001and get started I call this meeting in the Royal Oak Independent School District to order at 7 pm at the record show that requirement of board members is present that this meeting has been duly called and a notice of the meeting has been closing in accordance with the Texans opens meeting act Texas government code chapter 551 all board members are present at this time Mr Sebring would you lead us in invocation please let's pray heavenly father thank you for this day Lord just thank you for the opportunity that we have to come and gather and do the business of the School District board I just ask that you bless each one who's here tonight each one is represented each one in our district watch over our students and our staff each one from top to
002bottom part of that our actions and our teachers actions and our community's actions help to provide a positive impact in the lives of students from here Nevermore but we asked all these things in your son's precious name amen go ahead so tonight our February pledge leader is Sarah sauceda she is 12 years old her parents are Greg and Crystal Vasquez and she has one sister Sarah's in the sixth grade at Red Oak Middle School and her teachers are Mrs Samuels Mrs McGuire Miss Adam check Miss Garcia coach Coleman Mrs Sherman and Mrs Walker her favorite subjects are science social studies and reading Sarah enjoys studying about plants and playing on her hoverboard her favorite book is the Harry Potter series and her favorite pets are cats and they but they are a dog Barrel good
003call the best for the person she most advice is her dad Greg he inspires her to be the best that she can be and one thing that she likes about herself is her ability to draw in her singing ability Lord of Mike foreign 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 right awesome next we're going to move into our recognitions portion of our meeting we ask that if you would hang tight until everybody's been recognized we only have three groups to recognize I say only um we'd love to have you know 50 groups to recognize but tonight we have three uh and then once the recognitions are done we'll take a short break so everybody can can leave
004if they want to leave or you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting so we're going to start off with a rental Costco swim team uh coach Hooper and Mr Knight we'll handle this certificate it's Maddie hi my name is Maddie Hooper and I am the high school swim team coach um these boys put in the work this season and if you did not know um they only had maybe one or two practices in between our district meet and our regional meet um the pulley practice app we travel to Duncanville Natatorium each day to swim since there's really no other good places here to swim and that one week the pump was out and so the water was too cold to swim in and so we only got maybe one day of practice
005in and then the following week was the ice week so in between district and regionals they only had maybe one or two days worth of practice and they still did an amazing job and I'm extremely proud of them foreign regional qualifier in the 100 backstroke and a regional finalist of the 200 freestyle relay Skyler aiella Regional finalist 200 freestyle relay Marco Cruz Regional finalist in the 200 medley relay 200 freestyle 100 butterfly and they placed top eight in the 400 freestyle relay Cameron Foster Regional finalist in the 200 medley relay 50-yard freestyle 100 backstroke and top eight in the 400 freestyle relay Val Robles regional qualifier in the 100 freestyle and the 100 breaststroke Landon gergen Regional finalist in the 200 medley relay 200 freestyle 100 butterfly and placed eighth in the 400 freestyle relay
006and then last but not least anaki Garcia Regional finalist and the 200 medley relay placed fifth overall in the 200 individual medley placed seventh in the 500 yard freestyle and eighth in the 400 freestyle relay and then there are two people that aren't here tonight Kaden Williams and Vicente Chavez and they also competed in the regional meet ings okay we also want to recognize Maddie for being boys coach of the year next we have the spelling bee winners Miss Laura Kelly and Miss Penny story well we can make Maddie come back if you want a photograph yeah she needs to come back Laura Kelly I'm an instructional technology coordinator and I'm here with ISD and I help support the library media Specialists on campuses who help coordinate the spelling bee that happens and it actually
007starts in November with campus-based fees so um classes among the campus each have a spelling bee within their class and then those who advance and dance to a campus space meeting and tonight we are recognizing the winners of the Stampin space beast from all five elementaries and Red Oak Middle School I would like to show you something in our Communications part will be advised sending out information about our facilities and um thank you from Chapman Elementary we have Corey Montgomery from Red Oak Elementary we have Ariana subordin Ary Shields Elementary Nicole Wade East Ridge Elementary Camille Tate wooden elementary Elia banega and from Red Oak Middle School we have Zoe Hancock give them to the campus next we have the UIL academics Middle School Miss Megan Whitford Miss Penny store is going to stay down
008there and help hello I'm Megan Whitford and I am the secondary math and science coordinator for Red Oak and I also work with Advanced academics which includes our academic UIL program for grades two through six our academic UIL programs has 20 different events it spans the curriculum and is designed to complement upon what students learn in the classroom on February 11th our Red Oak Middle School students competed in Innis against students from Venice Corsicana and Waxahachie we had a very successful meet but Taylor go Williams placed first out of all of those teams in impromptu speaking in impromptu speaking you you draw three topics you choose one of those topics you have three minutes to prepare and deliver a speech off the cusp it's pretty amazing so we're very proud of what Taylor did this
009one tonight next we're going to move into our superintendent's report um before I get started and all that I would want to like to make a very quick introduction we did have a change and some leadership uh I'm sorry if if you would like to if your student has been recognized and you would like to to leave this is a great opportunity to do that thank you Mr Peterson for reminding me let's go get ready okay just a very quick introduction of course Red Oak State Transportation is dedicated to transporting our students to and from school safely over probably about half of our students are on those Transportation buses daily and we have had a change of leadership and I just wanted to make sure that we recognize that person introduce her to let y'all
010meet her Rosetta Sanford no relation to me we just have the same last name but Rosetta Sanford is our new Transportation director so I just wanted everybody to have an opportunity to meet her numbers hey so now we'll move into the Red Oak High School student council Miss Thomas if you would like to come up for your annual report foreign hi there I'm Angela Thomas I'm the lead advisor for our student council it says annual report but we've started doing this a little more often because we have a lot to talk about and we don't want to take up too much time in one night um so we were going to cover what we've done since November December um I brought with me my president Gabriella Martinez a senior and one of our committee chairs
011sophomore Lauren Smith good evening we're gonna go ahead and get started thank you on November 19th we hosted our annual friends giving for our student council members this is just a really fun event for us as a council we get to bond and actually interact with each other and not just focus on community and hours just kind of working together as a group and having those connections thank you okay on December 1st we held our annual fall semester blood drive with the American Red Cross it was open to all students and community community members 17 and older this was a huge project for our Council and yeah we collected 86 units of blood and our next blood drive for the spring is Actually March 9th we still have many open spots so we ask that
012all staff and community members sign up I think we had 40 open spots on summer check so if you would like to donate we do ask that you do so by signing up on the Red Cross website and then on December 3rd we did we started this new event I believe a year ago so we got to do our new annual Red Oak Christmas festival booth and this is where our Council gets to really interact with the community the younger children we get to have activities with them give them treats and just celebrate the holiday season as a whole so we really do enjoy that project on December 9th and 10th members in the executive board went to the TASC D3 overnighter this was an event where Council and District 3 learned how to grow
013in their leadership be better team players and make personal connection with others from various councils and then we also had some of our officers serve as Jaycees for the district event as a whole and then coming back from winter break we had our every semester waffle breakfast so on January 5th was teacher return day we had our school members come and make breakfast for our teachers and staff and just kind of a fun way to welcome them back so that way they're not just going straight into work hmm on January 18th members of our Council and executive board attendance of Mavericks leadership Workshop to learn how to grow in their leadership in a very fun way um while they were there we got to we also got to watch the Mavericks um and bond with
014one another and then on January 23rd most of y'all are here but we got to do our school board appreciation project where we gave the school board plaques and we just really kind of got to appreciate them for everything they do not only for our campus but also for our district on January 23rd we hosted the real workshop with Scott bakovich and he came to our school and helped host as full white leadership training and this training we basically took leaders from all different organizations and we brought them into the library and we basically just had a fun bonding experience like teaching about leadership and just growing as leaders in our school in February we did Hi how are you week so we kind of got to focus on the stigma that goes against mental
015illness and mental health and we kind of got to promote mental health within our students and our Council and so we encourage them to wear different colors throughout the week to kind of show the different emotions that humans have as a whole and really start that conversation about how you're doing and just how stress might affect you and how you can overall grow as a student and a leader um two weeks ago was counselors Appreciation Week celebrated we treated our amazing counselors the popcorn and handwritten notes from our members because they are popular okay on February 6th we took over 30 members from our student council to group dynamics where we got to have a fun day of leadership training but also just interacting with each other growing our skills working as a team by
016doing these fun activities like ropes courses and really building that trust in a hands-on experience um the 100 day of school was on February 10th members of Pop ambassadors asked different organizations around the school to donate 100 of a certain Idol for a local charity okay we got to do our annual hearts for Hawks project on Valentine's Day so we write the names of every single student and staff in our school and we hang them up around the school we've hung them up on the Monday before Valentine's Day that way students and staff could go pick up their hearts with their name on Valentine's Day take it to miss Thomas room or Mr Davis's room and they would get a surprise which is a piece of candy this is really just a fun way for
017us to show love to everyone and so they can feel seen on this special day um a couple weeks ago members of our executive board met with the wooden elementary student code to grow their individual leadership skills and Define what student council was on February 17th was Brandon Max with kindness day so we passed out wooden hugs to our students but also asked our Hawk mascot to do us a favor and walk around the school giving hugs during the Lunch Period on February 18th our advisors some of the executive board members and a few members attended the tafd3 screen conference our committee chairs held a breakout room to teach different schools about report forms and our Council on sweepstakes for our many projects and the report forms that we do also Lawrence Starling our media
018secretary and president Gabriella Martinez were awarded a scholarship by victory for their hands on with their work with industry so a little bit more about spring conference we turned in our giant courtroom with all our projects from the year and we did 117 pride and patriotism based projects within our Council and community 88 energy and environment projects 111 Dash so drug safety um health and alcohol awareness projects and we raised over a thousand four hundred twenty dollars and ninety five cents in monetary donations and and donated over 27 348 worth of goods and collected within our full year over 3406 service hours so we're really proud of everything we've done as a council on top of that we received the outstanding student council and sweepstakes award so we are thankful not only to our members
019and our fellow students but also to all the leaders of our district and school for their support that got us at that point and that is it thank you for your time your content efforts and support of our students and staff and our Council as a whole thank you great group of students if you hadn't had an opportunity to get involved with them you should take it there they are amazing group of students we're going to now jump into a credit recovery report uh for Mr Howard Gatewood our principal Red Oak High School and Lynn Dockery our director of secondary curriculum foreign yeah first of all uh good evening I want to thank the board and the superintendent for allowing me to come and discuss uh our Red Oak ISD credit recovery program just want
020to shed some insight on what that program is all about uh the first thing there inside that pack that I've given you I've given you the purpose of credit recovery it is our Texas administrative code 89.1607 which basically States school districts and open enrollment Charters must develop processes for students who have credit deficits or incomplete coursework that would impede on-time promotion or graduation to earn credit and Implement appropriate academic interventions to address any credit deficiencies identified so again uh it's not like we have an option it's something that we're required to do as a school district whether we are an open enrollment or a charter school or just a regular School District Credit Recovery it allows students who did not pass a course the first or second time to be able to earn credit towards
021a high school graduation through Mastery of content and at a level in which the standards are written credits for the courses needed for high school graduation may be earn only if the student received a great equivalent of a 70 out of a hundred percent okay and also I want to make a point to this here credits are transferable if a student comes in with courses from uh with credits from credit recovery we accept those by law and if our students transfer elsewhere they must accept those also by loan couple of key points I want to break out to you uh just reiterate about credit recovery Ingenuity is the credit online program that the district uses for credit recovery there's numbers out there but uh We've chosen our Edge annuity it has all the components that
022are specific to the state of Texas aligning with the state curriculum which is our teach which is our Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and also it goes along with the scope and sequence of the district students who are successful in the online credit recovery earn credit for the course in which they're recovery there are a couple different ways students earn that credit the toughest thing they can own they can gain full credit which is two semesters half a credit and they can also go in there for great repair to regain instruction from a six-week period so those are the three reasons students are going into credit recovery a couple more key points students are paced through the edge of Duty instructional information I know there's a lot of rumors out there students could just skip
023to the final test at the end but that's not true what happens with that students are actually paced through it it's a lot like the compliance training that staff members do here in the district when every year when they come back from the summer vacation there's videos you have to watch you can't just fast forward through it there's quizzes there's different assignments so they're actually paced through it there's no way to skip all the way to the end and just do the exam it just doesn't work that way uh it also serves a wide range of students we've had students from the AP level all the way down to special education so several types of students all types of students at the high school utilize this program now one thing I want to point out
024to you here that we don't use something called prescriptive testing and if you open that packet that I give you that second page it goes over what prescriptives testing is just real simple prescripting tests works by generating an assessment that the student takes at the very beginning of the course such it can only be enabled before the student has started the course the assessment is generated automatically selecting one question from each lesson in the course if the student answers that question correctly the score the corresponding lesson is automatically customized out of the course we don't use prescriptive testing that's something we've chosen as a district not to utilize we use something called pre-testing and that's that second paragraph that I put in your package for you I would enable the other three tests at the
025beginning of the lesson it's a 10 question quiz before each lesson the pre-test were measures of students knowledge of upcoming of the upcoming content and allow the students to skip the lesson if Mastery has been demonstrated if the student passes the pre-test at the predetermined threshold which is 70 for the district then the system will automatically Advance the student to the pre-test for the next lesson and there's a note at the bottom unlike prescriptive testing pre-testing can be turned on and off at any point regardless of whether or not the student has started the course pre-testine allows the student to truly prove lesson Mastery by requiring them to reach an appropriate percentage on the 10 question quits prescriptive testing only requires one question to prove lesson mastery we just don't feel that one question on
026a lesson is appropriate now it's going to show the level of Mastery so we have opted to turn that function off we don't utilize it at the school we use pre-testing at the beginning the reason we use that pre-tested students are coming into credit recovery and they're not starting they're not starting at ground level zero they have been enrolled in that class whether it's for a year or for the semester or six or six weeks so some of that knowledge they're going to know they're going to have mastered okay okay uh one thing I want to point out students utilize time before during and after school to gain credits for graduation we offer Credit Recovery at Zero Hour that's before school we offer it during the day if it fits into their schedule and we
027also offer it after school in our ninth hour and we also offer it something we've started recently our evening school which is by invitation only for our seniors which is Tuesdays and also Thursdays from five to seven pm I also want to point out Edgenuity is the board approved uh program that we utilize here at the district we also put a hyper leak in there for you send your Oz presentation not going to hyperlink to it right now I notice a lot of stuff out there about Ingenuity about SEL lessons and different things like that we don't offer those at our school only courses that we offer in our Edgenuity are courses that's in our course guide uh just for your leisure later on there's a hyperlink on there that shows you every course that
028we have offered at school for Ingenuity with the number of students enrolled in that course I just want to go ahead and put that out there because there's a lot of misinformation that there's SEL and all kind of stuff that we're doing at our school we only offer courses that are in our course guide only monitoring okay I also want to point out here how our students and Credit Recovery monitored throughout the course now I've verified this here by doing several walkthroughs through that course there uh number one students are able to work on instructional pieces from school or at home that's those daily lessons no different from any other classroom such as you're doing your class work or your homework the difference is students cannot do courses or tests from their house they're not
029open and students must do them in the classroom while monitored by a teacher and I've also put your uh package there if you want to take a look it is just a flowchart just a flowchart uh real simple I had an awesome mid-sized Shoemaker she's in charge of our credit recovery and Hawk success make a flow chart up how that goes here uh number one it talks about the pre-test or Quizlet test number one it's a student passes how they move on if they fail all the different steps that occur I'm not going to read that out to you but I just put that in there just for your uh so you can have on here so you can always have something to refer back to and someone's talking about how our students monitor through
030credit recovery okay uh number another thing I want to talk about here students are actively monitored in the classroom as they work just like any other classroom rely upon that teacher to go around and do active monitoring in that classroom that's something you have to do that you have to do also I want to make a note also when students are taking their quizzes and tests they're not allowed to use their technology they're not allowed to use Google and we'll talk about that there just in one second lot is made about academic dishonesty it's like any other course that's offered at Red Oak High School whether it's an AP dual credit uh all level course academic dishonesty Falls underneath the student code of conduct students found to have engaged in academic dishonesty should be subject
031to grade penalties on assignments or tests and disciplinary penalties in accordance with the student code of conduct and it's one thing I want to point out Ingenuity has something called a plagiarism Checker like fifth students working through those lessons and they just try to cut and paste and answer from Google it will pop up as plagiarized on their Checker we don't have that in the classroom with students are writing out assignments but that is ingenuity embedded in the program and also during exams and quizzes it has a lockdown button feature to where students cannot access Google Yahoo YouTube or any other resources like that only they can utilize during the exams quizzes or tests are spiral notes that the students make I did bring a student with me here tonight uh that graduated and benefited
032from a credit recovery we should talk motorcycles all the time me and the sir got us one of his passions like mines uh Mrs Josh Bernard I wanted him to come on up and just speak about the benefits of credit recovery thank you for Justin uh sorry guys I'm a bit underdressed for this just got in from work um but yes uh I was pretty much about to fail flunk out whatever however you want to I guess put it I um I couldn't really I guess understand as well as other kids at the time so I ended up I guess wanting to skip school a lot and then miss werch and miss uh the Shoemaker they ended up uh really talking to me and getting me into uh the credit recovery and Ingenuity and when
033I got into Ingenuity I ended up understanding a lot more than I would have in a classroom full of other students because there's lots of distractions and a lot of other issues going on like that but I was able to get an edge annuity and graduate a year late but I graduated you know and my plan wasn't to graduate my plan was to just drop out and you know find a find a trade school or anything like that but I'm I'm glad that I graduated from Red Oak you know go Hawks [Laughter] Jonathan don't you have new twins in your life too Howdy Folks my name is Christopher cope uh without this program I I definitely wouldn't have made it uh much like other students in the class with us um it helped a lot
034with the focus at ADHD so trying to focus in a normal classroom is pretty hard other students making Racket and all that good stuff so uh being able to sit in a quiet classroom focus on my screen not have to worry about other people uh they helped a lot and definitely attribute that to my graduation I just wanted to bring uh system students here so you can hear their testimony because this is a worthwhile program and I'm glad that the state that requires to have it because there's some students I don't care if it takes four years five years or something six years we need to go out and do everything we can to get them to graduate from high school okay out of any questions at this time I don't have a question but
035I mean these are these are the students that I had when doing mentor's care right it was there were students that got in trouble uh they got off track and they got so far behind they didn't think they had a chance to to catch up and follow the normal graduation uh practice so through this program every kid that I had where they were a little bit late but they were still able to get back on track and finish their graduation and go on to do whatever they wanted to do to start with right I kind of got to give them that second chance so it is a good program and we we appreciate what you guys are dealing with though I appreciate you sir it's always fun to be in the high school when one
036of them finishes and you walk in the office and they're putting the cap and gown on them because it's not at graduation and all the noise makers and all that was a great feeling to do that and I rode along beside Jonathan and I'm very proud of you what you've turned out to be yeah thank you gentlemen for for coming tonight and and speaking on behalf of the people who have come along who have been in your shoes have done what you guys have done um your your testimony um my dad got kicked out of school in like eighth grade bro so um this stuff wasn't around when in in the late 70s and 80s and stuff and and I just appreciate your courage to come and speak about it so maybe somebody who didn't
037have doesn't have the courage to go get involved in Credit Recovery maybe they'll step in and do that because of your your testimony and we really appreciate you on what and stepping out and saying so well I appreciate you guys thank you thank you hey we're going to move into uh strong foundations update uh Melissa shulak our executive director of curriculum and instruction good evening so in your packet and the Publix packet we had these strong foundations math framework for Red Oak ISD this was developed by a committee of teachers and administrators we went through a training called research-based instructional practices with a provider the meadow Center and we learned about what it takes to have a solid successful math instructional curriculum and framework you'll notice in the graphic we the graphic kind of summarizes
038it the vision statement is says that we want our students to be mathematically prepared for post-secondary life and then if you get into the belief statements they're kind of summarized in the other pieces of the box there one of the research-based instructional practices was balancing conceptual understanding and procedural skills so we want kids to not only be able to provide the to be able to perform the operations of math but we want them to understand the contents of why they're doing those operations in math and what what goes into those we want them to understand the key Concepts to the depth that the takes are written we want there to be coherence across grade levels so that they don't have gaps in that understanding so that there's we kept calling it a math story so
039their math story is complete pre-k through 12. and then finally the part that we struggled with the most was productive struggle and as Educators we want our kids to have a level of struggle and that's what that's the word that we had the problem with because we don't you know in our minds we say we don't want our kids to struggle but this type of struggle truly is helping them make meaning of it for themselves so it's not struggling to the point of frustration and discouragement but it's there are always things in our life that we wrestle with until they make sense to us and we have a part in owning that making sense for us and that's what this means so it's that appropriate level of kept coming back to the word struggle that
040that we deal with to understand something and connect it to other things that we know so all four of these work together to provide a solid math foundation for our students the work the grant that we got focused in early instruction but we felt strongly that we wanted to carry this framework all the way up through our high school students so that they're getting the same level of math instruction that our younger students are so we did involve teachers and administrators from all of our campuses so that this is a Pre-K 12 framework not just a K3 as the grant required we went beyond that scope and then finally looking at what commitments we would make as different entities within the district for example the students the families teachers administrators we included instructional coaches because
041they're a big part of our work here in Red Oak and finally campus District administrator so who who has what roles in making sure that this happens for our students and I am I am happy to answer questions you have we have folks in the room who did help assemble this framework if you have questions you would like to address to things on there this is really just an informational piece when you were looking at this program sorry when we're looking at this program we're talking about family involvement yes you know uh has this gone out to her parents you know so great question we are just now working on our implementation plan the first part of it was to develop this and we did get input from various groups uh the next piece then
042is how do we roll it out to each of those groups and help develop that common sense of responsibility for the success of our students in math instruction okay I'll just like I said with their their families it would just make sure that we're engaging them absolutely you know so that way we can get everybody to buy in on it you know and uh have a great education for our children absolutely that is why we pursue this and we we definitely have included all of the groups in our implementation plan and how do we get it to them to get their buy-in for that for their students so is the focus on the process or the answer in math well we want students to understand why they're doing what they do to get to that
043answer uh balancing the conceptual with the procedural we want them to understand why procedures happen the way they do to get to that answer I think what you're driving at is it is about the right answer or how you got that answer is that am I summing that up correctly yeah we we of course want students to get to be accurate with their math but how they get to that answer is just as important if not more important than what that answer on line two is I think that I think the thing that she's pointing out is that for hundreds of years that we've used one once one method of math and you know most people in this room will agree that it's not the way that we were taught and I think that something
044that Johnny alluded to was the families well a lot of stuff that's being taught now and I'm just telling you from my from Brian sebring's home it's pain in the tail right to to have to illustrate everything out and instead of this is the answer because that's what the answer is because that's the way that we were mostly all taught through memorization right and so I think that um that's what the new process is but I also side with you on the line of thinking this math is math and if math is right then math is right and I it there's a lot of stuff that that I see my I see my three students that that is they go because they've been taught the process all the time but as a parent I'm really
045not that much of a help to them because I wasn't taught in the same manner like I can tell you hey this one the answer is because that's how we were all all taught and the as a society they're really moving away so that you can break it down about it's more about not memorization and it's about the why and the how and and I think that's where it really breaks it down um when for us it was just like it is because I said it is the math facts because that that's that automaticity piece that allows them to work quickly and not get frustrated and not always have to have the calculator I mean calculators are certainly a part of our life and and we teach students to use them effectively but we want
046them to understand what's happening it's the way to break it down whenever you don't when you're unable to have a memorization piece it's for the the math practices that we teach in school into other situations online and so just a overly simple example I mean it's way simple but we all learn to add subtract right did anybody tell you in first grade when you were learning to and subtract that you were going to balance checkbooks one day no but you learned how to take that out and subtract into balancing a checkbook again that is a way simple example but you know we want kids to understand the why of math so that when they have application for it in life it's there for them sure so so how we're going to quantify to show are
047we hitting the mark are we missing the mark I mean because if you if we can't if if you can't quantify it to show results then how do you know what we're doing is the right thing to do so we are as part of our implementation plan making a data plan for what data we're going to look at we're definitely of course going to look at some star scores we're going to be using our map data throughout the school year to identify where our kids are still struggling and where we need to enhance with deeper Concepts or where we're missing a piece of a grade level and where we need to fill that back in we also are looking at conversations with our teachers about balancing that procedural understanding and conceptual conceptual understanding procedural skills
048but there are a lot of ways that we're going to measure are we being successful in map instruction another thing that we're going to use the framework for is to say when we look at instructional materials we want to select materials that support this in the classroom I know that our teachers right now are elementary teachers especially are someone frustrated with their math resources that are we've adopted so as we look at new Adoption materials this will give us more information against which to look at those materials are they going to meet our needs oh yeah I know we're working to help our kids post-secondary and one's going into college but every kid should be able to do basic math basic accounting you know at the basketball game the other night uh my total bill
049was eleven dollars I gave them a 20. and not one but two kids couldn't give me back the right change uh you know you should be using math all the time you shouldn't need a calculator if it says you got 60 miles to go you're driving 60 miles an hour how long it's going to take you shouldn't have to put it into your map tell me how long it goes but that's what that's what the kids are doing can we reverse some of that and have the kids you know at the younger ages they're thinking they're thinking the math so they understand why they're doing it what they're doing but it should be an all the time you know if you're walking in a classroom you're looking at the clock it's math yes right there's
050math with you all day long every day everywhere you go and that's that procedural skill we want to balance you're speaking to to this exactly we don't want to be heavy in one or the other we don't want to be so heavy in understanding the why and the pro and the theory of it that we miss out on the basic function of it so this is the first one right here is talking about that balance making sure that our kids have both because everybody has brought up great points I'm similar age to a lot of you we learned the basic functions of math you know the the operations of math and then we went to in the time when math instruction was all about the why and the the bigger picture of it there is
051a balance there and that is one of the first points of this framework is that we have to have that balance well schools that have used this excuse me um I have heard conversations about there are some children that are just math oriented I mean it just comes easy for them and so when they are getting a grade on something the children who have just natural math skills sometimes know the answers and they you know but will they be graded according to did you do the process to get the answer and or did you get the answer so I will be very honest this framework is not driving up the grading side of math this is thriving at how do we as the adults teach and instruct math great questions thank you thank you thank
052you hey I'm gonna talk very quickly about our strategic planning initiative our flight plan 2023 as you know it's 2023 so it has to be readdressed and updated so we're excited about diving into the strategic planning process and building our future goals for Red Oak ISD I'll be facilitating the strategic planning committee with assistance of our executive director of communications Miss Trimble and the committee is made up of four community members for parents for teachers for non-teaching Rural employees four campus administrators for alumni or current students for Central administrators and it's going to be cabinet members that I've assigned and then two board assigned members as well so we are starting those meetings this month there's a lot that we're going to be doing in a short amount of time we're going to be connecting
053our board goals that y'all have adopted and the district Improvement plan with our long-term District goals we're going to focus on people and processes for the maximum Effectiveness and efficiencies and we're going to assess data annually to modify the plan as needed there are four committee meetings and then after that we'll have two public Community meetings which we can gather input from those as well and then be prepared to present the board with um the actual flight plan 2.0 and for your approval and implementation so just wanted to kind of give you a brief overview of that let you know you'll get more information as we go through that process any questions on the strategic planning initiative so who are the board members that are going to be on this committee they're board appointed by
054Mr Anderson and Johnny and Donna Knight well it was volunteers volunteers you were volatile [Music] [Laughter] and this is a a quick process that we're going through sometimes that's probably stretched out over longer periods of time but with all the activities and and that were going on and with cobit it kind of threw us behind but hopefully we're going to have that planned very soon that we can present to the community like I said we'll have two meetings public meetings to get community input after we've worked through some of this and then we will do that and gather input before we ever bring it to the board for approval foreign just a few things I have to have to talk about some of the happy things that happen Red Oak ISD hosted its first ever
055District Spanish spelling bee last month students in grades three through five from wooden elementary and shepman Elementary competed for the coveted title of District winner congratulations to Haley Contreras of shepman Elementary third grader for placing first in the third grade band and Abraham Herrera wooden Elementary fifth grader for placing first and the fourth fifth grade band these students will be representing Red Oak ISD at the region 10 Spanish spelling bee and competing on March the 28th so we're excited about that something new it is I think it's a great thing that we're doing there eight football players signed to play Collegiate football during the national Signing Day on February 7th Warren Roberson at UT Texas Moses Martindale Graceland College camandra Yancey Midwestern State University Solomon Frazier Peru State University Brock links Mary hardin-baylor University Franklin
056Hunter Eastern New Mexico State University Micah Jones Texas Lutheran University and seven Butler Southwestern Oklahoma State University that was a great event as well I just encourage everyone watch our web pages and see when we have these activities it's a great time to come out and and actually see the good things going on at Red Oak ISD February 6 13th was National and School counseling week and during the week we celebrated and recognized these professionals who support our students in many situations they provide guidance to help them reach their full potential on a daily basis if you've watched our social media you also know our congratulations are in order for our head coach Adam prachell our head soccer coach he had his 100th career win and all of these wins happened at Red Oak High
057School so we're very excited about that we'll be recognizing him at a board meeting later on after the season is finished congratulations to redo Castle Hawkins who competed in their first contest of the season and brought home over 20 Awards it's amazing as well Red Oak High School varsity girls basketball team are the 2022-2023-145a district Champions and Regional quarterfinalists and they had a great season in our Red Oak High School or Steve basketball team is playing tomorrow night at 7 30 at Garland Caldwell Center versus Forney in the regional quarterfinals so we've got a lot of great things going on with our kids I encourage you to really watch things and and try to get involved and see all the great things we have going on in the district that's all okay we'll move into
058our open Forum section we now move the public comment session of our agenda that board welcomes comments from citizens who have completed the public comments forms this evening which are accepted prior to the start of the meeting and are not transferable with other speakers please be advised that the information shared in public comment is the opinion of the individual speaker not the district two minutes per person have been alive for public comments you'll see two minutes up on the screen uh once you state your name um I think you're ready to start then he'll start the clock please keep our public comments ready to school district governments and operations if you have a specific concern related to the employee of the district or a specific student issue you're encouraged to utilize the district's agreements procedures
059provided in the board's policies on the district website finally remember that the board may not discuss or act upon any issues that are not properly posted on the agenda we have four that have signed up tonight um Mr Christopher cope did he leave I think he signed up for to speak earlier uh John Holbert he left all right we have two uh Kim Starman my name is Kim Sturman and I just wanted to read a letter uh to you all and ask you to um consider what our state representative Brian Harrison has said about getting out of tasby um he says this month this letter was dated January 30th 2023. this month has we released a new legal guidelines related to transgender policies in schools this dangerous legal advisory appears to encourage school districts to
060refrain from reporting child abuse and to obscure information regarding children's exhibiting gender dysphoria from their parents in the guidance Tasman Also may be encouraging schools to violate Texas recent law the save girls Sports act and allow biological males to participate in girls Sports we feel the duty bound to make sure all elected officials charged with overseeing the education of Texas students of Texas are aware of this the vast majority of Texas voters this is from Mr Harrison says that voter support conservative Traditional Values and the rule of law so it is important most at most important that these hard-working Texans are not forced to fund organizations that work against their values and potentially Place their children In Harm's Way it's important to realize that tasby is a lobbying organization that's paid by our tax dollars
061Mr Harrison says we respectfully ask you to do the right thing for The taxpayers Who entrust you with stewardship of their hard-earned money and immediately leave taspy by remaining in tasby you are forcing the tax dollars to be weaponized against them their values and their children so um I would request that you would consider this and don't adopt any policies from Tasman until everyone's had a thorough chance to vet them and look them over thank you thank you Bill Foster the subject today for tonight before the horse but my name is Bill Foster um 9 30 FM 2377. before I start my commentary tonight I'd like to call attention we're being filmed right okay I'm not carrying an AK-47 I don't have a suicide vest on me in any shape form or fashion just so
062everybody knows that I'm you know uh I don't want to be accused of violation of taspy policies um prior to attending this meeting tonight I noticed that you have votes on two tests be policies uh like I said I'm jumping the I'm putting the cart before the horse here I don't know what news sources y'all obtain your local national news from but I would hope you're aware there's been a dust up in the state of Texas regarding the funding of lobbying groups for school boards I think that's what Miss Starman was referring to in the letter from Brian Harrison no one ever says who this Lobby group is but it is tasby Texas Association School boards it lobbies the legislature in favor of policies over the objections of parents it weaponizes our tax dollars against
063our school parents in other states parents have been arrested jailed or thrown out of the school board meetings for speaking against School Board policies the National Association urges the FBI to investigate parents who speak against them as terrorists hence my comment it's first of this my question to you is you know who you're climbing in bed with when you start voting on tasby policies um you know this organization uh or it's my understanding that this organization is so reprehensible that has been removed from 10 states or plus 10 or more states to include the state of California you know that state on the Left Coast of us Texans hold up as the beacon of conservative values and righteous conservative thought I'd urge you not to adopt anything from tasby and furthermore I would urge you
064to disassociate yourselves from this organization entirely our legislatures Brian Harrison urging you to do so and I think you should listen thank you thank you thank you all right we'll move into our action items you have the consent agenda play for you is there anything that you want removed to discuss do we have a motion I moved to approve the consent agenda as presented second most Peterson the second bombers night all in favor say aye aye any opposed same son motion passes next we have the consideration approval of purchase of school buses from uh 2023 2024 budget Mr frills oh however Branch Mr this purchase is for 277 passenger buses and 154 passenger three-wheel chairs Special Needs Bus these buses will be equipped with three-point seat belts and meet the requirements for the SB 693
065this is a historical three uh bus purchase that we do every year before next year's budget we always bring it about this time because it takes that time by the time we order it it takes him about six months to build it for us to get it uh we are going with the 54 passenger uh three wheelchair bus this year and the reason for that is because if I ordered the standard one we have we we usually get that we're about two years and so with the three wheelchair that's something that they can get in 90 days and uh we're going to build a route to sustain that where it's not pulling in driveways and stuff but it's something that we're going to try to do uh through the transportation department okay anybody have any
066questions are we going to use our funds from our maintenance note no this is usually we budget for this in the transportation budget but always ask ahead of time before I purchase it just because of how long it takes to order it the other thing um on the camera system is this camera system is it already mounted when we get them or our shop installs them when we get them we have our own camera system that we purchase and that we we have all the hard drives and everything that we can pull out Download the film and watch the videos and stuff but we install those ourselves it comes with everything else okay I was just curious because I've seen the shipping in there and I thought you know if it's already installed but if
067we're installing I understand that yes but um yeah I know uh looking at her Fleet the other day and I thought yeah we we've got a few that need to go bye-bye yep that's right now that we're utilizing this 2004 so it's almost 20 years old but when we started this program 10 years ago those buses now are 10 years old the first ones will be doing this program so our goal is to try to clean over 15 to 18 years which we're trying to do that and can you share the cost of this by the public um well I know buses have gone up for sure everything happens the total cost is 399 143.44 question that uh we approve uh the purchase of the two 77 passenger buses in the 154 pasture with the
068three uh wheelchair uh bus that get the appropriate three-point seat belt system for the 2023-2024 budget second is that Mr Sebring it was we have a motion by Mission night second by Mr Sebring all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed Samsung motion pass the signal thank you sir thank you consideration approval resolution authorizing Ellis Appraisal District Chief appraiser or other employees of Ls Appraisal District to act as agent for riddle Gusty and I'm going to be presenting that tonight you have in your packet the actual background information but just for public awareness this is a new rule that was created Created after last year's uh property value uh study in which it says that a chief appraiser or other employee of an appraisal district that appraises property for the school district protesting the
069comptroller's property value study findings may not be designated as the agent for the protesting School District unless the governing voting of the appraisal Appraisal District authorizes the chief appraiser or other employees to act as their agent and so that is what you have before you is actually a resolution authorizing the Ellis Appraisal District Chief appraiser in order to do our property value study it's also to ensure the equitable distribution of State funding I believe you said earlier this is something that typically superintendents yes typically the superintendent signs off on this and we just do that ourselves but now it has come to the attention of the appraisal district that has changed and now it is board approval you'll have to actually approve that in the past I've just signed off on it any other questions
070we have a motion a move that we adopt the resolution authorizing the Ellis County Appraisal District Chief appraiser or other employee of the EAD to act as agent in regard to filing a protest against the Comptroller 2022 property value study for Red Oak ISD second well most of my Ms Peterson a second by Mr Sebring motion passes 7-0 next we have a consideration approval of tea staff development minutes waiver Mr frills we've been doing this waiver in Red Oak for as long as I find it used to be three days for the staff development then when these calendar changed from 180 school days to 75 600 minutes back in the 1617 school year Red Oak has always asked for the 2100 minutes it gives us flexibility within our calendar which Miss Sanford and others are
071working on but for us to work on that calendar we need to get this approved now so we can submit it to the state to see if we are going to be eligible to get the minutes for the 23-24 school year because they no longer do them a three-year intervals they do them every year now so we have to and we're told that that window is going to open up in March so that's why I'm bringing it tonight so I can be one of the first ones to get in the portal to apply any questions we have a motion I'll make a motion that the board approved the staff development man it was waiver for up to the 2100 minutes for the 2023 2024. school year most of them Mr Knight the second by Miss
072Peterson all in favor say aye aye any opposed Samsung motion passes 7-0 next consideration sorry thank you oh sorry I turned 58 I get confused these days consideration approval of ties being local board policy DC local Employment Practices good evening currently the board delegates to the superintendent the authority to hire contractual Personnel from April 1st to August 31st that used to be our hiring season due to Staffing challenges facing Texas public schools and really elsewhere I don't think you can go anywhere now that someone doesn't say sorry wait for us we're having staffing issues we're beginning our staffing season our hiring season earlier for example we hosted our first Red Oak ISD job fair on Saturday and administrators we're able to we had a good showing administrators were able to interact with staff who truly
073want to be in Red Oak and so we were able to um to have them offer intent letters so we're interested in you we want you to come to the district but in that process it takes time people have to get fingerprinted we have to do background checks and so since we're meeting this evening we have not had the time since Saturday to be able to do all of that but we don't want to lose these applicants and so the next board meeting would not be till March 27th which is a lot of time for them to still look elsewhere sometimes people just feel like they want that contract in their hand to know it is completely finished and so for example the eight letters we offered um on Saturday we would like to be
074able to hire them this year also we usually end hiring in about August we were still hiring through September the thing with that is schools already started and we need people in our classrooms we need Paris so we actually need to make that time frame longer as well and so we're coming to you requesting that we adjust the wording in the local policy to provide opportunities for us to quickly hire new applicants beginning earlier February 15th and ending later September 29th then the hiring season has been in the past and so that would allow the superintendent to make the decisions it would still come to you like it does every month it would just not need to wait till that next month to be able to give that person a contract questions [Music] so just
075so the audience understands these are local policies that we're asking to modify not something from tasby these are our policies and we they do do they do capture the changes and put them online for us but these are our policies not not a taxi policy we have a motion I'm just gonna say so all we're doing is extending our hiring time so that and the opportunity to offer a contract correct so the superintendent y'all right now have provided the authority so from April 1st to August 31st that was more typical of when our hiring season started now it's we have to get in and get moving earlier as well as other districts and so we actually looked at dates and tried to be the first district to host a job fair um so not saying
076that people close to us are having theirs next weekend um but we want to be able to get the applicants however we had it Saturday and today is the board meeting and so we haven't been able to do fingerprints or backgrounds or certification checks and so now we would have to wait till the next board meeting March 27th to be able to hire the staff we don't want to lose them in that time frame and some people get anxious if they can't have a contract in their hand and sometimes when they have the contract they feel like okay this is settled and I know that I'm for sure going there and we want to be able to do that if the superintendent has authority to hire and we change that from February 15th to September
07729th it just means as soon as we have everything provided through our process we can hand them a contract and then you'll still get the Personnel information that we provide you you'll still see all of it it just gives a superintendent that ability to offer that contract yeah we we typically open the window but they were a little bit larger window to do it and the next year we'll come back for a little larger it's just cold you're right we'll just do it a little at a time now you just have February 15th to September 29th but it's September 15th no only recommendation it says September 29th on the other piece it does say the 15th but on the recommendation it says the 29th so can we fix that in the yes make sure they
078fix that one okay on our policy it shows September 15th so yeah so it was going from August 31st to 15th so okay do we have a motion a move that we the the board revised the Tasman board policy DC local as recommended Becca with a motion about Mr Sebring say goodbye miss Knight all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed same sign motion passes 7-0 consideration approval tazbeat local policy update 120 Mr light so much like the policy you just looked at these are local policies and the changes I want to take just a minute to go over them in the first policy there was language added about requiring us to in our Emergency Operations plan to consider a nearby train derailment so the trained realment language was added in the next one
079they removed some language about Innovation plan the next one they moved words around so instead of saying complaints within the scope of Section 504 that language scope of Section 504 was later in it so it's just moving around of some of the words in the FNG and then they added a number 14 about students eligibility for free and reduced price meals program uh complaints about that being submitted in accordance with COV and the last one let me look over there again is moving some wording around so it is not changing the intent of most of them the the thought behind them it is just clarifying Language by where they're positioning it so one of the five roles and responsibilities of our independent school boards is to provide local governments and oversight of Education under the
080authority of our local communities who elect their school trustees so at this I would like to recommend that in the future that when we have changes presented that the school board have the opportunity to meet in their in their regular meetings and quotation and discuss what's been recommended I mean these things are recommended um school board has gotten them to read them but there has been no meeting discussing them among the school board because there might be something the school board locally would like to address so correct me if I'm wrong with Sanford because this is on the agenda y'all can discuss it tonight and come back after closed session and vote on it then which would give you all that opportunity or you can table it till the next meeting I think that the
081school board should discuss these things among themselves and and because we get a rent we get something we read it individually but then we don't discuss it as a group and uh that is I'm here to present it it is certainly y'all's decision how you do it and I'm making a recommendation that we do group discussion about these uh changes okay would that be something in closer session or that would that be something we would discuss at this point in the meeting yes it would be at this point in the meeting I don't believe it would fall under the guidelines of close I didn't think so that you have so it's definitely open for discussion once once it's called okay it's the open meetings would prohibit us from actually doing that open meetings Act okay
082so do you have in particular part question that you want to talk about I mean this is the time so uh run through those again so the what is the one about District of innovation I think some people don't is actually taking out the language about District of innovation from the policy so it's eliminating that from the policy it's no longer required to be there so that piece is coming out so if you take out the District of innovation then what happens I mean what are we taking out of it's taking out the language with saying that in accordance with the Innovation plan the district's exempt from the requirement in the Education Code last back on of providing group health benefits for School Employees and the prohibition of making Group Health Coverage available after coverage
083under TRS has begun so looking at the timing of when coverage can change it still talks about the board annually determining the district's contribution it still talks about the district continuance contribution toward the cost of employees group health coverage while they're on paid lead and it still talks about the district shall not otherwise expend public funds group health insurance coverage yeah it's it's covering how we handle yes Group Health is that it yes and the decision-making points are still there for y'all in the language it is staying there okay the next one stop the next one let me get back to my page one you know there were 31 changes but not all this right here so the legal changes aren't voted on those are law they're just our policy is the law the ones
084that y'all vote on for approval are the local policies well I just want to make a comment about tasping it not being a government body and so I think that school boards should look at the illegal requirements or suggestions for policies because Tasman is not a government body and they do not make law and some of their policies have been in conflict with the law of Texas so we just want to make sure that we don't approve something that is that way because we didn't look at it so yeah where do you want what do you want to do you do you want to table it well I think the words look at the legal ones what's that the board should look at the legal ones I think because tasby is a dues paying they're
085a we pay these to belong to them they're not mandatory they're Statewide lobbying Association um so we should just look at them I actually because we belong to tasby I've been a part of their legislative Council and set through meetings in Austin with them on what they're going to propose to the legislators and had some input there but I'm just one out of hundreds that come and do that and actually was in Austin Monday this past Monday with the tasby and the Texas Association of administrators and listening to the control or talk about the money it's available for the schools and what to do with it so um I I personally don't believe it's a good idea for just us to automatically adopt their legal requirements they may be wonderful but they may not so
086so okay so do you have a motion what do you want to do I would say we table it and that we use okay so your motion is to table it until further discussion or further before we can look at the the policies literally make sure you realize these are local the legal is not something that that the board can vote on because they're they change those based on legislative updates but they being taspy are not a government um would you like foreign [Music] the agenda item is a local policy so we've got okay we can't jump into something that's not on the agenda am I correct or wrong we're not jumping into anything that's on another agenda she's asking can you table it until there's the Sheep's table and that to talk about the
087legal policy it's just not talking about any of them right any of them I'm sorry you can vote on local and you can't what you're saying is you can't vote on the legal but you can vote on your local policies right which is what this agenda is that's right only this board has not collectively looked at it now if the board doesn't want to do that that's okay I'm one board member but that's what we're doing right now that's what we're doing in the open session is talking about this agenda item S one more questions do you have on this agenda I'm not going to have any on this agenda items this evening but I think in the future uh we will have that the School Board needs to look at these policies because we
088do vote on them and they come from testing it is local tasby is not a government entity it is a Statewide lobbying Association sometimes what they're saying is good sometimes it might not be because the legislatures have said that some of their suggestions or their policies do not align with Texas laws so shouldn't we look at that and see yes okay we've got to either of these changes in this local policy that are under this agenda item is what we're voting on do you have a question or table this item item f until the next board meeting so that's the motion we need a second to continue and then we'll vote on that motion unless somebody wants to to change the motion then you gotta follow that motion the motion on the floor right now
089is for to table it well okay I want to understand what you're asking though you're saying that in close up like if you're tabling it in closed session you want us to discuss the legal stuff that we're not doing anything we need to discuss tasby policy that was presented to US 31 items from taspy not a law-making agency so everything that's under legal is what you're asking us to take I'm saying we have 31 items presented to us now with local and legal and we as a board should look at what's presented to us okay I just wanted to make sure I understood yeah is not illegal entity okay and but make sure you understand that they base that on the administrative code so it is they're not actually creating the policy they are actually
090wording the policy to make sure the school district is following the administrative code so you're correct they don't create the law but they're actually taking whatever changes are in that Administrative Code just to give you information on where they're pulling that from they're pulling that from the administrative code yeah so I just uh local school boards should look at things and for the local and for our school for our school this is Statewide things we should look in our school do we do we agree with that do we support it do we not so that's part of what school boards do is local governments and administrative code they're interpreting it for us well maybe they did it right maybe they didn't okay we have a motion on the floor to table it until the next
091board meeting do you have a second sure we have a second all in favor say aye aye all propose all right to vote oh no we need to be a little more clear so if you're for it raise your hand tailing it two three four you're against raise your hand one two three and so it passes four three to table it until the next board meeting so just one comment that I have we get this 72 hours prior so we have time to review this and we have time to go through it and there's times to make phone calls and ask questions that's the reason they send it out early enough that we can review it and go through the process um and that's where I guess the reason I'm voting the way I'm voting
092because like I said I've read through it understand it understand the changes that need to be made and it's local so that's the reason I said I think it needed to go through so that's my stance we really can't call each other as a group I mean because we'd have a forum on the phone so my point about this concept as a school board when we are doing policy which is one of our major responsibilities but we can call for a special meeting or table it or through that process discuss it right now when it was open that's what the meeting is for we said we could have a discussion but then it was tabled so but I think she's saying there's 31. are we going to sit here and go through 31 right now
093or is she saying you can talk about them but you can't vote on legal legal rights but I think she just wants to discuss it as a board we all get it early and she's saying we individually look at it and that's what Johnny just said we're individually looking at but you're saying you want to discuss it as a board right yes okay and that has to be open session so you will actually have the exact same thing in front of you next time because that's not changing sure yeah so for the next so for the next meeting I think what we're asking or what's been asked is to read through the policy if you have a question that's the time we'll open it up you can ask your questions and if you have a
094question before we get here then we need to ask those questions so they can have the answers uh not not as a group but individual you can you can submit questions but um but then when we take when we come back together we will have a short discussion about what you looked up you may not have any questions bro but maybe somebody does I mean you were tabling it for one one meeting it's not gonna uh you're not gonna kill us we're gonna be all right so okay that concludes our action items you'll find the information items in the back of the packet uh nothing else the time is 8 32 PM the board will adjourn and closed session pursuant to multiple Texas government codes as listed on the engines