, "No, too much. Try again." So we're going out for bid to see if we can get something better. So that's kind of the same premise on that is we would fight to make sure that that didn't happen in those premiums. Well, and I'll I'll tell you something I'm a little fearful. Let's say if, uh, they had some of these extra policies and they were to drop those like a accidental policy or or cancer policy. You mentioned cancer and I know several of our employees have like a cancer policy and it pays a certain amount if

073you get a diagnosis, you know, for cancer automatically and things like that. So I'm a little fearful that that if they drop some of those policies and then then we adjust or something, then they wouldn't have that coverage. I know that's an individual decision, but, uh, Yeah, they they're not really related. Um, we can have as many of those ancillary products as we want and there's always people willing to bid for all of those products. And you they would still you think they would still keep all of their individual I don't think they'd keep all of their individual. I think some of them would use this because it's going to be better and cheaper. Okay. But some might some might want to buy up for their family. Some might want to buy the other policy.

074It's just like any other any other insurance. Um, whether I want a high deductible plan or I want to the TRS premium plan, right? It's it's still weighing all those options, but all of those options are out there and there's hundreds of carriers that are bidding for our business every year. And if we're paying for this, they have all these categories. >> They have all these categories. And so they can have this and add to. They can have this and go cherry pick some other things that they want like disability. Disability is not added in there. Go ahead and buy a disability policy. So they'll have all the options. It's almost like giving them so much on the menu, giving them more options, but we're paying for part of it. Ms. Hatfield, I got to

075tell you, um, I I have an Aflac cancer policy that I've had for, I don't know, 15, 20 years. And, um, a a long time. I wouldn't drop that. I would want to collect data for the first 2 years if this thing is working well and people are accessing it and the rates don't skyrocket, I'd be really slow before I dropped it. And I wouldn't recommend because this is just coverage on top of coverage that's no cost to our employees. And Jonathan had it on one of the slides, but there's we have a really hard time chasing premiums. We just don't There's not enough money on the planet to chase TRS premiums to always make sure a 2% raise is purely a 2% raise and we have zero control over that. And we're in the

076highest cost region, uh, out of all the regions in the state of Texas. So we have really been competitive on adding to that. Um, I don't remember is it $35 what the total amount was? We're at 355 355. We're the highest in the area. Yeah. And and so we'll continue to try to incrementally but it's never enough. So is there anything that we can offer that's unique or different that might be might set us apart as an employer of look, whether you have TRS or not, you know, here's an opportunity for you. And, um, it I I don't want to promise it's sustainable. I mean, we don't know what's, you know, 2 years around the corner, but we'd like for this to be a sustainable benefit for our staff. And I don't know that it's

077going to work. It if we have so little access that it's not it doesn't justify an $826,000 expense, then we we really need to pay attention to the data. Um, and and that data will drive that next budget decision. So I think annually if we step into this, that that should be a commitment that we're going to review that closely and make sure it brings value to our staff. Now, I will say too, you probably don't want to one-and-done it, um, because it'll take a minute for folks to realize, "Oh, I could have just asked for $5,000 uh, for that terrible, you know." And so, um, that's something that we need to do a good job of communicating. We need to sell it as just like we have NEF and you'd like to have a

078NEF, but we have the best education foundation around. And so we're recruiting teachers, "Oh, we also have this benefit. You don't have to do anything. Here's how it helps your family and your household. Um, doesn't come out of your paycheck. We don't, you know, take it out of the out of your family's budget. So, um, but I wouldn't also, like you said, great question, I would not encourage families, "Hey, drop that supplemental." No, hang on to it. This is another benefit on top of that. And and I'll add two things to it. One of the things I think is going to be great that because of the change we made and because of benefits being with leave, anytime we have an employee that goes out on FMLA, they have to fill out paperwork. Guess what

079we're going to turn right around and tell them about? Hey, don't forget you have this cancer policy. You have this hospital policy. And so we can sit there and make sure that they don't forget it and they're taking advantage of it. So we're going to try to do our best to sell it up front and on the process make sure if we get something that someone's out, hey, make sure you file this with it. So my question is are there pre-existing condition clauses? It's going to be just like anything else. If it's prior to the incident cuz these are very incidental based. So if you already have cancer, yes, that's pre-existing. If you had an accident, for example, I hurt my knee and then I try to go 6 months later say, "Hey, I hurt

080my knee." Not going to happen, right? It's got to be most of these are incidental based. >> Yeah, I was more thinking about the cancer stuff. >> Yeah, but cancer, heart, those kind of things. Yeah, but a heart attack is a heart attack. Yeah. So if you have a heart attack, you'll get to go in for it. Okay. Oh, the other thing I was going to say about the questions you had is, um, a lot of private entities have done something similar to this to layer on top of their plans and they've done it for 10 years. We were doing it back when I was in the private sector in the oil business. We had a plan like this that was layered on top of. So, um, they've been around for a long time. It's

081just in the school business, you kind of stayed at the norm, which is TRS. So, again, in just looking at this, I I would say the the biggest thing that stands out to me that I think would be used more than any would be the Teladoc and the behavioral um, piece and all that. And my only recommendation would be to make for sure that the people know that that's there because that's where you're going to save money for people uh, instead of using TRS, paying your deductible, you know, your co-pay to the tele you know, for the Teladoc that they can come do this for free and it's as you said, it's going to take a minute for people to understand that that's there and so, I I would you know, communicate that out as

082much and as often as possible so it would would be used and be a benefit. Yes, sir. We're going to We've already got some plans for all of our new new hire orientations that we're going to have a big section set up where we can go through it. All of our open enrollment, we've brought in more staff to help with that to go through these things and we're going to continue to blast this information out once it um, once we for sure sign the dotted line on this. And I have a couple more questions about it. This might be Mr. Parker. The um, how would you advertise this at a job fair? Would it be to make people come up and talk to y'all or is it just would it be come up in the

083conversation? Um, a lot of times that we'll find when we go to career fairs at the collegiate level they're asking us fantastic questions such as what kind of PD do you offer? What kind of support do you offer? What sets your district apart? And we could come up with some talking points to say, well, we may have traditional insurance like our neighbors, but we offer above and beyond and we're able to and we give some specific examples such as accidents or you know, when you're hospitalized whatnot. It'd come up in part of the natural conversation. Okay. And when when do the the job career fair start? We do them almost all year. All year long. Okay. And and then then kind of on a on a related topic on just all these benefits that we

084that we're trying to compare ourselves or compete with the neighboring districts. I know we did that uh, leave donation policy. How has that been going? Haven't really heard from that in a while. This The catastrophic sick leave bank? >> Yes. That is something else that's also transitioned to um, Mr. Pistucio's department as well. Okay. Oh, well, good to know. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Interesting is that has really ramped up in the last three or four months. Um, we've had a bunch of people applying and so they're taking advantage of it. Um, a lot of the situations maybe do not qualify, of course. Um, but it is being used. Now, have we had the participation in the donation side? So, in the beginning, you remember employees have to donate. We have not had the participation

085that was um, originally thought, but the usage has not been there as much either. So, um, that's Originally, we had a minimum amount that we thought we needed and it hasn't really got there, but luckily we haven't had that much usage of it to to warrant that. Just the reason I asked questions is that the the leave in this could could seems like it could be related. It's very related. Yeah. Okay, thank you. So, anytime someone puts in leave again and we can see it not leave like I'm going to be sick today. We don't look at that. But if you're going to be out for an extended period, you have to file FMLA. That way we know anything of that comes in, we're going to make sure Hades has qualified for any of these

086situations and try to make sure that they're aware and and use that. Anybody else? That was good discussion. Thank you for answering all those questions. No problem. We will take action on this one on the next agenda. Actually, that's something I was going to clarify. So, this is not a separate action item that the board needs to vote on individually. Okay. It would be a part of the just a budget that we bring to the board in in June. So, um, please provide any feedback or ask any questions that you may have. Um, that's something that theoretically you could pull out of the budget if you disagreed. I sure would like to know before we present the budget in June if possible, but um, yeah, please ask away on any questions or thoughts you have

087between now and then. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you for all that. You're appreciated. >> Okay, so you You're not done with me. >> No, I know. So, we Let me let me roll to it. So, that ends the discussion action agenda. We'll go to item 10, which is reports and it's the March financial report and the third quarter investment report. All right. We'll first take a look at our March financial report. If you remember, we did February's just last meeting, so it hasn't been that long. But like I was saying in that last meeting, if you look at revenue, we're trending well above what we expected, right? We passed the Vader. Of course, that has a lot to do with it, but our student enrollment was less than we projected. So, um, you

088but you can see at this point we've already received 99% of our projected revenue for the year. At this point last year, we were at 88%. So, we're trending well above that. This is the interesting thing though is our expenses are trending very very tight. I mean, when I say tight, low. Lower than I originally expected. You can see right now we're at 61%. This point last year, we were at 64%. Um, our budget went from 332 to 351, but you can see expenditure-wise, we're at 214 in both scenarios at this point. So, we are trending very well in our budget for expenses and so I think at the end of this year, we're going to definitely have a um, a surplus to put in the fund balance. Looking at our food service, again, this

089is uh, going well. We've collected about 82% of our projected revenue, but I believe that we've projected our revenue a little bit low. As you can see, last year we collected over 15 million and we're at 11.3 at this point. We're right now we're at 11.7, almost 11.8. So, we're trending revenue higher than we originally projected, which means our expenses are going to be higher than we originally projected. So, you can see it shows 78% of our expenditures, but I do think we're trending very well at 11 million versus the 10 million we were at this point last year. And then the last one is of course debt service. We made our our payment in February, so you saw that for our INS and you can see here INS is 103% of the revenue and

09091% of our expenditures, but that's pretty much all the expenditures for the year. So, we're in a good spot there. We will have a bond refinance or refunding coming up soon. Some of that's for the hold harmless situation the state put us in, so we'll be doing that refunding and we'll use some of that money to pay down some debt from the refunding and have that payment come out in August. So, that will disappear in the August payment, but it's also goes off fiscal year when you look at the hold harmless versus I mean, calendar year when you do hold harmless, not fiscal year. So, it's a little confusing, so I've got to make some of that up in the August payment. But that is the financials. If I can answer any questions. And then

091we'll do the investment report. I I really am real happy at this one still. Um, I'm kind of was worried interest rates were going to drop um, and they did a little bit, but we're still sitting pretty on this. As you can see in this first slide, the middle column where it says income summary, you can see our net income for this quarter. So, remember January to March, we made 12.8, almost 12.9 million dollars for one quarter. Um, there was a couple years ago we wouldn't make 2 million for the whole year. So, again, 12.9 or 12.8 for the quarter. If you look at the net income for fiscal year, this number still blows me away. 38.9 million dollars we've made since July through March in interest. Now, remember most of that is in capital

092projects because that's where we sold all that money for the hold harmless. The state's going to have to pay us over 80 million dollars because we did that. Had we not, we would have lost that 80 million dollars. And now we're gaining some interest on that money as well. So, you can see that playing out. Looking at the next slide, um, the big thing here of course is DeAnn's favorite with it. You can see that we're still laddered out over the next year and some of the maturities. We did get a lot of tax revenue in, so we will be looking to see if there's some of that that we can like leverage out over the next 6 to 9 months. Um, so we're looking at that now, but interest rates are so volatile and

093up and down, we're not really sure what it's going to do. So, we're kind of playing that by ear and watching it very closely. This just shows where the money is and you can see we're pretty diversified with bank deposits, pools, money markets, commercial paper and government funds. And then of course, this is the trend line. You can see here that we're still trending better, especially these last three or four months, than both the um, six months as well as the TexPool or pools accounts. You can see that we're doing really well. That's some of that money we locked in knowing that rates were going to drop, so we locked in a little bit early. We thought rates were going to drop even more than they did, but you can still see where we're taking

094advantage of that drop. And then the last slide here that I want to show you is this shows the different accounts. And you can see in capital projects, out of that 12.8 that we got for this quarter, 9.5 of it was in capital projects. About 2.1 of it was in general operating and 1.25 was in interest and sinking. So, again, making interest on all those dollars and it looks really good. I like it when we're making money on the interest versus the 2 million all year all accounts. And that is the investment report. If I can answer any questions? No question, but just thank you for making us money. >> [laughter] >> Yes, ma'am. Jonathan, with the on the the capital project balance what is that money being held for? What's Is it going to

095be that amount for a bit or is it Are we going to buy some things here pretty soon? Well, we're buying every day. Sarah can spend money faster than anybody. Um but she's doing it with good reason. That high school project alone is costing us about 20 to 25 million a month. Just that project alone. Then you add in um Hicks is still going pretty strong. Romo still going pretty strong. The stadiums are going pretty strong. And then of course whenever we decide to open it or start building another pre-K center. So those those dollars are being spent quickly. Okay. But it got that high because we had to sell the bonds for the the the state bill or whatever it was. >> Yes, the to get to keep the hold harmless money from the

096state we had to sell it prior to that September 1 of last year. So we sold that extra 800 million cuz we got to afford it in the tax rate. We sold the 800 million for these projects cuz we know we're going to spend it in the next year or two. It just may last us a little longer before we need to do a sale, especially with the slow down in growth. We've kind of pushed some of those other buildings back, the next elementary. So we may have it a little longer than we originally thought, but I we're still spending it so fast it's not I don't I don't think it's going to be any issues. Okay. Thank you. I think we're good. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Okay, we'll move to item

097B, which is the staff survey report. All right, good evening President Murphy, Dr. Faust and members of the board. Um as you recall every other year we conduct a staff survey opposite the parent community survey that the communications department um participates in and leads for our district. Um I It's been a bit since I've been here giving you an update because 2 years ago we utilized a different um we utilized our service center for that survey and it did not yield the results and some good data for us. Um if you recall prior to that we did use Intergage um and that's where we were we were working towards being a top workplace. Um but this year we have done a great job of bringing it in-house and it has been a joint effort from

098our communications department and our technology department to uh develop the survey for our staff. These are the five overarching themes that we looked at in our questions. I'm going to give you a very high-level view today of this and and some of the comments our staff has said and some of the responses that we have had, but I wanted you to share that these were are the uh the overall topics we looked at at overall engagement, communication and leadership, work environment and well-being, support and resources, as well as recognition and career growth. Within each of these categories we asked either three or four questions that were based on a Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree with the neutral in the middle. For there's five responses that they could have chosen as well as

099at the end an open-ended response as it relates to that topic as well. So I will give you um our percentages as it pertains to each category and then share with you some of the comments that we have from our staff. First look through I want you to I want to share with you that we have just under 4,000 staff members here in the district and 883 responded to this. And at first we kind of thought, "Wow, how did that Why did we have so few respond?" But we ran this right after we had completed our listening sessions. So we opened this for a 2-week window right after spring break up until the first part of April. And we all know that sitting face-to-face with the listening session gains a lot of value with our

100staff and it's become part of one of the traditions that we do and they love us coming to the campuses. So I feel like we may have gotten less of a response from our staff because they feel that they have already shared some of their concerns with us and some of their feedback with us. But of those 883 responses, 514 of them were teachers. They average 14 14.17 years in education and just under 8 years in NISD. So our first look at the engagement component, we broke that down into pride, motivation, and purpose. And as you can see here our scores are strong. They're on the agree to strongly agree um responses. They feel proud to work for our district and believe in our mission. They feel motivated to give their best every day and

101they feel that their work makes a meaningful difference in our students' lives. The next component was communication and leadership. Still we're on the very strongly agree to agree. They is we broke these three down into leadership, their supervisor, and trust. And so they shared that their campus or department leadership communicates effectively. They feel comfortable sharing feedback or concerns with their their supervisor and there's a great level of trust and transparency between their leader leadership and the individuals in the campus or the department as well as demonstrating transparency and sound decision-making. We also asked them about work environment and well-being and this is where you'll see an opportunity here. We looked at culture, work-life balance, and value. We We see strong components in the culture and value. We They are are Um Excuse me, our employees

102feel valued as well as they feel there's a a a there is a Sorry guys, I'm getting my words mixed up tonight. A positive and respectful workplace culture in their department or their campus. But we're always chasing work-life balance. And we all know that there are seasons and times where that is feels very balanced and there's times where it does not. And so we know education is one of those places where our employees are always motivated to go above and beyond so they just may not feel that work-life balance. We also measured support and resources. We looked at the access they have to the needs that they can be in the classroom, the resources they need to do their job effectively, growth, and also the support they have. Again, our scores all trend on the

103agree and strongly agree here. And the very last one is recognition and career growth growth. And at first I thought, "Gosh, this is an interesting place for these to dip into the three range, that middle neutral range." Well, we all know that these three things, recognition, opportunity, and feedback are all very personal. They're all very different. How one person may want to be recognized may be different than someone else as well as how they want to receive feedback may be different as well. And of course here they want to be able to have that professional and career growth and advancement throughout the district. And there could be different barriers for that whether as it pertains to certification or even opportunities. So to me this one um well at first I kind of went, "Oh gosh,

104we're we're we're trending below four." But this is also very personalized and very diversified across our district as well. So here are some of the open-ended responses that we received from our employees and I thought they were fantastic. We had over 100 comments in each area. And the first one here is, "I have worked for and with several school districts in Texas and NISD is by far the best district I have been associated with." "Our true focus is on students and their outcomes provides a meaningful difference in my everyday work." Another one, "Digital communication is both the district's and campus's strengths in terms of communication." "I feel valued by my admin." I have a few more to share. "Our principal is consistently and innovating and sharing ways to make our jobs easier." "All of our

105teachers on campus are welcoming. I feel comfortable in every classroom I step foot in." "My campus admin and colleagues support one another, help each other, collaborate, and build each other up. And then coming from a local district, I have loved the culture at NISD." So we've identified some opportunities for growth that are absolutely in alignment with what we have seen in our listening sessions as well. So one of the components that we saw over and over again here is professional development opportunities to strengthen and support our paraprofessionals, that support for work-life balance, continued C&I support for our classroom teachers, and then classroom support for student behaviors and special education. And as you know, because in our last board meeting um we reviewed our additional staffing our second staffing for the upcoming school year that we

106have listened to some of these concerns and provided additional staff in these areas for the support of the teachers based on what we're seeing and hearing in the classrooms. So next steps I have some questions for you. We've shared this information with our C&I leadership team and we will work together with them as well as at the cabinet level to identify quick wins as it relates to the staff survey and our listening sessions to see what are some great quick actionable items we can put in place and what may be some long-term solutions to assist our teachers. So and with that I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. So did I see the number right? So only about 20%? >> 20%? Yes, sir. And is that normal in years past? Is that low?

107I would say um we usually when we were using the Intergage surveys um back in 2018 through 2021, we were looking at about 60% of the staff at that point. Um they had a minimum threshold of of completion to even be considered to work through one of their programs. Um I believe we had about 30-something percent the last time we did um our survey 2 years ago that we used through Region 11. So is that concerning at all? Like it I truly at first was very concerned, but when you think about the timing of this when we just had listening sessions, I feel like that is a a very valuable way for our employees to give their feedback to us in a personalized manner that I just truly feel that they may not have may

108not have taken the staff survey as seriously that we wanted that information again. We did send reminders multiple times through Parent Square. We asked our principals and our admin to put that out on their newsletters. We sent reminders as well. Well, it just concerns me seeing some of the data like how accurate really is. >> I agree with you, sir. with everything. Mhm. But and and then the only other thing I saw on there is what you had alluded to was the work-life balance and just um that that would be where my thought process would go to to everybody in here would be uh as I've said before and will always be an advocate for with where we're at life today is the more AI that we produce to give these teachers the ability to

109leave at 4:00 as opposed to leaving at 5:00 is just as big a win as providing additional health benefits and different things. So, just my opinion. Absolutely. I just want to comment. I I I appreciate the positive comments, but were there any concern or any comments that were concerning that stood out? There There were some. There were some and I used that to compile what would be our opportunities and it may be uh showcasing student behaviors that they're having in the classroom. They want more support. Our paraprofessionals, they need to be paid more. It's very similar to the same things that we saw in our listening sessions. Mhm. Yeah, I think to piggyback on that what what you just said, Ms. Parker, the the conversations I've had throughout the year to teachers is just really

110help with the behavioral issues, but um I you with Mr. Dearing's question about the the lack of participation in the survey, how long was the survey like average time? It was How long was the survey? Oh, it could take maybe 15 minutes, 30 minutes? Probably less than 10 minutes. Less than 10, okay. Mhm. Um And and also in the work-life balance, I think you see the trend. We're both spouses of teachers, so we we hear about that a lot at home. What were some of the comments that were said about that? If you don't have any on you know, may maybe if you could share it in email. I mean, I can I can name some offhand. There were discussions on caseload, discussions on class sizes, amounts of students, you know, increasing demands, things like

111that. Cuz um cuz I get as I said, this is what the comments are. Like, what are they saying is a cause for the the thing and is it state is it state requirements? Is it district requirements? Is there something better that we Is there more that like Mr. Dearing said with AI is there more that we can do to take something off their plate or help them do what they do more efficiently and productively? >> We'll absolutely take a deep dive at that and see what we can come up with. >> Okay, and then then the last question I had is what's the plan to fix it, but it sounds like y'all are going to work on that, so okay. >> Thank you. Thank you. I just want to add we can't emphasize enough

112um even though this is limited data, which may, you know, invalidate and I'll say if you've got these categories that are really positive, you know, don't rest too much on your laurels or section that's really negative because it's such a small sample size, how do you know how the other 80% of the people feel? Uh and there is a survey fatigue, you know, goes along with that work-life balance. Man, I don't have 15 minutes to go do another survey. I just sat in the office or in the library for an hour with the superintendent, you know, why do I need to go do a survey? I still think we need both because I don't want to rely only on listening sessions and at least this is a data point even though it may not have

113as much validity, you get trend data out of this. When you when you put it next to the listening session data, you do see those patterns, whether it's discipline in the classroom or we need more special ed staffing or please pay paras so that we can keep them. Those things pop out both in this survey and listening sessions. So, I feel like it neither one of them is is perfectly valid, but both of them together and this is every other year. The listening sessions are every year. Um which we try to look for. I think you use a phrase low-hanging fruit. We want to find things that we can afford to do, that we can do relatively quickly and one of my favorite things after you all approve the 5% for paraprofessionals, immediately the cacophony

114online and I don't put all the stock in the world in in social media, but oh my gosh, they actually listened. We said our paras need more and it wasn't just paras saying that. It was teachers that want their people to stay and oh my gosh, the board approved that. That's so amazing. So, maybe this isn't a perfect measure, but when you pair it up with other measures, it gives us a better picture of where we are. Um and we're clear that there were lots of negative comments. If you want to mess with your self-esteem, go do a survey. Uh it's [laughter] I mean, it's I'm just And so um but we look at those and we look for value. You know, what do we need to address? What do we need to be clear

115in communication? What can we do differently to try to to support our teachers? And again, I'm using the same phrase I said last time. We are co-creating solutions with our our faculty and staff and that's our spirit of of how we want to even when it hurts our feelings and all those things, how can we do better? That's That's how we're approaching this. Okay, I think we're good. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, we'll move to item C, which is facilities planning and the construction update report. Good evening, board, Dr. Faust. Tonight, I am presenting on how much we spend monthly and showing you the the images of why we spend as much as we do. I did I did the math. You got 4 years of funds just >> Okay, thank you. >> [laughter] [gasps

116and sighs] >> Uh just to give you an overview of all of our projects, it's a dashboard to give you the percentage of where we are per the project. We try to break down the high schools because there's multiple phases through the high schools to give you guys an idea of where we are at each project. And here's a timeline more visually friendly when it tells you on each project and when they we expect them to be completed. And again, I just wanted to remind you the stadiums are definitely not on the same schedule. Um it we did not do that on purpose. We designed them all at the same time. It was a permitting process and the CFA for Fort Worth at Eaton High School delayed Eaton Stadiums construction to where Byron's was a

117much easier route with permitting and we were able to get started on schedule for that stadium. We're going to start with Barksdale. It's 95% complete. We're just going to go through some aerials to show you the beautiful site. Um the right-hand picture at the above is the rendering versus the actual image. >> [clears throat] >> And then this is an image that we continue to show you guys. It's walking through the front doors, passing the office and you're walking into the library in the open space. Here's our learning steps, um the current stage of our learning steps and then the images that go with it. We have our front office reception desk going up being built currently and then the back of house for the office is pretty much finished. Then when you go into

118the academic wing, you have our collaborative two-story volume space. This is the same space in every academic wing, which we have three in this building. And then to the right, you'll see the double classrooms with a movable wall in between. Then we have the gymnasium and fine arts areas. Finishing up those floors for the gym. And then Dr. Romer, we have a lot of site that needs to happen, but it's about 85% complete and it will be open this August. I can see the playgrounds in, still need to get the surfacing in around the playground and a lot of in the site work that goes with the building. And inside, our normal picture is the library and cafeteria. You can see a lot of people are at work. A lot of people are on top

119of each other. You got to get the got to get that last push in to to finish the project. We've got the gymnasium and then a classroom on the right-hand side. Dr. Hicks. If you compare this one to Romer, it doesn't look that great, but just to remind you that we only have 35% of this building is bricked. The rest is a product called Trespa. It's a high-pressured laminate that will go around. It's the blue color that we picked out for this campus, but they are still moving as fast as they can. I am doing regularly multiple site visits per week, so I can show them that we are pushing them, making sure we have the appropriate amount of staff out there to construct this building and get it finished in July for school in

120August. So, the left is our collaborative area and the right-hand side is a classroom. So, it gives you the stages where we are. This was 2 weeks ago, so it's further along than what we're showing, but there are definitely spaces that we need to push our contractor. This on the left-hand side is our library. It's opened right now because it's easy to get large products into the building and then on the right-hand side is their gymnasium. Facilities building next door, we have we have a lot of concrete going in. This morning, we actually had a lot of the front drive poured, so it's connecting to the administration parking lot drive as well at right now and they'll continue it tomorrow to hopefully finish it by the end of the week. The awning around um the

121building on the west side, that's the entrance of the building for any guests. And then it'll be the entrance for the the testing um is in the front of the building, but um the awning that's why it wraps around the building to show um entrances. The right-hand side is our records warehouse. It's two-story. We have steps in there for it to be easily accessed to be upstairs. And then obviously downstairs um space. The image on the right-hand side is the entrance to the facilities building and then if you would turn and do a 180, that would be your image on the right-hand side of the open office spaces surrounded by um closed office spaces. On the left-hand side is our maintenance facilities uh lounge uh break room. And it has the leads surrounding it and

122then on the right hand of their offices surrounding it and then on the right-hand side is one of their warehouses, which is either mechanical, electrical, or um Um just lost it. No, not plumbing. Build um carpentry. Yes. Um and then we have our central transportation center. This is going behind Pike Stadium back in the 40 back in the flood plain. The parking lot's in the flood plain, but the building is not. Um and then here's just our site um currently right now working on every possible we can until we get our permit. Tomorrow we are having our first look at the Byron Nelson um Performing Arts Center. And so the left-hand side is our uh rendering and then the right-hand side is the actual view. And then here's a few pictures from the balcony looking

123to the stage. Byron Nelson Stadium, it's coming along nicely. Uh might be finished before we were anticipating it, but um North Star's doing a great job of taking care of this site and doing what is needed. We've had issues with parking and we've made adjustments to allow more parking um and then um continue to build the stadium. Just give you another view. That's the north side. And then we have the wrestling um area on the left-hand side and then locker space for home or visitor when it comes to um that stadium. We are continuing to add on to the cafeteria at Byron Nelson. They just put a dividing wall up so they can do the structural while we still are occupying the space to where when summer comes, they'll be able to knock that turquoise

124wall down and um combine the two spaces. Here's Eaton Performing Arts Center. You can see that the glass is going in on the exterior of the building and they're almost completed um closing it up. So it's 75% complete and it'll be um opening in June. Excuse [clears throat] me. So this is a a picture from the balcony looking onto the stage. And then a picture just looking across the balcony. And again, like I said, we are behind not behind, but we um are behind the Byron Nelson uh stadium schedule due to permitting, but Pogue is doing a great job of catching up and um starting to break get structural steel up. You can see the field house uh pa- uh paving on the right side of the picture and on the south side's the visitor

125side um bleachers and concession and restrooms. Then Davis High School. Dr. Fass and I got the uh opportunity to go walk it uh last week. Was it last week? Two weeks ago? Last week? Pogue's doing a great job. This building is going up pretty fast. There's a lot of work to be done, but they are um They're they're doing a great job. Uh it's looking beautiful. It's an a- a- the whole building when you walk it, it's just it's beautiful. Um here's an image of the stadium and on the top of the picture is the indoor activity center and all the outdoor sports locker rooms, weight room, training room and then on the right-hand side of the stadium is the arena with their with indoor weight room as well. Um the south side of the

126picture is the home visitor uh a home seating. And then the visitor seating will go up. It'll be between the stadium and the actual building. Just a few images around. We have a we have courtyards. We have um on the left-hand side to that's a two-story courtyard. Right-hand side's a gymnasium. This is the courtyard that's surrounds our library. So on the left-hand side you can see there's im- the image of people on the left hand of the glass. That's the library that wraps the courtyard. And the image of our cafeteria. So it's a three-story volume cafeteria. Um all hallways past the cafeteria. You Excuse [clears throat] me. On the left-hand side you can see where we are on the construction. On the left is our fine arts area and then on the right is our

127indoor activity space. Any questions? Because I've been asked this 1,992 times. If the stadium gets done at Byron, are they going to to allow football games next year? We would have to talk to the town of Trophy Club just to make sure that all the safety features are in and being able to um handle the traffic with the construction of uh Bobcat Boulevard during the same time. Okay. Cuz everybody's seeing how quickly it's progressing. Lots of excitement. And then on the Hicks, um is there a backup plan? Only saying that because it you know, few short months here before school's ready to go. And um you know, when you look at look at it from a surface of somebody not knowing what they're looking at, it looks a little nerve-wracking. We haven't had those discussions

128yet because I'm still I I still have faith that we're going to we're going to make it in in July. So uh when once I start getting kind of iffy on that question, we'll we'll make up a backup plan, but I don't feel like we need one. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The on the stadiums, Yes, sir. >> will Byron Nelson's stadium going to be finished completed first followed by Eaton? You know, the Eaton family's going to be upset saying we gave preference treatment to Byron, etc., etc. Have we started communicating that the permitting process with Fort Worth, the bureaucratic beast is what slowed it down? Is or can can I have not publicly, but I I state it in all of the presentations I do when I when I speak of the

129stadiums. Okay. Yeah, Dr. Fass, I I would say you when we start get a little closer to that, it needs to be part of the conversation. So I get Eaton family, we feel for you, but the city of Fort Worth is the city of Fort Worth, so Well, it was really the CFA, um the community facilities agreement for the uh Eagle Boulevard expansion was the delay was the delay in getting the permit for the stadium. Okay. Just a couple things on timeline that I would elaborate on and one is uh Byron Nelson. So um they're going to see the stadium and it's going to look like it's 100% complete when it's about 85% complete and the stuff going on inside, whether it's finishes or furniture, electrical. I mean, there's there'll be a lot of things.

130So we'll start to get that, "Hey, uh let's go ahead and you know, let's have a game tomorrow." It's it's they haven't put the turf in yet. But um our response will be, you know, we we didn't commit that we would once we got the schedule, it's not going to be next season. It'll be the following season. Uh just a reminder, the capacity's about 7,500 uh at each of those stadiums. Um the other one is Eaton started months later. So they're and we've told the Eaton community from the beginning, "Here's your schedule. It's a different schedule." We didn't intend for that initially, but whether it's CFA or permitting or what have you, all those things combined, uh it started months later so that don't have any expectation that you're going to see football in there

131in 2026. It's just it's not going to happen for either one of them almost certainly and and >> True, cuz the schedule has been set. So they'll both start fall [clears throat] football with home stadiums in the fall 2027. And there shouldn't be any exception to that. With the new high school opening up, that's going to be fun times, but so more of a fun question. What is uh Coach O saying about his wrestling square footage at uh Byron? Is he happy? I haven't spoken to him about it, but I'm sure he is very happy. >> I I get a yes from Coach Jones? Okay, cuz I know he's a he puts out world-class ath- athletes and doesn't have the square footage to he does he does amazing with what he has, so so good.

132I'm glad to know that he finally got what he's been asking for, so >> Yes. So Ms. Stewart, I would just like to congratulate you on a fantastic job of scheduling and showing us your schedule, keeping these contractors on their toes. It's I know it's not an easy task, but you've done just a fantastic job. I just want to thank you for your presentation, your percentage completes, and everything you've done to illustrate that. Good job. >> The new graphics are fun in your presentation. Yes. Um and how many different contractors are you juggling right now? Oh my goodness. One, two, three, four, five. Five, but some of them have multiple projects as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're good. Okay, friends, that concludes our reports section. So, now we'll move to the

133board president's report and I got a couple of things to do tonight. Um first, TASB SLI conference is June 18th through 20th. Please let Jennifer know if you're going to attend. Um election day is May 3rd. Early voting is happening now through the 29th. And then um I'm going to read the annual uh continuing education credits report um for the board. >> [sighs] >> Um under state Board of Education rule, completing requirement required continuing education each year of service is a basic obligation and expectation of any sitting board member. There are four tiers or categories of board member continuing education. Tier one is local district orientation, basic legal orientation and legal update training. Tier two is team building training with all board members and the superintendent. Tier three is annual continuing education and tier four

134is evaluating and improving student outcomes. All board members have completed the required tier one continuing education. All board members have completed the required tier two continuing education. All board members have exceeded the required tier three continuing education by the following amounts of time beyond what was required. Judy Cop, 15 additional hours. Jeff Dearing, 3.75 additional hours. DeAnn Hatfield, 13.5 additional hours. Lillian Rauch, 13.5 additional hours. Mark Schlueter, 13 additional hours. Steve Sproles, 8.5 additional hours. And Jennifer Murphy, 7.5 additional hours. All board members have completed the required tier four continuing education. The minutes of the meeting should reflect this announcement. And that is all I have. We'll move to the uh the superintendent's report. Yes, and just a reminder NFGLA uh this Saturday uh rain or shine. Um I know that we're prepared to have

135a great time. Um I did hear um rain is in the forecast. Supposed to stop stop around 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. Texas weather, so you have no idea. But, I did hear 67° was the high temp that evening. So, um that could be good. Please join us for that if you can. Uh it's a lot of fun and it goes to a great cause. It's for our classrooms and helps us uh recruit and retain great teachers. That's all we have.