001Good evening. The time is 6 p.m. on September 16, 2025. I call this regular meeting of the Rockport Fulton Independent School District to order. that the records show that a quorum of board members is present, that this meeting has been duly called, and notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code, chapter 551. We'll begin the meeting with a prayer led by Trusty Burton. All right, please bow your heads. Heavenly Father, we come before you today with grateful hearts, asking for wisdom, guidance, and clarity as we gather to make decisions for the benefit of our students, staff, and community. Help us lead with integrity, to listen with compassion, and to act with fairness. May our choices reflect the values of unity, respect, and a deep commitment
002to the education and well-being of every child in our district. bless our schools, our educators, and our families. And may this meeting be productive and purposeful. In your name we pray. Amen. Please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance in the Texas pledge. 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 flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God one and indivisible. Thank you very much cadetses. This evening we have cadet lantern. She is a fourthyear student of the NJOTC. She participates in the unarmed basic drill team, commands the unarmed exhibition team, academic team, and physical fitness teams. She is the executive officer of the unit and cadet latterman lantern men,
003I apologize, plans to major in business. She plans to attend a 4-year university. Her long-term goal is owning her own clothing line and fashion store. Also this evening with us is Cadet Horseman. Cadet Horseman is a secondyear student of the NJROTC. She is the supply petty officer of the unit. She is part of the unarmed basic drill team, armed regulation drill team, color guard, academic team, and physical fitness teams. Cadet Horseman plans to on joining the Navy. She would like to work in human resources. She aspires to follow in her father and grandfather's footsteps. They both served in the Navy. Thank you, ladies. All right, that moves us to agenda item four, which is our district celebrations. And I'll turn this over to Dr. Austin. >> All right, I'd like to start first with G&H
004Towing. If Mr. McGinness can come come on up and as he comes up, I just want to tell everyone out there and our board, uh, thank you so much, Mr. McInness for your unwavering support of maritime. Not only does he support monetarily, but he also works with our advisory group very closely with our instructors. And I cannot say it enough, but we are extremely grateful and he's here tonight to present something. So, would you like to say something? >> So, yeah, I'm Mark McInness. I work with G&H Towing. I've worked with G&H Towing for 33 yearsish or so. Um, we operate 52 harbor tugs along the Texas coast, 12 right here in Corpus Christi, Rockport area. We've uh taken uh three of the Rockport students that were interns and have hired them permanently. Uh I
005can't say enough about the maritime program. Uh we those kids that we've taken are are excellent and really well prepared for the job that they've got. So would our maritime and our CTE college career military director and maybe more titles, Miss Amber Lab, come up? You know, you're brand new. You get a big Oops. Amber, I should have just said stay on up here. You get the next one. Our college board recognition. This evening, we're proud to recognize a group of outstanding students who have earned national recognition for their performance and academic achievements. This year, 24 students from Rockport Fulton High School were invited by Big Future to submit their information for consideration. To be eligible, they must meet rigorous criteria, scoring in the top 10% of test takers on the PSAT, qualifying as a
006first generation or rural test taker within the state, or earning a three or higher on at least two AP exams taken in the ninth or tth grade, all while maintaining a B+ or higher GPA. So, of those eligible, 14 of our students were awarded national recognition, which is increase from five last year. This growth highlights the dedication of our students, families, and teachers to academic excellence. So, we proudly congratulate the following students. And if you are here, if you would come up, I have a certificate for you. Cam Alustin, Addison Burton, Olivia Carney, Leila Davala, Burke Johnson, Gus Johnson, Wyatt Calher, Javen Lelay Lincoln. No. Alyssa Win, Shabban Patel, Saraphina Pitch, Landon Thornberry, Uh, Katarina Vanoea We are incredibly proud of these students for representing RFISD with their hard work, talent, and perseverance. You too.
007So, five to 14. Great job, y'all. Now, we have our healthy South Texas school presentation and we have Megan Glidden with us from the&M Agro Life Extension Agent as an agent. was asking about my baby. He's hanging out over there. Hold on. Okay. So, for those of you that don't know me, my name is Megan Glidden. I work for Texas&M Agro Life Extension here in Aranis County. I am the family and community health agent, which allows me to work on healthy lifestyle programming within our community. And besides doing that, I'm also the um for those of you that don't know what a you know aggro life agent is. U most people recognize the 4 program and I coordinate help coordinate the 4 program here in our county and we actually have one of your 4ers
008here. This is Connor Hill. He's a sophomore here at RFISD and he is helping me tonight um distribute um our healthy uh South Texas school designation certificates and proclamations and banners. We go all out. So, um I'm so lucky that I'm able to partner with Rockport Folton ISD. Um your principles, your coaches, your counselors, your staff, they are so welcoming of me when I come to your campus and say, "Hey, let's do this." And sometimes it seems like a wild idea that we get a bunch of kids to walk, you know, their first, you know, mile together and for walk across Texas. But it is an exciting program and um it's also part of your shacks wellness plan for the district and I find that to be really really lucky. Not all agents have their
009programming within your dis within their district's um wellness plan. And so together we offer um programs for healthy lifestyles including walk across Texas, learn, grow, eat and go, mindful self, and cooking well with friends, which which your teachers really love cooking well with friends because I feed them. And those are actually the most popular programs because I feed them. Uh and these together helped all the schools be designated a healthy South Texas school um this year. And this is the first year that every school within the district is designated a healthy South Texas school. And I will say it is also a rarity to get an entire school district designated as a healthy South Texas school. And so, Healthy South Texas, for those of you who haven't heard of it, it is a push for
010healthy programming within a specific 27 county region in the state of Texas, which has been designated as low socioeconomic, lack of resources, and um actually some of the unhealthiest counties in the state of Texas. You'd actually be surprised where Ranis County lands on that list. It's about 230 something out of 250 counties in the state of Texas. Um, but what I have here for the schoolboard tonight, it's um basically the entire healthy South Texas program. So, it's 27 counties, but information from the programmings that we did within your schools are in here. Um, you won't it won't say RFISD, but your students were part of the numbers, your teachers were part of the numbers. And so, I just want you to see, you know, what what that means in the whole state of Texas. Well,
01127 counties really. But if principles from those schools would like to come up, I do have a proclamation, a plaque, and a banner to give you and we'll, you know, snap a great shot. But thank you for being a part of what we do. Thank you. So wonderful. Those are all of our district celebrations. >> Thank you. All right, we'll move to agenda item five, which is public comment. Miss Hill, do we have anyone signed up? All right, then we'll move to item six, board of trustees report. Any committee reports anyone would like to comment about? All right, Mr. Burton. Let's see here. I've just got one um didn't have anything formally prepared, but just a couple of highle comments. Uh today we the uh construction committee uh the construction bond committee met. Um there
012are three of us that were in attendance along with Dr. Austin and um I would say that a big portion of the uh discussion revolved around schedules and um it looks like we're not going to have the movein date ready for October 11th as we originally thought. Uh but next week we will be getting a um I would say the the the new date and so we're looking forward to getting that. Uh there is a couple of outstanding change orders that are currently under review. Um I don't have the details, but I understand that it's uh change order 70 and 71. They are tied to time extensions uh for I believe steel and dewatering, but maybe Okay. Um let's see here. We did do a site visit and uh that was exciting. It's really coming
013together. Uh especially obviously the high school, it's the only thing that we want today. And um uh everything's it's exciting that we're at the the lights at the end of the tunnel, right? We're there. Uh one really good news item uh was that the fire alarm inspections occurred this morning, I believe. And my understanding is that with a photograph or two tomorrow, we will uh have approval there. So, uh that's a big deal. Um I think that's all I've got. And I know we'll be getting an update from Teal and Click here in a bit. Thank you, Mr. Burton. Anyone else? All right, then we'll move to item agenda item 7A, bond 2022, project update, teal construction. Howdy. I'm Adam Field and this is Will Pley. And uh we're sorry Josh wasn't able to make
014it. Um, but we wanted to come down and check out the site, see the progress in person, and uh, give youall a little update on how it's going. So, we we also got to walk the site today, too, as well. And, uh, we're happy with the progress, and we're going to continue to progress. So, we want to get you guys to the end of that tunnel, too, as well. So, um, last month, we began with the installation of canopies and the building signage. We began installing the elevator as well. Um, we continued installation of the concrete pathways as well as the drives throughout the site. Uh, we continued installation of the finishes such as the wall tile, drywall, paint. Uh, and we also continued installation of the low voltage wiring. So, um, this next month
015we will continue the installation of the canopies. Um, continue installing that elevator, get that all finished out. Uh, we will continue installing the finishes. We saw a lot of them today. They were actually spraying epoxy when we were walking through. So, uh, they're getting that job done. Um, they're going to continue site work development, continue glazing the um continue the glazing installation. I apologize. Uh, begin installing the ceiling and tile ceiling tile in the classrooms as well as continue um installation of the mechanical electrical as well as the plumbing components and fixtures. >> Michael Miller, vice president Hill Construction. Uh Jamon is uh out with his wife. She had surgery this morning and Josh had another commitment. Um but just to add to what the Claycom folks said, uh we're at 77 completion per billing.
016Uh money authorized is 30.34 million. Substantial scheduled substantial completion is still February 2026. Uh total contract amount obviously is 39.24 million. uh they kind of went through um what happened this past month and what's going to happen this uh month, but just kind of tackle on tack on to that. Um as I mentioned, the elevator will be done this week. Um we had uh like um uh Mr. Burton said, we had an inspection today by the fire marshall and uh there was a couple of open items, a wire here and there. He said, "Just get me pictures of them whenever it's corrected." and and um and there was some fire cauling and stuff that needed to be completed that he has delegated to Robert with the city of Rockport um you know because it's harder
017to get uh the fire marshall there. So uh Robert's going to pigtail or uh cover that for him and so we should have our cover up you know over the next day or two and as I explained to the the committee members that were present everything is going to move very quickly once you get that cover up. you start seeing the ceiling tile come in. As soon as the ceiling tile is done, BCT flooring starts going in. Each one of those things is a week and a half to two weeks, you know, per um sequence. And so you'll start seeing a very complete looking building very soon. The things that we're working on internally is working with the uh structure cabling sub, the sub that provides all the access control, the control sub for the
018HBAC systems, making sure that all of that gets integrated, making sure that we cover all the bases. So that way whenever they go to plug it in, everything works properly. It's kind of like whenever you buy a new computer, you get it all set up at the house and you start plugging stuff in and and then you fire it up and then you got to go through and make sure that everything is operating properly. So, that's going to be um very critical to this project. Um so, you'll start seeing now that we've got the epoxy floors down, you'll start seeing the plumbing fixtures getting installed, um some of the restroom accessories, all the different partitions and toilet paper holders and things of that nature. So, everything's going to be looking very complete very, very soon.
019Uh so, what you're looking at here, uh these are the display cases in the athletics area. Um that that kind of radius looking one there on the left hand side is going to be kind of a centerpiece to the athletics uh area. That is the wall that separates the corridor from the uh weight training room and the multi-purpose room areas. Uh in this picture you'll see the elevator um in its you know current late stages of completion. Uh it'll be done this week. And what you'll see here on the left hand side, uh, everybody's seen that temporary wall. That temporary wall is now down. This is the separation from the classroom wing into the commons area. You'll see that our temporary partitions have been moved to the rough openings uh that separate that area from
020the commons. Uh, right here you'll see the peninsula. Um, you know, kind of the the hood ornament on the vehicle, if you will. Uh you can see where we have installed the ACM paneling on the west side. Uh they've been working on the ACM panel today on the east side, but we've been kind of having to jockey people because the concrete guys are also getting all that paving ready to be poured underneath there for the main entry. Uh you can see in these two pictures, uh building signage has gone up. Uh definitely a sense of pride for the community. You got the home of the Pirates on the back of the athletics facilities and the Rockport Fton logo there on the corner. And I will stand by for any questions. All right. If there are
021none, I will close public comment. Thank you. >> Thank you. We'll move to item 7B, annual maritime presentation. All right. So, um, real close. Um, I want to take this additional opportunity to thank Mark McGinness and G&H Towing for all their support. And like Dr. Austin said they give us internships, donations, field trips. We're going on one in October. And they advise us on our curriculum and how best to support our program and our kids. So, um, also first I would like to say that we want to we will miss Josh Wyn and all that he contributed to our maritime program. We thank him and wish him the best at the navigation district. But today, we are pleased to welcome Truman Jenkins. He has joined us as our maritime teacher. He is has been shadowing
022Josh the past two weeks and also met with some of our industry, community, and college partners. So, we're excited to have Truman join us working with our kiddos. Um, just to show what our program looks like, um, the pathway. First of all, Maritime is a regional program of study, meaning that it only serves certain regions in the state. So there's three regions that have a maritime program in the state of Texas and we are one of those. So our pathway starts with principles of maritime which is the basic level maritime instruction where they learn a lot about safety on the water and safety in the shop. Then the next set of courses will be maritime science one and intro to shipboard engineering backtoback. So they get skills in maritime transportation as well as the engineering
023side of it both sides. and they have a chance to do some projects and work on different things. Then following that class, we have maritime science 2 and advanc shipboard engineering and that just is upper level of the same things they had learned the year before. And then we end it uh their final course is practical and transportation and this is a workbased learning experience. So they get some real world world experiences in those internships there. Um, also I was just going to tell you we have a CTE newsletter going out on a monthly basis. So any news about our maritime program will be in this newsletter. If you guys are interested in receiving this newsletter, we have the QR code which will take you to a link and you can sign up to get
024that monthly newsletter. So what the future holds with Maritime, we um had 14 graduates. We have 14 current or let's see 14 exfisders at&m Galveastston. Last year we had seven graduates go to&m galveistston and so we wanted to go see what their program was about and see if we could partner with that program so that our students get some of the skills they need going into it. So last week Candi and I went to&m galveistston and visited with some of their officials there. We started the day meeting with four of our ex-graduate our graduates and just to see what they needed going into the program and see what they told us before we went into the meeting. So that helped us as we talked to some of the&m officials and what we what we talked
025about were um possibly curriculum mapping to help guide us in what curriculum those kids would need. We talked about um our instructors going there and following their instructors around to see what they might learn and just to see how our shops needed to be set up. They agreed to come visit our site and then we're going to send some kids to see their site and they're also possibly looking at summer camps and different things like that. So, that was a good experience. We also will continue to work with Delmare um and we meet I'll meet with them next week. I think they're going to come visit our site and just see ways that we can partner better with them. They're going to be opening their center up soon. They'll have some maritime classes that way.
026So, we're going to look to continue that. And um we have met we'll meet with the Porta Corpus Christi. They are willing to offer an internship. So, I'm going to meet with them in October and we're going to look at um the process for our students to apply and interview for that role, that internship there. And um we're continuing to work with our local partners. They they've been a great support to us and so we're excited to continue to work with them and we're very thankful to them for all they've done for us. So and so we're excited for this year and what the future holds and we're very thankful to Captain Wind for what he started. Put it out there. I got it to work on the first time. Well, good evening. >> Oh,
027let me introduce you first. We'll move to agenda item 7 C, which is our featured campus report. And this month, we're going to be featuring Live Oak Learning Center. And tonight we have principal Poland to speak about Live Oak Learning Center. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. So, it is great to be here tonight to feature Live Oak Learning Center as we've started the 2526 school year. And I think before we get into anything, I first just wanted to highlight our staff because I truly believe that they make our work easier. Right? This team has shown up since day one and put their heart into everything that we're trying to do and accomplish for our campus and our district. And so I want to celebrate them first because there's no way I could be standing
028here without them uh walking beside us in this work. As we go through looking at Live Oak this evening, I focused on just our four priorities and trying to uh summarize in those sections. So, as we look at student success, we're going to look through the lens of uh student clubs and student participation and engagement. We're going to look at literacy instruction, math instruction, focusing on how we start that bridge to being college ready, also empowering students for students to take ownership of learning and then win time in our small group instruction. And so as we extend that, as we look at some of the opportunities for participation this year, we've shifted and we have our announcements in the gym for the entire campus. And so we have an anchor crew every morning. And so
029our teachers are taking turns and their students get to come up and lead us in the pledges and all the different things. Of course, we'll have UIL. We'll have science fair. Our counselors are doing a phenomenal job, Miss Hicks and Miss Kelly Pesims, organizing a kindness club for our students and being able to recognize our students for that. Our pirate patriots are our flag crew and so we have some helpers doing that. Our language leaders, Mrs. Castillo with our ESL students, is working after school two days a week and we have students that are coming to work on their language and just learn more about that. And we also have on your mark. And I feel like this fits in a couple of different places, but in partnership with Education Foundation, being able to serve
03050 students in an online tutoring program for literacy has been very important to us. As we dig a little bit deeper into student ownership this year, every student has their pirate path binder. And the little treasure map that you see is first we're trying to focus on our pirate core values for students and giving students an opportunity to earn each of those core values. The pirate note in the corner, this is for students that are recognized for a exemplifying a core value and we give them a shout out in the morning and then their certificate is posted on our bulletin board. We are also doing this for students that meet any reading or math goal as well and student and teachers can nominate them every day of the week. They are also tracking their own
031map data and setting goals around that and then tracking their progress in. We've just wrapped up our MAP testing for the beginning of the year and so teachers are starting to create those pathways in EXL based on those those MAP RIT scores and so students will start tracking their progress on their own with that. As we move to priority two, we look at staff engagement, development, and well-being. Uh we started in August with lesson internalization. That has truly been the core focus as we look to study our lessons deeper and really are delivering with high yield instructional strategies. Mr. Kruzianne was actually on campus one day and I grabbed him and I said, "Come look at their work." Um because I'm really proud of the time and the effort that they're putting into that. Beyond
032that with staff development and collaboration um still that continuous improvement and learning more about benchmark and Oregon and all those pieces of curriculum that we're serving students with and our data elevate and celebrate our pirate core values. So, not only for students, but each week uh teachers have the opportunity to give a shout out uh to their colleagues uh for things that they're doing on campus and we're putting that in our weekly newsletter and that has really been very uplifting even for me uh to get that text on a late Friday or over the weekend and said, "Hey, I read my shout out and I really appreciate it." So, just teachers, colleagues recognizing each other. We continue to focus on our anchor practice walks and having those conversations with teachers um sharing uh instructional strategies
033and the next coaching step for them and then circling back to that to see that that's happening in the classroom. Our admin team as a core piece of that, but also our instructional coaches, campus leadership committees, we have several opportunities. We made sure this year that we had a sign up and every grade level, every group, our elective teachers, our special program teachers, um our parish staff, somebody from their group is represented in all of these committees. And so really trying to get a voice across campus as we work through those um pieces. um staff prek services. I wanted to highlight right now we're serving about 12 students of our RFISD employees. Um Mr. Natton uh girls are in there too. Um but if you need uh if you need to feel good about your
034day, just come visit that classroom and they they are truly our future leaders. And then team fun. I have teams that are um making Tik Tok videos with these teacher trends. uh they have got positive uh Google drives where they're just celebrating each other and the things in the day and so just excited about what teachers I feel like are doing for themselves and for their team um to build that culture. Our priority three parent and community engagement and partnership we had over 25 parents at our first PTO meeting and so that was a fabulous turnout. um and they're just a very motivated group and so I really appreciate those parents um that are able to help contribute to that. We also started in August our salt team came and presented our pirate core values
035and so our staff really appreciated that. But I think it's great to hear from our high school students and then our athletes have been there in the mornings and they took the microphone for announcements on Friday and it was fantastic and the kids just love them being there. So getting to see our our high school kids as a leader so that our younger students can see where they're going. We have our sightbased uh team and then our partnership with a life. Um I can't say enough about our partnership with a life. There is nothing that I ask of Megan that she doesn't find a way to help make that happen for us. So we're very grateful for that. Our continued partnership with education foundation, our on your mark uh for literacy has been a huge
036piece of that. You'll see on the next slide, we have this giant sandbox now with dinosaur fossils in the bottom of it that have been a huge hit. Um, all because of them. Community and schools, we continue to extend service opportunities for students uh through community and schools, partnering with Gulf Point Village. So, each month we'll take a group of student leaders to be able to do a community service project with that. And then Miss Brown is also working with parks and recreation right now for us to have a community project with them. This year at the beginning of the school year, we partnered with First Learning Tree. Meline came to help transition her students from First Learning Tree to kindergarten and so we had her on campus a couple of days and that was
037just a wonderful transition and being able to partner there. Our family navigation guides are a work in progress, but one of the things that we've recognized as we look at safety and we look at discipline and just our expectations. We are working on putting some navigation guides together for families so we can say if we're going to practice this drill, this is what it's going to look like. So you can talk to your students before that happens. And then also with discipline. So if we're struggling with a certain discipline, we're able to recognize and reinforce what we're doing on campus and what that conversation can look like at home. And then pirates and parents will be coming later this fall, but we will have 12 students from first and second grade with their parents and
038I will meet with them. My goal is to meet with them five to six times this year, but to try to start to develop some kind of student parent um committee that can help focus on what we want to see at Live Oak. And so we're going to try to leverage it that way. And then priority four, finance and operations. Again, just all of our our safety training that we're doing, our drills. You see our teachers were participants in that. That third picture there, we actually had a lockdown drill this last week. And the threat was inside the building, how we practiced. And so, Coach Brewington, Lieutenant Wilson, was very excited to see that Coach Burine practiced with her students what it would look like if they were outside. And so, she was outside on
039the playground and we taught them how they would duck under um that piece of the playground equipment. So, um, we continue reinforcing our CHAMPS and our pirate expectations. We're using school safe ID. Um, the safety navigation guides we hope will help families. Um, Dr. Atkins is providing those to, uh, teachers in our weekly newsletters so that they can talk to students about the drills as well. And then our continued partnerships for learning spaces, so the sandboxes that we have and the other experiences that we're trying to provide to students. And so we continue to just work to make sure we are empowering and elevating and excel so that we can be the impact. Um but again just very proud of the kids and our um families and our teachers that are doing that work together.
040Do you have any questions? >> I don't have a question just a comment. This is an excellent presentation. It goes right through the priorities that we've worked hard with u not just board members but uh our executive leadership team, our uh community, our parents, students and going through each priority. It's very well organized. It's easy to read and clear and concise. Love it. >> Thank you. >> They are fun. Like seriously though, you should come visit us if you're having a bad day. We'll make it a good day. Okay. Well, before I finish, if that's all there, I do have a shout out tonight. So, well, do you need to announce this one too, Mr. Cruz? I he doesn't like I just added it. So, we decided this year one of our goals in our
041strategic plan under Molly's is that we want to make sure that we are taking time to celebrate our employees. And so each time that there's a campus presentation, we'd like the campus principal to recognize a staff member who has been exemplifying not only our core values, but the work that's in that strategic plan and just really elevating and excelling at the campus. And so Miss Poland has picked her person. And so I'd like for her to announce it. That's what we were doing. Do I have permission to proceed? Okay. So tonight I'm recognizing Paige Porter and before I read what I have. So Paige came to us last year when Miss Martinez retired and I needed a reading interventionist and we all know those were big shoes to fill but I could not be happier
042um with finding Paige. So the heart of our school is filled with extraordinary educators, but occasionally a teacher's unwavering spirit and genuine kindness stand out so brilliant brilliantly that they inspire all of us. Paige Porter is a cherished member of our school community and she embodies our pirate core values and shows remarkable dedication every single day. Known for a classroom that feels like a second home, Miss Porter's students know they are safe, valued, and genuinely cared for. More than just an instructor, Paige is a relentless advocate for every child, working tirelessly to meet each student's unique needs, both inside and outside the classroom. You will often find her in the hallway greeting students each morning just to bring a smile to their face or ask how their little league game went the night before, making
043strong efforts to build those personal connections. One of Miss Porter's greatest gifts is the ability to see a need and respond with thoughtful action. She is thoughtful in responding to supporting teachers when needed, but also developing systems when the need arises. She's been a pivotal been pivotal in helping to establish our win groups and name the learning goals for students and small groups based on our MAP data. Rarely does she say no to a new task or challenge and we are grateful to have her on our live oak team. Please help me recognize Paige Porter. All right, that brings us to item 7D, which is our camp or is our annual counselor's report. We have Candy Morris presenting. Good evening again. I'm dropping that a lot tonight. All right. I first want to let y'all
044know that although I stand before you by myself, I have my wonderful counseling team. So, I just wanted to thank them for being here to support me tonight and throughout this endeavor. So this the focus of this presentation is to really to review the counseling model that we've been working on really for about a year or so. And when Dr. Austin first came to me last year about us coming up with our own model for RFISD, um we could have easily just copied the Texas model, used the template and copied samples from other school districts. When we started looking at the framework, so I'm going to talk to you a little bit about our journey. We looked at some samples. Some were hundreds of pages with just things that, you know, all the lessons, all
045the things, and then others are just very vague. We started, we kind of took a halt and said, we're going to make this our own and just really slow down and make it not something you just stick on the shelf, but something that's meaningful meaningful to our team and to our department. And that also could be a type of like onboarding for new counselors when they come in. Here's our here's our model. Not only is it aligned to the Texas model, but it has things that we're doing in Rockport. Some of the campuses had their own plan. Um, but we wanted to align it kind of districtwide. So, where did we start? We went to some trainings. Um, those that maybe needed updates on the Texas counseling model, went to some updates and trainings. We
046worked with the service center on the effect effective advising framework, and I'll show you a little bit more about that in a minute. U, maybe some mental health updates. We also took a step back and thought, "Oh, wait. We need to kind of um realign some things prior to moving forward with our model. So, we worked to maybe look at course alignment, pe reviews, and courses at the high school and then working with Dr. Carter on the secondary program guide. Um so, that kind of put a halt of our planning of our our comprehensive uh counseling model with some things we felt like were priorities. Um, we did focus also on updating our proactive and preventative measures such as suicide protocols and safety protocols, things like that. Just making sure that the and again a
047lot of those things were already in place. They might just needed to be updated and make sure they were aligned with the Texas model. Um, and then as U Denise mentioned earlier, our strategic priorities with all of that that was going on, we wanted to make sure that our u our goals and our objectives in the county model were also aligned. So, as you know, priority one, student success, that's where a lot of our goals in the counseling department lie. The model, as you have before you, I'm I didn't put that up here tonight to show you all of the pages of the model. The counselors counselors have that, the principles will get that soon, and then of course you guys have that. Uh, it's divided into five sections. So the first uh couple of
048pages as you'll see is the introduction of our team the explanation of different tracking that they have to do uh the counselor ratios the Texas model does recommend about you know 300 350 to one when uh in counselor ratios so I put some data there for you and then the general roles and responsibilities of school counselors and as you know depending on the district and size of the district some of those roles vary so we're still working on aligning that to fit the fit our needs at Rockport and then make sure it's aligned. And then section two is program implementation and that's also divided into sections. So how do we develop our model by organizing, planning, designing, implementing and evaluating it. So I'll talk to you more about that. And then section three has all
049of the different things u that are required of it but also things that we put together as a team. the mission, our um our rationale, assumptions, things we believe. And then we also made sure to include the strategic plan. So, uh the balance scorecard and all of the things that align, you know, again, the goals of the counseling department and how they relate to our strategic plan, the community agreement, and as we know, the pirate uh student path profile also is a big part of the counseling um team and what we will be doing. Section four is divided into the delivery components of the comprehensive plan. This to me is the meat of the counseling plan. Those four sections are guidance curriculum, individual planning, responsive services, and system support. So, I did mention counselor tracking.
050And as you know, the state um really recommends 80 to 20% non-counselor duties. Well, that we were hoping that 80% is spent with these these four items, right? um hopefully mostly you know individual planning and guidance curriculum for the most part in responsive services. We really try to be proactive and we want to put a lot of those preventative initiatives out there such as you know those anti-bullying and different lessons and things we can do in our guidance curriculum. So I'll visit with you a little bit more about that as well here in a second. And then within section five, these uh components of the curriculum are um supposed to be focusing on interperson interpersonal effectiveness, post-secondary planning. Uh so intrapersonal and interpersonal of course and then personal health and safety. So where are we
051in RFISD with our program? These are some things that we use to make the these ladies use to make these things happen. We have character strong and we focus on monthly character trait character traits that is our pretty much our character strong curriculum our character trait curriculum and this year more teachers have started to implement that so I know the middle school is implementing that uh weekly through their flex time more teachers have started asking for loginins throughout the district and trying to integrate that and as you know for a program to really be effective that's really what it takes is for more people to buy in and We're hoping in the future it will be more district-wide where teachers will be trained and can inter in integrate that because in the end it's going
052to help with discipline and and behaviors and things like that. Um so what we're using now are some of these tools. We have Zello for career exploration and we do hope to beef that up even more within uh using that within in some of the classrooms or library different initiatives and activities that we have planned throughout the year already on the calendars. uh quaver is the health curriculum as well as the good heart will wilox sats for secondary that's what you guys approved as a board and as the shack for some of those topics that we have to cover such as um these topics that I listed right here dating violence and human trafficking those things are required by the state that we cover those even though now they require consent as well we're working
053on that but we do have a an appro approved curriculum so the counselors kind of are working to just map out their year and say, "Oh my gosh, like how can we fit all this in, but we're going to do it." And so they're putting those things on their calendars. And then we do have teacher teams that are helping uh and depending on the age and grade and how it fits for the campus. So the final section of the guide just a few things there confidentiality statement um the the evaluation progress all of those uh process sorry and then just the summary and some things we tried to list so that it can be more of an onboarding document and a guide for counselors we're linking some of our tools there so if we have
054certain forms that we're using at the high school we're going to try to or really all the campuses we're trying to link things there that are useful to the counselors it may not be something that the parents need. But um within some of those areas, we also listed things that would be uh helpful for parents. We have a community resource list. We have the counselors worked to divide and make sure that all the different topics had some parent and student resources. And so this will be um on the website. We wanted to wait until after tonight, but we'll get that linked on the website. So there'll be some resources. So where are we going and what are our our plans in our department? Um, some of the things we've started with just this year are
055the counselors going over graduation requirements or getting those updates. As you know, there are changes every year. So, we work with uh the middle school and high school admin and Amber to make sure all those things are aligned and with Jessica. So, we've done trainings for that. They're all each level is working on their YAG, their year at a glance, like I said, to map out their plans. Um, as you know, we've had legislative updates. So the counselors have, you know, worked to make sure that they're on top of that. Character Strong and Zello, as what um I mentioned, will continue. Daybreak Health is a new initiative that you'll hear about, and it's virtual counseling. It was free of charge to our district. However, there are licensed counselors uh available. The parents do have to
056use their health insurance or Medicaid if um whichever works. But then the counselors are working to see on what students might need referrals to that. And we are kind of working to build um and will be working even more so um meeting in uh soon on MTSS to try to make sure we're uh focusing on tier one with our counselors. Kelly Pap as the district LPC maybe more of that level tier two or three and then also using Daybreak to support the counselors because as you know there's a lot more kids than there are them. So they have to figure out ways to make sure students are continuing to receive their port the support they need. Um so it's something super that we're all super excited about. We also had funding last year to develop
057counseling wellness centers. So each on each campus whether it be in their office or a classroom they've really uh set up a classroom or a room to where either teachers or students can come to relax to meditate whatever it may be and have you know a wellness center and then with one of our grants we were able to start the development of career exploration centers. So whether it's a corner in the library or an actual classroom, it just depends on the campus of what we're doing, but there's going to be some added support there for students to explore. And I'll show you a couple of pictures here in a minute to explore their careers and our really our goal is to integrate that career exploration within guidance and wellness. So they all go hand in
058hand. um some new things. The hopes the hope spot is not new, but it was really um I think kicked off at the middle school initially and they've tried to expand it. So that's a big uh very positive suicide prevention and awareness um where students are very involved and then the kindness squad was recently started at Live Oak. So we are expanding those on all campuses. Um they're working hard to get that going with all the students on campuses. So what is the effective advising framework? I want to talk to you a little bit about that because last year we were selected by the service center region 2 to work with them to um kind of it wasn't just a grant that where we received money um last year that it was very minimal. We
059did get to start the career centers. However, it was more to help us align not only our courses but our advising all the way up. So, a lot of these counselors went to trainings on CTE and CCMR things, but also how do we advise not only our general ed population, but our special ed, all the all the pops to make sure we're all on the same page. And it's just a big circle of of things. So, it initially started with the Texas Education Agency to support counselors and uh school teams on CTE and CCMR alignment and then making sure just everyone's using the same language and that we're all kind of on the same page. So within that, we not only used our strategic plan, but built additional grade level expectations for what students would
060will do. For example, maybe in kindergarten, they're learning about, you know, just a few different careers and talking about what kind of, you know, behaviors they need to, you know, make sure they're so we kind of integrate the positive behaviors, but maybe in eighth grade they're actually going out to Kwit or some of those places. And so maybe that grade level goal is for them to have visited so many places. So each grade level within this uh EAF framework that we built has expectations that are aligned to hopefully feeding right into the high school CTE and CCMR stuff. So the future starts now with these ladies and this program. Uh we are super excited with some of the things I already mentioned here. The MTSS that we'll be looking at more. We've mapped out uh
061the year and on most of the campuses with all of the different lessons that we need to do. We have Kelly Pape Sims as our our new district LPC. It's not a new role, but she's new to the role and just enhanced uh support there with some things she's doing. Um and especially I've uh tried to pair her a little bit with Live Oak. As you know, that live oak counselor is solo. So, we're hoping that we can um have that partnership there and she can continue to support her. Um, we have an addition of a college career counselor that CCMR funded that took the place of the two uh those positions of the success advisors. And then we got another grant for a senior adviser that's part-time through education to employment that she'll be
062starting at the end of the month and end of October. Lots of things, lots of exciting things. Um, and then we want to continue to partner with maybe Amber, our industry, all of the things um to continue to make sure we're following our effective advising framework that we've planned. And before I show you a few pictures and highlight a couple of things. Y'all have any questions? That's been a lot. >> Okay, I have a Mine's loud. Um, I do have a couple questions. One is if we go back to the slide where it talks about the RFISD program curriculum. >> Yes. >> Um okay. >> You had mentioned that we're using flex time which is sale right. This year >> at the middle school that's where that is taking place. Uh diff it looks differently
063at each campus and I'm glad you asked. So at Live Oak and and Fulton those counselors are daily in the rotation doing guidance at middle school right now. Several of the teachers got lo I believe it's happening in flex once a week. Correct, Mr. Hal? And that that's what I'm understanding. So that's new. They were newly trained in that. And then at high school, we met with counselors to map out to when they can go in and um and cover these topics um like monthly. It won't be as often at high school, but we're going to, you know, continue. We have a lot of other topics also there that we're we're implementing. >> And that's kind of what I was getting at was that um with with the curriculum. Um I'm assuming that like at
064the middle school we would target what they're dealing with >> with the curriculum, right? Like bullying >> changes, things like that. And then at the high school, we're talking about drugs, alcohol, >> that kind of stuff. >> Yeah, those are good questions. >> Yeah. So some of these topics are required 6 through 12 for us to offer. So we have like those that I listed at the bottom, the the some of the human sexuality stuff, the dating violence, child abuse, human trafficking, personal safety, those are required for us to at least offer off offer. Some parents can opt out of those. The suicide awareness we're covering in September and bully prevention in October for K through 12 for all students. Um and yes, going up to the high school when we so like drug-free stuff,
065we're going to really try to target vaping and and We fentanyl is required but some of the stuff's required. We do definitely want to enhance and add what pertains to that age group. I think that makes sense if that answers your question. >> Yes, it does. And I just think that obviously counseling is such a core part of everything these kids are going through right now. So if we can even just hit them like I said once a month, once a week, whatever it is to where they feel or hear a message because a lot of times they don't hear it anywhere else, right? And so, um, that was my I just wanted to follow up on the curriculum on it. And then the other question I have is you had mentioned on the insurance
066part, >> did you say that that they had to use their insurance or they could use the schools >> for Daybreak Health? I believe it's their own health insurance and or Medicaid. >> That was Sorry, I just wanted to clarify that. Okay. and they do have support on staff to work through with the families on different routes that they can Yes, sir. >> they can do that and then if if that doesn't work, we have other, you know, resources that we can offer them as well or or at least lead them in those directions. >> Okay. Thank you. Good job. >> Yeah. So, not a question, but trying to talk to our parents and some of you are parents out here, making sure you've done your Skyward form. So Senate Bill 12 came through and
067we have to have parent release for guidance counseling, academic advising, health. There's a whole very long list that's on Skyward. So each child has to have that form released so our counselors can service our children. And so we just want to make sure our parents know that form's out there. We've been sending it out. And so thought I would let y'all know just in case. I should have checked y'alls before I came. Make sure you did it. >> Yes. And part of the reason we sent such a comprehensive plan out in Skyward for up for for their consent is so that we can get these topics covered because if we can't get that consent then it's hard for us to be able to get all the go in and we'd have to remove the students
068that don't have the consent and then that's a whole thing. So we're really trying to wait until we get more parents consenting to all of these different topics that we want to cover and reassure them that we are going to stick to the curriculum that was approved by the board. So that's good. And the only other thing I wanted to really highlight at the end was um some pictures and of course announce our team. But even after we sent this to you all this week, we got a notice from the service center that we were chosen as the region uh counseling and mental health team of the month. So we were excited about that. And then it was perfect timing. And so they highlighted some of the things and I know the pictures are small
069but the little student um is actually standing in the live oak one of the counseling rooms trying on different uh some career outfits that were purchased through this grant for career exploration. So sometimes whether it be uh with the elementary counselors talking to them, you know, it could have been they could be in there to discuss maybe a behavior or something or it was something with counseling. However, integrating it with career, you know, kind of motivates them and gives them something to look forward to regardless of the level. So, those are just some things both at Fulton and um Livo where they've already started integrating some of that um effective advising framework and CTE and career exploration. And of course, the other campuses are already hitting that as well. The high school career center, the
070whole goal is for us to continue student center and continue to upgrade that. And then we've worked with uh already met with the middle school librarian and the counselors to set up a career center in the corner of the library and outside. So there's a lot of plans. You'll continue to see more about that. So before I finish, I would just like to announce our team if that's okay. And um I'll start with Live Oak. She is brand new. I actually recruited her and stole her from an clinical agency and she is a rock star and her name is Selena Hicks. I was just going to have them stand if that's okay. Unless you want them to come up. Oh, okay. Do you have time for that? Okay, y'all can come up so we can
071take a quick picture. I didn't I wanted to make sure that was uh So, Selena Hicks is the live oak counselor, prek through second grade, and she has hit the ground running hard. Thank you, Selena. Oh, just shake hands and go stand at the end. Sorry, I didn't really prepare them for that. Our district licensed LPC this year is Kelly Pape Sims. One of our high school counselors, brand new first year to counseling and is also just learning so fast. And we're so happy to have her. Jackie McClendon, one of our returning Fulton counselors, thankfully Katie Led Better, another second year counselor at Fulton, Satie Landram, and middle school counselor, Jamie Leadford. There were a few that couldn't make it tonight due to family events and one was ill, but they wanted to be here.
072So, as you can see, the rest of them are up. Oh, no. That brings us to agenda item 8, 2025, efficiency audit results. Dr. Austin. >> So, as Mike brings out the TV, I just want to remind everybody this is required by the TEC code section 11184. Any school district that's considering a Vader, which is a voter approved tax ratification rate election, let me get the words out, must first complete an efficiency audit. On June 17th's board meeting, we did vote on moving forward with that efficiency audit. Just a reminder, efficiency audit is defined as an independent investigation of district operations to examine our physical management, our efficiency, and our utilization of resources. The purpose of an efficiency audit, and I'm sure Amber, who you all see on the screen right now, will talk about
073this as well, is to provide our board and community with clear information about how RFISD manages our taxpayer dollars to affirm areas of strength, identify areas of possible opportunity, and it's designed to ensure transparency and accountability as we make decisions about the future. Tonight, we're going to review those results. Um, and I'd like to introduce at this time Amber Lassin from Mo Casey. This is the firm that completed our audit. She's going to present the findings, answer any questions from the board, and then after she's done presenting, we will move into a public hearing portion, which is also required after an efficiency audit. So, Amber, the floor is yours. Just making sure you can hear me. Well, she's muted on mine. Is she muted on yours, Mike? Amber, I did. Yeah. Let me make sure
074she did. Thumbs up when I said we're up next. Can you hear us? She's muted. Well, I'm muted on my computer. Mine's something totally different. I'm signed into the RFISD one. >> Can you hear me? >> I can hear you now. There she is. Can you hear us? that I think that's a no. Let me take it off to where she can see. We're working on the sound, >> but you can hear me. >> Uhhuh. We probably need it to be up a little bit. I don't hear it coming from the TV. working and we did do a run through and it was working. You all have a printed copy just so that you know as she goes through She's the host so she can share. Do you want her to talk? >> What do
075you want us to try? Did he say try something? Can you hear us now? Yes, she can hear us. We just need her a little bit louder for the board. Amber, will you go ahead and say testing? >> Good afternoon or good evening at this point. >> It's a little bit better. Still not very loud though. This one's all muted. Might as well. Sorry, I had to be remote. Getting better. You're a little bit louder. We're almost there. Can you hear me pretty good? >> I can hear you. Great. >> Awesome. Oh, that's much better. >> Okay. Are we good? >> There it is. Yay. Go team. All right. I'm gonna turn it over to you. >> Well, good evening. My name is Dr. Amber Sang. I work for Mo Casey. Uh we were hired
076by Dr. Austin and Miss Henderson to conduct you all's efficiency audit. Um I want to take one moment to say thank you to both of them. As you all have realized by now conducting a TR do all of the work behind it takes a lot of time, effort, energy and they have been delightful partners to work with. So I just want to say thank you to Dr. Austin and Miss Henderson for all your effort and for the last couple months. So, as you know, the reason that uh we're doing we're conducting this efficiency audit and hosting this meeting tonight is the district is proposing a tax rate for 2025 that is higher than their voter approved tax rate. So, under House Bill 3, uh provision was put into law where you have to conduct an
077efficiency audit for uh this if you're going to seek an additional uh additional resources through a TR. So, this is all driven by that. driven by uh these guidelines from the legislative budget board. Every piece of this um report is mandated. Every piece every table is documented the way we must do it. So um the important thing about the efficiency audit is we're not going to say we're not going to offer an opinion whether or not the district is efficient. The data in the report provides data that is objective and true for your voters, the board of trustees to determine whether or not they think the district is efficient. Um, this web uh the report must be on your website by October 4th. There's very strict guidelines on this. Um, but I think it's important
078to know all of the data is the most recently available public data. So, anything related to school finance is going to be 2324 data because, as you know, you haven't done your 2425 audit yet. Anything related to personnel, we do have 2425 data. So, some of the data does feel a little bit old. Um, so if you have any questions along the way, please feel free to ask, but just know that it's the most recently available public data. I do think that is important to know. I don't like to read slides, but I like this sentence from the guidelines. The purpose of the efficiency audit is to provide information to voters regarding a school district's fiscal management, efficiency, and utilization of resources before an election to adopt an emino tax rate. So, it's just data.
079It's just information provided. So, the important thing is talking about the tax rate. So, right now, as you know, you submit your uh local property value study annually and tea tells you what your MCR. So, the first part of your tax rate, the tier one tax rate is determined by TEA. Um, and right now yours is uh 6160. Currently, the district has six tier uh six golden pennies. They're seeking the additional two golden pennies for the TR. A golden penny is considered golden because of two things. The first thing is it has a higher yield per watt. So, we're going to talk about Wada a little bit later when we talk about student populations. Um, so you receive more money per student for per weighted ADA for a golden penny and it's not subject to
080recapture. So that's why they're golden. Uh, the district expects to generate about a million dollars from this TR in the first year and uh we're going to anticipate using the additional revenue for salary for staff not covered on House Bill 2. As you know, House Bill 2 really focused solely on teachers and then a small amount for some support staff, but it wasn't enough to make huge um increases in payroll across the district of any size. Oh, I apologize. So, here are your peers. Um we've selected six peers. Bernett, Carthage, maybe seven. Sorry. Uh Colombia, Brazoria, Fredericksburg, Engleside, Sweeney, and Ban. Um we send the district a list of about 20 statistically matched peers. And we um do this for a lot of reasons, but we statistically match on like size and enrollment, five-year growth,
081ADA to water ratio. So your average daily attendance versus your water ratio. So the water is developed by student subopul. So students in special ed or CTE or who are in um bilingual programs or receiving state competent service or bilingual services. our student populations. The more um identification we have, the more resources we bring in, right? And then tier 2 tax, rate, you don't want to compare your district to one with a with all 17 pennies. Of course, they're going to have different resources. Geographic proximity, and then NCEES type, the NCES type is are you suburban, are you urban, are you a village, are you a town? So, basically, what does your city look like? So, these are your peers and their tax rates. That's just a placeholder for you all to kind of know
082your peers. look at where your taxes are. Your taxes are kind of in line with your peers um as it is. So, your district received a C in the comparison year with a score of 70. Your peer average was a 78. So, here are the scores for your peers. In the accountability rating, you can see a lot of your peers scored in that seven, you know, 70 to 80 range. And there were no A's, but lots of B's and C's. um your district did receive um it's 2425 rating for the first the first system. We just got those two weeks ago. So the official rating in the report is from 2324 but they did receive an A for 2425 in the data and then when I look back the district has received an A rating
083in first since 2015 2016 since the modern version of the first rating has began. Here are your student comparisons. So, we start talking about um looking at your comparisons for peers in the state quite a bit. I want to say sometimes comparing to the state isn't always the most accurate. So, looking at your peers is usually the best way to look. Sometimes um our districts in Texas skew about 1500 students or less. So, sometimes when you're comparing when you're over 1500 students, the state averages get a little get a little wonky. And then, of course, when it comes to pay, if you're in an urban area, you're going to pay a little more than a rural. So, some of the state comparisons may be a little skewed. Um, but right now your district is about
08463% economically disadvantaged compared to uh 59% of your peers in 60% of the state. So, you're right in line there. Um, English language learners are your district has a lower population than either your peers or the state for English language learners. You have about 6% of students compared to about 12% of your peers. So, your numbers are a little bit lower for English language learners. um you're right in the middle for special ed. You're at 16% and your peers are at 17 and the state is at 15. So you're right in line with uh your peers there. One thing we do know to be true from national research is about 20% of students nationally are identified as special ed. So while you all have probably seen just like the rest of the state those numbers
085um growing every year, we anticipate it won't level off for a few few years till we get to closer to 20% across the state. Bilingual ESL students, again, you're your same kind of subgroup as your English language learners. Uh you're at 6%, your peers are at nine, and the state is at about 20. So, you have a lower popular population of students learning English. And then last is CTE. You're dead on with your peers. They're you're 32.8%, they're 32.9%. And then you're both a little bit higher than the state population. And I heard some of your maritime presentation and things earlier, so it sounds like you're you're putting resources into CTE programs as a district. As you know, uh, school funding is directly tied to attendance. So, we talked about average daily attendance, we talked
086about weighted average daily attendance. Your district is just shy of a 93% attendance rate. As you can see, all uh yours is at 92.9%, your peers are at 93.8, and it's stated at 93.3. So, you're all really aligned right at that 93%. That is what we've seen. Um, it was a little bit higher pre-COVID. We're starting to see a trend line back to a little bit higher um to more pre-COVID levels, but it might be a while before we hit the 95 96 at the state level like we had seen before. So, this is where a lot of people focus their energy and expect to see data on the efficiency audit. Right now, we're going to look at operating revenue per student and we're going to look at operating expense per student. So right now
087your district is receiving about just over $11,000 per student. Your peers are at about 11,300 per student while the state skes a little bit lower at 10 um,628 per student. So you're you're kind of right in the middle there. As you can see, one thing that I think it's important to note um we talked about how golden pennies are not subject to recapture. As you can see here, your district has is mainly uh funded through local tax dollars. you're just shy of 83% of tax funding versus 10% almost 11 versus your peers who are just shy of 70% and 20% for the state revenue. So to me like just looking at a cold like that it's it's clear to me your district is either paying recapture really close to paying recapture um just because your
088your ratio to state and local revenue is a little bit um is different. So, while your revenue per student is, let me go back, $11,000, you're expending $12,60. So, you're almost spending about $1,000 more per student than you're receiving. So, this is where it shows you're starting to use some of that fund balance. Um, you're spending 12,60 per student, um, which is higher than the state average of 11,000 or, uh, the district average of 11,000 and state average of 10,765. So, um, right now you're spending about 51% of your, uh, revenue on or your expenditures on instruction. Um, compared to 53% of your peers, 57 at the state. Um, maintenance and operation is everyone's number two. Yours is 19 almost 20% of your budget given where you are location wise. Uh, that includes insurance. So,
089it doesn't surprise me that that is high for your area, 15% for your peers, and 11% for your um for the state. And then last, school leadership is about 5.4% and that includes kind of campus principles and things like that. Uh you're at 5.4% versus 6% of the state um your peers and 6.3% of the state. So, you're right in line at that number. All right. District payroll. A lot of questions about district payroll come up, but um right now payroll is a percentage of all of your operating expenditures is about 75%. It's about 6% lower than your peers um and quite a bit lower than the state. It tends to be an average of about 80 to 85% of all expenditures are payroll. So you're a little bit lower in that category. Average teacher
090salaries about 57 um 8,000. uh average district um >> compared to your peers, you're paying less per teacher in the state. So, your teacher pay is a little bit low. Your administrative pay is also considerably lower than your um the district and uh peer district and state average. So, you're you're skewing lower on payroll and not only in total payroll percentage, but also individual pay. And then the superintendent salary is also lower than your peers and a little bit higher than the state. But like I said, state average there, you're talking 1,200 districts that range from 24 students to 200,000 students. So state average in the superintendent um category is a little bit strange to look at. So as you can see, your school district's fund balance at the end of 2324 was about 11.6
091million compared to its uh three-month operating expenditures of 8.99 million. So, you're right in you're still significantly higher than your three-month average for your fund balance. Um, part of the reason you're scoring an A on first is that cash on hand. And you can see you've met it for the last five years. So, over time, because I saw you are using some fund balance that will slowly um erode if you don't close the gap between revenue um and exp uh revenue and expense per student. Total the total staff. So, if 75% of your funds are spent on staff, here's the breakdown of how those 75% of your funds are expended. Teaching staff is about 47 and a half% of your total staff, which is a little bit higher than your peers at 46, but a
092little bit lower than the state. So, you're right in line with how much of your staff is teaching staff. um you're at 9% support staff versus um 0 your percent the higher in support staff than your peers but a little bit lower than the state administrative staff you're at 6% versus 5.6 and 4.6 um which is right in line with district shore size pair of professional staff you're at 10% versus um 11% almost 12 for your peers and 11.4% for present for the state auxiliary staff. Uh those are people that are outside of kind of the normal instructional position. So they're food service, custodial, technology, safety and security is a larger subgroup. Um is just shy of 27%. Your peers are just over 20%. You're right in line there. Um and then last, your students
093per staff, you have a not quite one more student per staff, but you're at 7.10 students per total staff versus your peers at 6.7. And then um then students per teaching staff, you're just shy of 15 students per staff and your peer districts are about 14 and a half students per teaching staff. So not far off there, but a little bit smaller class size for your peers. Then the last thing I'm going to cover before questions is the district has a teacher turnover rate of about 30 uh for 30% which is higher than your peer district average. Oh, I caught a typo. um of 20.3% with a statewide average of 19.1%. So your uh te your peers are turning over less teachers, but that could be due to geographic location. That's a little bit harder
094one to nail down. I'll fix this slide and resend it to y'all. Um but that's the last thing I have. Do you have any questions around the efficiency audit? Did I miss figure 14, Amber? Where we >> We do not cover figure 14 local data. >> Okay. Just an FYI to them. Okay. >> No, but one of the things that I want to point out and I can go back. I don't even know what slide it is, but Oh, actually, we can go over the district's uh well, let's go to page five. And this is kind of what I was talking about with Dr. Austin. When you go down and compare Rockport to Burnett to Carthage, Columbia, Engleside, Sweeney, and I don't know about Van, the one thing we're missing in all of this is
095our recapture >> because a lot of these school districts, we can compare the demographics, we compare can compare the funding, and we can do all of those things, but truly Frederick'sburg and Rockport are we've always said they're the inland version of us. and they are property rich because they have ranch land and they're considered rural and they have tourism and so we're very much alike in that in their recapture. The rest of these receive 313 or some kind of industry funding. So when you go to look at what uh the page where it says that we are spending $9,000 or we're receiving 9,000 uh I don't know which page it is. >> Oh, here it is. It's on page 17. When you look at local and it says that we're spending $9,000 per student, that
096is actually not correct because if you factor in recapture, it's way less than that. >> Yes. So, that is the revenue is that because this is revenue per student. Um, so yes, you are collecting in revenue about $9,000 per student, but you are correct. You're not retaining n uh $9,000 per student because of recapture. That is the fair statement. >> So the other thing I want to point out too is when you go look at our maintenance, and I actually just sent this to our house rep. um if you look at how much it cost us to maintain verse everybody else just in our environment. I mean those are the two main things you got to point out. >> So one thing and I will say there is a part of House Bill 2 that
097will benefit you as a coastal district. You're gonna um part of the funding under House Bill 2 is I think it's 80% of your you'll receive a credit for 80% of the cost of your property insurance. Um, so that should your expense will stay the same, but you'll receive more revenue to offset it. So that will have a benefit for your district. >> You're right. We'll get that in 2526, but we did not get it in 2324. >> Absolutely. Yes. And I I do think that is something from a legislative perspective that people that in fairness to our legislators, they did hear that was a big um expense for our coastal counties and did something to defra cost. >> Yes. And then you have to factor in the homestead. >> So that's the other part
098that takes out from our maintenance as well. And so again, and I'm saying this for anybody who's viewing this because it is still, as much as I appreciate this data, and I think it's a great comparison for us to all see. Obviously, it's two years behind and there's a lot of factors that aren't included in what we really need, which is recapture, the cost of the homestead exemption, and then at what how fast we're having to flip over our maintenance. Well, I guess my question is, is this take account for districts that did take in 313 money as revenue? >> Uh, yes. It would be part of their local revenue. It would show up in this local revenue line. >> So, usually >> it wouldn't show up in tax revenue, but it would show up
099in the local revenue. >> But there's no mention of INS tax rate. No, the e the uh excuse me, the efficiency audit is just related to M revenue. >> Okay. And the reason why I'm asking is because typically when you have big 313 money, you have high INS uh rates and and and then ours is low, but they can use their INS to pay for air conditions, to pay for buses, and things like what we pay out of M. I know that's not >> I guess I'd like to see a part two to this efficiency audit that really narrows down what plays a factor into our funding and I don't know how to do that or what it looks like or >> if that's doable. >> Some of those are next steps for us not
100necessarily efficiency audit has guidelines that has to be there's 20 elements they have to report exactly what's on here. What that gives us as you as a board in our community is okay what are strengths and what are opportunities of improvement like revenue we're not getting as much we need to improve that there's also some expenditures we need to do a deep dive in and say why are we spending higher as our peers but I want to remind you what you just saw in expenditures was 2324 we've made 19 months worth of changes since 2324 that won't show an efficiency audit and she Amber and Mo Casey have to use the 23 24 because it's the most recent public release data. Um, so I do think that there is going to be more coming from
101this as internal as Kathy, Jen, and our team start breaking down per pupil expenditures based on our 2526 budget. >> That that's a great explanation, Dr. Austin. I just want to make sure that the public understands as well. And what I was getting at was if you're using because we're not looking at INS and we and we take in effect that our INS is pretty low compared to other schools. Um, some of the expenditures that were showing Hive was for maintenance and operations and and we've always done a good job purchasing buses, purchasing air conditioning, purchasing things that could be used through a bond, but we're using that through with INS and we're doing it through M. So, I just want to be clear on that. Are there any other questions, comments? If there's no
102more questions from the board, this is where we then move into the public hearing. Do you want to go ahead and move the board out of the way just in case there's questions so we can take? >> All right, we'll go ahead and go right into agenda item nine, which is our public hearing on the 2025 efficiency audit. Is there anyone in the public from the public that has any questions, comments? I'll keep the mic open just a little longer before we move on. He says if there are any questions out in the public and they are watching and there they do have a question they can always email us at ask a pirate at rfisd us and we can get you this information. It is on the public section of our board book where
103you can pull the report because I don't see any questions in the public right now. All right, seeing there's no questions, uh, we'll close public hearing. We'll move to agenda item 10A. Consider take possible action to approve the federal grant programs micro purchase threshold limit. >> Miss Henderson. Okay, ready to go there? So annually, uh, the board has to approve our micro purchase for our federal grants, uh, up to the limit of 49,999. [Music] Um, it's set at 10, but with the board's approval, we can increase it to 49 49,9.99, which is the same as our local limit. >> I'll look for a motion. I make a motion that we approve the selfcertification increase micro purchase threshold limit to 4999 and give authorization to the chief financial officer to represent complete and submit the micro
104purchase threshold limit. >> All right, we have a motion made by Miss Jarnell, seconded by Miss Randall. Any further discussion, comments or questions? All right, we'll take a vote. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries 70. Brings us to 10B. Consider take possible action to approve the purchase of attendance credits. Senator, >> this is the second part. In August, y'all um gave authorization to Dr. Austin to submit our recapture information online. This is the second part which unfortunately we don't have a choice on, but approving recapture payments for 2526. I'll look for a motion. >> Someone's got to do it. Sorry. >> I'll make a motion that the board approve the Rockport Fulton ISD entering into an agreement for the purchase of attendance credits chapter 49 recapture cost uh from the state of Texas for
1052025 2026 school year. All right. Have a motion made by Mr. Burton, seconded by Mrs. Jarnell. Discussion. >> What's the estimated amount >> right now? >> Oh, I think 6 million is about what we estimated for 25 26. >> Well, I'm sorry, one more time. >> About 6 million. >> 6 million. Okay. >> I think 6.6. >> Want everybody to hear that. Any other questions? All right, we'll take a vote. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries 70. Move to 10 C. Consider take possible action to approve the election contract with Arangis County for the November 4, 2025 general election. So this would be the election that would have the language around the Vader and we contract with the Rancis County for all things to host that election. This is the contract. I move
106to approve the election contract with Aranis County for the November 4th, 2025 general election. All right, we have a motion made by Miss Austin, second by Mrs. Randall. Any discussion? >> Yes, you knew that. Um, here we are. Another meeting, another vote to tax our citizens, two cents, get another $960,000. But after months of my request, we're still not talking about selling unused. We haven't even started a discussion about selling unused assets in millions of dollars. I don't understand how come we're taking the easy way going to an election to get two cents when we have millions of dollars unused assets sitting around not doing anything. I cannot understand how we're doing that. I don't believe it's responsible. So, we have brought it up to discussion. I have given it to everybody. No one's asked
107me to move on anything. I do think that the property that you're that is worth the most and where it sits right now. You asked me to do some research on what's the market analysis. I don't have that done yet because I want to there's a lot of different properties. So, we have started the discussion. That's the one thing I want everybody to hear. You brought it up two months in a row. We are looking at it. We did create an inventory list for you and then when you ask in the budget workshop, what's that land worth? I told you that I would start looking into what's the land worth. So I the one thing I want you to know is I have listened to what you've asked and we are working on that. >>
108Mr. Rubble, also uh for clarity, we did bring we approved a purchase of land to sell land. So that was one asset. Um, was that last month? I believe last month. So, we have definitely looked at it. Um, my question is, is there a maximum amount that we're paying for the election? >> That's our question again, please, sir. >> I see the 39,000. Is that to the school district or is that split? I I I'm sorry I didn't hear the first question. >> The 39,000 on the contract for 545 that's for the school district's cost in the election. Correct. >> That Donna, do you know that? I'm sorry. I have so I don't know if that's the full or if that's divided by and there are four entities into in this one. It says Rockport
109Fulton Independent School District, Aranis Pass Independent School District and Aranis County. I know Aranzis Pass is also going for Vader. Then it gives us the total. So we will be splitting that three to four ways. It has three entities on here right now. I'm asking can we get a clear >> and I I haven't been working on that so I don't know but we can definitely find out for you if that's the full price or if that's >> um each by going look at the price and what we've paid before. I think that's the full price and would be divided by three but I can't say that for sure because I I have not looked into this. >> Do you know if there's a time where they have to have this returned >> a timeline?
110We don't know. Yes, we'll get clarification. You could say up to 39545 knowing that if there's three entities and it's split, it's going to be less, but not to exceed this because then my question would be, you know, whether it's spit split three or you know the total is 39, are we going to move towards the election? 39545. >> Well, we have a a motion on the floor in a second. We're still discussing. Um >> you can you can amend your motion. >> Okay. I'm going to make a motion to amend my motion. And it's going to say, I move that we approve the Oh, wait. I'm on the wrong one. I was already on the next one. Sorry. I move to approve the election contract with the Rancis County for the November 4th, 2025
111general election not to exceed $39,545. I have a motion made by Mrs. Alston, second by M. Randall. discussion. The the only question I have on that amended amount is that's the exact same thing as voting the very first motion because you're voting on the contract that that says >> that we're either going to pay the 39,545 or we may splitting it, >> right? I just feel like we need a definitive answer on that. But I think you have to have that answer because >> by October it becomes a special we just get a response back. motion and a second. So, do you want to >> I'm gonna I'm gonna amend again and I'm going >> pull your motion. >> I'm going to pull my motion, both motions, and we will table it until we reach
112the final item tonight. >> I'll second. Oh, we have a motion to we have a motion on the floor to uh take back the the amended emotion from the first emotion motion motion. And so what she's asking is to table we and then we had a second. Who was the second? >> We're going to table it in hopes that we hear back from All right. So, just to be clear, we're we have a motion to table agenda item 10C election contract. And we have a second by Mr. Burton. Any discussion on this one? All right, then we'll take a vote. All in favor? I any opposed? Okay, we have a 70 in favor of tableabling. So that passes. All right, that moves to 10D. consider take possible action to approve appointment of the interim representatives
113to serve as the Ranzis County Appraisal District Board of Directors on behalf of Rockport Fulton ISD. And we've been putting this on the agenda each month just in case names come up, applications come up or is there anyone for recommendation or we can table this again? >> Very last minute. I do have a name for recommendation. Um would be I I will like to make a nomination here in a minute, but it it was very last minute and would still need to pass a background check. Um just for basics verify he lives in the county. I know he does, but um we do have a name. It is just last minute. >> And you've spoken to that person individual. >> Yes. >> All right. So I would just advise if we're making the motion uh
114that we put that pending. So I I I make a motion or I would like to move that we approve the appointment of Micah Hail as an interim representative to serve on the Orandis County Appraisal District Board of Directors on behalf of Rockport Fton ISD pending um background and other check. >> All right, we have a motion made by Mrs. Jarnell, second by Miss Austin. any I'll open up for discussion. I'll start. So, uh, this is an interim role, so they're just filling the position until December 31st, 2025. >> Correct. Again, it was before me, but our previous board appointee um, Colleen um, resigned from the board for um, personal reasons. Um, I believe she said she was moving, but that leaves us with a vacancy on the board. Um, this would just be filling
115out the rest of the year until we do an appointee for the the following term. >> All right. And I just want to remind that we will be putting uh a posting in the paper on our website uh for applications and resumes uh for two positions on the appraisal board. Any other questions, concerns? All right, then we'll take a vote. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries 70. That brings us to 10E. Consider take possible action to approve expenditure of districtwide wireless network infrastructure upgrade. Mr. Noati. Okay. So, what this is is a, like you said, districtwide. It's our Wi-Fi access points. And the total to do this project is $235,81.40, but -ate will cover 85% of that cost. So the cost to the district that we did budget for is $35,252.76. And I
116want to note that that also covers us for the next five years. And currently with our current system, we're already paying $30,000 a year to monitor it already. So really this will end up saving us around $120,000 of having to pay that recurring fee for the next 5 years. Now after the 5 years then we go back to either paying it again out of our budget or we could even go back to -ate and they could help again contribute to our recurring cost. >> So the actual cost is going to be $35,252.76. >> Correct. That's a cost of us to upgrade every single campus everywhere in the district as well as cover our the software that we uh are required to run this project for the next five years including this year and then another
117four years and we're currently with our current system already paying 30,000 around $30,000 a year to monitor the current system we already have. >> I'll say for okay for clarity because this is one of those forms that's a I'll just say government form. How about that? So, it's kind of confusing. I did reach out to Mr. Garris regarding this and he kind of dumbed it down for me in a simple way, but this is we're paying for Wi-Fi about 30,000 a year currently. Uh this is this is a a a contract that would get us for $35,252.76 that the district pays would be for a fiveyear term >> as well as the equipment and labor to install >> as well as the equipment and everything it takes to to run it. I'm just saying it
118because it's really really hard hearing you so I want to make sure everybody hears it clearly. So, uh, the I know the contract was given some big numbers. So, my question is, can can we make a motion on this up to 35,252? Is that fine? >> Sure. >> So, that would be a suggestion. >> Wait, are okay. My understanding was the reason this had to come to the board was because we couldn't do that. It was at my request because even though we were not spending over 50,000, the actual total amount that's out there is going to show 200 and whatever the the thing is there. And for transparency, I didn't want to get out in public facing that we were doing something that was costing 200 even though there's a reimbursement and our district
119will not pay over 35. But I just felt that if we have a rule that there's anything over 50, it needs to be brought with and we just need to explain that the district will not spend more than 35. So that was at my request. >> But that is a good point, Mr. Burton. It technically it doesn't even need to come to the board, but because the contract stated that the large number, Dr. Austin just felt like it was better to bring it to us. we have to put the full amount on the PO for the vendor and for the federal government and then they're only going to bills like you're saying the $35 but but paperwork wise you have to have the whole amount shown >> and that's just the rules of e orate
120correct >> that's what - CDW requires for paperwork purposes they have it laid out very clear >> any other questions if not I'll look for a motion. >> I make a motion to approve the expenditure of the districtwide wireless network infrastructure upgrade. All right, we have a motion by Miss Austin, second by M. Mrs. Jarnell. Any other discussion, questions, comments? If not, we'll take a vote. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. 70. >> Thank you for your transparency. >> That brings us to agenda item 11, our superintendent report. Dr. Austin. So, I'm going to start with 11A, the presentation of the 2324 and the 2425 accountability. And I want to make sure that you guys can hear me. And if you cannot, please tell me now because I'll try this microphone. Can y'all
121hear me? You're going to go down there, Mr. Burton. Okay. So there is a PowerPoint that's not this that we updated. There it is. So the purpose of the A throughF accountability system, I'm going to give you an overview of from TEA and we agree we believe all students can learn and achieve at high levels. How do we do that? We start what the state board of education has defined that we as a school district will make sure students should know and be able to do at every single grade level. We use the TEACS. That's the te Texas essential knowledge and skills. There is an example of a third grade TE. If you'd like to see that, that is math. And so from the TESS, we teach those all year long. Then we hit the
122window of about April and May and we take a STAR test. after the STAR test. They want to make sure that we are improving as districts, as schools across the state of Texas to serve all of our students well, uh to keep our educators, parents, and business leaders and community members uh understanding how our district is doing with academics and they do that through the A throughF accountability system. I'd like to do a disclaimer. There was a special session and it has moved through the house and the senate and it is on the governor's desk. This will be for the next two years and then in 2728 we will start a new system. But for right now here we're here we are. So we monitor performance with school ratings. School ratings are derived from this
123is the education code that requires the commissioner and the TA to create that. They focus on three things in these tests in the A throughF rigor, fairness for the schools and the grading and then transparency for the public. So let's talk about A throughF. There are three domains that are measured. We have student achievement, school progress, and closing the gaps which give you the overall grade. Here's how the state uh across the state of Texas. Here's how campuses did. You will have in your board book you have our district overall. You have the high school overall 24 and 25. You'll also have the middle school overall 24 25 and then ending with Fulton. Uh you do not have Live Oak even though Live Oak has one. It's because it mimics exactly full tens because they
124do not have uh star scores. So you'll see the state of Texas on the left on the right you have 24 we had one campus with a B and three campuses with a D. and 25 we dropped to one campus with a C and three that stayed either the same or improved their actual scale score but not their rating. So districts follow the same three domains as campuses do. And here is the tracking from 22. You see that in 22 we had a B and 84. Then the new way to score came out in 20 at the end of 22 going into 23 and they gave us okay with the new way to calculate A throughF what would you have received? We would have received a 71. So that 84 with the new system in
12520 going into 23 would have been a 71. Do you have a question? So if we would have used the same data in 22 taken the new system that was coming out for 23 that 84 same data would have been a 71 that's how much it changed in 23 we received a 76 C 24 71 2570 the reason why I'm doing both 24 and 25 they were released together on August 15th Remember 23 and 24 were in litigation because of lawsuits on TEA. They released 23 early in June, June, July and then released 24 at the same time of 25. Again just ex comparing us to what happened across the state of Texas. We had 20 71 70 which both were C's. really quick. We're going to I say really quick, it's a very long
126report, lots of slides. Domain one, student achievement. We're going to talk about that. If you want to see how it's broken down, our elementaryaries are 100% star. Domain one is how did we do on STAR? Our high school is 40% STAR, 40% college, career, military ready, and then 20% graduation rate. Here's 24 and here's 25. Breaking like breaking down by the three you see student achievement, school progress, closing the gaps for the district. In your board book, I gave you the breakdown of each report. So the high school student achievement and 24 had a and 25 had a 79. You can look at the three categories that made up student achievement. You have star performance, college, career, military, and the graduation rate. You see from 24 to 25 where we fell in student achievement even
127though the overall grade stayed. It's because it's an eitheror. So you have domain one, domain two, and domain three. Domain one and two, you take the better of the score, and that's 70% of the accountability. And domain three will always be 30% well at least until 27 28. Your middle school you have your student achievement in 24 was a 72 and 25 was a 71. In Fulton student achievement was a 58 and 24 and a 59 and 25. as district putting all all tests our third grade all the way uh eighth grade and our EOCC's in high school there's five EOCC's this is on average how we did an RLA math science social studies approach meets in masters in 2025 domain two school progress they look at both academic growth truly how a student did
128on the year prior's test and how they made growth through that current year's test. And then relative performance. This is another eitheror. Whatever you score highest in in academic growth versus relative performance, that's what's pulled over into your scale score. Relative performance is how you did in approaches, meets, and masters compared to a cohort group of like demographics around low SCES. your economically disadvantaged student. If you want to look exactly how they make that and how they start calculating that, you see my math teachers would be very disappointed. A scatter graph like don't tell Miss scatter plot. There you go. Don't tell Miss Booth. Here is our overall uh academic growth and relative performance for a district. You see that we had a D in academic growth and a C in relative performance. As a
129district, it would have went with relative performance and our accountability because it's an eitheror. Here's comparison in that academic growth and relative performance. you see from 24 to 25 concerning is that our academic growth, how our kids went from one year to the other, it dropped. Our relative performance stayed the same. On the left, you'll see a comparison of the state of Texas. Domain three, closing the gaps. They take um performance of four groups and they monitor those. They first look at all students. Then there's a group that's the first lowest performing uh racial ethnic group from the prior year. The third is the second lowest performing racial ethnic group from the prior year. And then a high focus group. Here's how they break those down to look at those. Here's our score. And closing
130the gaps. It is a D. And I will let everybody on the board know that it is extremely hard to report that we have a D in any domain at any campus. Domain 3 last year was a 70. This year is a 68. You can look at each of those campus reports to show you exactly where we fell. And this is a a candid conversation that Dr. Carter and I have already had. So, I don't think I'm going to surprise her and say it. We dropped the most in closing the gaps at the high school. We are aware of it. We have a system in place. She's tracking that at our high school. But don't worry, very close behind are our middle school and our elementaryaries. Today, we actually worked with our elementary campuses and
131region two to make sure that our systems are solid and what we are doing moving forward is going to move the needle for student success. Making sure Logan and Jack can still hear me. Okay. If you want to dive deep into this data like I do and like probably Christy Wedi does. She works with testing with us and our principles. This is a set called an analytic tool. It's on texaschools.org. You can do comparisons. You can look at the state. You can look at the region. You can look at specific other schools. You can look all the way down to our CCMR, our academic growth, and you can get into the raw data to see where exactly did we pull to get those scores. So here's summary as a district in 25 our three domains
13271 70 and 68 which gave us an overall of 70 for 2025. Now I try to like there's a lot of things I could stay in say in next steps. There is a ton that we're doing from our district level, central level, like uh executive level to departments all the way to our campuses to our leadership teams on campuses to what they're doing with teachers. But I summarized in one beautiful picture that is our balance scorecard and it has four priorities, 12 objectives with actions that align to all of those. All of our departments and all of our principles been aligning. You guys approved this in February and there is a performance yearly goal with all of those objectives and a five-year goal so that at the end of this we will move our district
133that is a 70 right now. I've set a huge goal Jerry what's our goal to be in five years in accountability. Yeah. This is This is No, you only get a year. He's actually only got a year. That's why he I was like, "Why are you pausing?" A is the answer. U because actually Mr. How I challenged him to do it in a year. Um and so we're working really hard. Now, I say that tongue and cheek, y'all. That's a lot of work to move an entire district from a 70 to an A, but it is where we're reaching. Our students deserve it. Our community deserves it. You as a board and our teachers deserve it. So, what we're working on are what are the supports that we need. Um, and you know, state of
134the district, let me go ahead and put that shameless plug. I'm going to talk about how we need community and parents to come along because we cannot do this alone. We cannot do this alone. I know that our staff is working hard at every level, but we can't do it alone. We need our parents and we need our community. So, thank you. You like that slide that tea put in there? So, I was figured I'd put it up there. Thank you. So, I'll open it up to questions. So, I think it's ironic that we get our efficiency report the same night that we're going over all of these things, right? And granted, our efficiency report is 2023, 2024, but this is a team effort and there is no fingerpointing in this room whatsoever. And if
135anything, I would take full ownership for as me as a board member. What have I not seen to give you what you need to be successful? Right? So if you look at what you said, which was the academic growth in 2024, we got a C. And in 2025, we got a D. And in 2024, closing the gaps, we got a C. And in 2025, we got a D. And it's hard to take the ownership because I feel like we What do we need? What do we need to do? But the two things that mean the most in educating a kid is academic growth and closing the gap. And we failed. I failed. And I don't know what that means, what it looks like, but you look at our efficiency audit and we spent $76 per
136student in 23 24 where other districts spent 125. State average was 125. Curriculum and staff development, we spent 140 and the state average is 168. So I think it goes back to what is it that we can do that you need to make you more successful because at the end of the day it comes back to these two things and it's academic growth and closing the gaps. So inundate us tell us what you need what makes it look successful. Do we strip everything away and start with the basics again? I don't know the answer but like Dr. Austin said, "We can't sustain like this." And I know everybody is pouring their heart and soul. There is no doubt about that. But point the finger at us and tell us what you need because we've got
137to start making a difference. >> I just want to comment on what you said. I I think, you know, I've sat on this board for a while now, too, and the one thing I haven't seen is, you know, every year if we get a low grade or we're just flat. Um, the one thing I see different this year is we have a strategic plan and it and we're sticking to it. And from the campus report earlier, I mean, it was following the strategic plan of the entire district. We've never had that before. Uh, and so I think that's the number one, the first start. and and that just started the end of last year. So, u this is really our first year of going into it where everybody's on board, everybody knows it. So, I'm
138thinking that's going to help a lot too. >> Uh I just want to comment. Um I think it uh what Miss Austin was talking about was awesome point. I want to sync the two huge reports we had today. The efficiency audit and our um results. All these people up here work hard. They're working hard. They're going crazy trying to figure out how to get this up. Okay. How are we slipping? And I've said this before. We're fighting a losing battle with our teachers. We had 30%. You saw that in the the efficiency. We had 30% turnover rate. That's not just last year. It's been going on for years. The state average is 19.1%. Way above. I did a study on these seven other school districts that we were compared with all the way from Colombia,
139Brazoria through Van. We had almost half of our teachers zero to five years. Okay. Nobody else was in the 40s. There was a couple that had the 30s. I'm comparing the ones with this the seven other school districts. Most of them were in the 20s of zero to five. What does that tell you? The experience. We got the work. We got the work ethic. You're working hard. You're busting it. We're just fighting a battle with this. So, I don't want to steal your thunder, uh, Dr. Austin, but I'm looking forward to next month when you, uh, come out with, uh, what you find about a 4-day school week. >> Sorry, you asked me to do four day year round school. Um, also, we are embarking on a staffing audit as well. uh give me a
140couple months, not necessarily next month. Um we do have a roundt in October with you guys that we are going to give progress on the strategic plan. If I can get everything together, I'd like the staffing report will not be done until end of November, December. But when we get all that, I'd like to bring that all to you because then that's pretty good timing for really we have to start looking at next the next year in December and January. So I've talked with everybody of like we have to have everything to present to you guys for our internal team by end of December. So in January when we come back we start planning everything for and let me say this right for 26 27. Oh, say that. That's strange to say because we got
141to get through 25 26, but that's when we'll have everything. >> And um following up, I think that uh 4 day uh school week is a great idea. I think it'll help our teacher morale, keep the teachers here. That's the big thing. That's the uh reason why I like that a lot. Um also, our students will like it too. Uh, I've seen studies in different parts of Texas. 120 districts in Texas has that. It started really out there in Colorado in that area. But, um, there's a lot of success and there's some areas that didn't do so well. So, we got to do it right. But, I'm looking forward to that. Thank you. I will say just for parents out there that may be worried, we will also make sure if we even entertain this
142that we ask our parents which I do understand that it would be morale booster for staff but we also have to make sure we are ser like we are there meeting the needs of our parents and with 63% of our students being low SDS I'm my biggest concern that I'll go ahead and put out there is what will our parents do on the day that their students aren't in school and I think we have to make sure that we do our due diligence to make sure our parents are also on board with this because we cannot afford to lose an enrollment. >> And I'm going to add as a teacher and as a person who lives in this community that we're I know we've got to take care of our teachers because our teachers take
143care of our kids, but that's who we're here to serve. And so we need to make sure our kids are taken care of in whatever decisions we make. >> So again, on September 25th, I know all of you are going to be there. I'm going to truly talk about our next steps, not just forward with our staff, but what that looks like with our parents and our community. And I'm truly excited. And I know this is hard data to look at, Miss Alustin, and everybody else out here, but we have the team. we have the people and I know we have the resources and we will be doing this together and then I'm going to go on to my next report if Mr. President that's okay. Let's go to teaching and learning Miss Jessica Robin.
144>> This is just a little bit of a followup on the conversation we just had. Just giving bringing you up to speed on where we are with creating that culture of data. We will I just gave you a very small snip section of our assessment calendar. We've been very strategic about where we place these assessments, the frequency. Um we engaged a teacher committee this last year to really get some feedback around our assessment process. So that assessment piece is just that beginning of year process that we're kicking off. Um, most importantly, campuses are now closing out their beginning of year data and moving into that analysis process and so that we can shift into action. So some of our big moves this year around making some of the shift are landing in that area of
145action and how we are holding one another accountable, how principles are holding campuses accountable as we look not just at these big numbers at beginning, middle, and end of year, but weekly how are we tracking the data? And so this is the big picture data, but I'll just be honest with you, this is not where the numbers change. the numbers change in the week to week and those are some things with our new strategic plan and those priorities that we're focused very heavily on the weekly tracking and that is going to be a new piece for our system. Um it's just been I I can't say it hasn't been in place at all but we didn't have systems for it. So if there's not a system there's no monitoring there's no measuring. So that's the
146piece that we are um focused very closely on, not just with testing students, but also in how we give um feedback to our staff when we're doing those walkthroughs and how are we making sure that that coaching is consistent. So those action pieces are big for us right now. We'll bring in October, the board adopted um we'll use those progress measures that align to the strategic priorities at the round table in October. Um, and that's where we'll move our next u conversation there. Keeping in mind that beginning of year data is really showing us how much learning loss there was. We wouldn't have expected a lot of instructional gain to happen over a summer, but we would hope that that learning loss is minimized from the summertime. So, we'll be looking at that beginning of
147year data at our next round table. Any questions? When did we stop doing reading in the summers like required book readings and things like that to where >> I mean I think it's >> Are you talking about like older students or younger students or just in general? >> You remember summer reading assignments? >> Yeah. Like they had to read six or three out of the six books or whatever. Is there a reason why we stopped having summer? >> I think so. I will just tell you that um as someone who even gave a lot of those assignments as a classroom teacher, the return on investment is not always great with that. You get a whole lot of kids cramming the last two weeks of summer. So I think what we hope and dream as teachers
148is that through the summer they're reading and they're engaging text and they're doing all these things. We can't really control that needle when we only see them when they come back. So I think a lot of it is are we getting the gain and return on investment with kids um if they're just cramming at the last minute to get a project done. Um and so teachers do measure that annually to determine like are we going to give something over the summer or not but um I don't know if that's always the needle mover because of just how it can be handled. You know, a two-week cramming is a lot of stress, maybe not a lot of turnaround on investment. >> There's so many digital options now. I know we've mentioned it before, but we have
149platforms we're paying year round that we aren't using over the summer. It's still an option that we should consider for learning over the summer. >> I think something like that is a little bit different. The hard piece is we can't make kids do that, right? So, we can attempt that with um and offer it as an option. and we just don't have a way to be able to hold that that line over those two and a half months. >> But I think it is a great point to make it available as technology sits back there. How can we keep our kids rostered to to have it as an option because as we start doing those parent meetings at the end saying where your student is with grade level and what are some things you can
150do over the summer, then we would have right >> those programs available as as an opportunity. >> Well, I think it goes back to accountability. >> Yeah. >> Right. I mean, we have to as a parent, I hold my child accountable, right? And so teachers are supposed to be holding their kids accountable throughout the summer. If we keep them occupied or engaged, then maybe we close the gap just a hair more than what we did the year before. And again, it can be math, it can be reading, the core subjects, but >> offering and saying you or or say you get an extra 10 points when you walk in the door with a completed whatever. And I know that makes a big difference in algebra 2 or algebra or whatever the case is. I mean,
151>> we've got to start incentivizing and trying to work towards closing that gap because we're not spending the first six weeks >> reviewing what we've lost. Miss Austin, um before I ran for uh school board, I presented a summer program that dealt with the library system. Uh Mr. Burton, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but you were looking into it. You might still have some information. Um and this just joged my memory uh on this. Uh that's something that we could look at tying in with the county uh library system because it it worked out real well down there in Nate um Corpus Christie area. They had that type of program. Um AR, we don't do AR anymore, do we? >> No. >> How come? So, there are lots of opinions out
152there about AR, but I'll tell you that one of the things that that particular system will do is it's the it's kind of that base level quizzing on just did you read the book? Basic level questions. Um, finding ways that kids can choose books, read books that are of their interest, not just exactly where that level says that they're supposed to be is a big push to really try to get kids into reading. Um, get them excited about it. I think there's a segment of kids that AR encourages that competitive nature is there for some kids, but I think it goes back to, you know, if it do you do it if it's not good for the whole group? Um, do you do it if it just works for a small segment of your population?
153So, a lot of districts have moved, a lot of systems have moved to incentivizing reading through other ways of engaging reading besides just read this book that this level says that you're on and then take a test. Um, so that kids aren't getting to an older stage in life and not excited about reading anymore. >> All right. Thank you. We'll move to 11B2 or business report. Miss Henderson. >> Um, so you have the business office report. This is preliminary for the at least for the expenditures as the end of August. I just want you to remind that I know we've already had more expenditures. We have more revenue coming. So, um, in September I'll be updating it again. I did pull um or one thing I want to note that the tax collections for this
154year we are a little bit higher than last year by 29% so it's tax collections are staying up there. Uh TEA just released their first near final and I can guarantee it will change some. Um but it looks like uh from what we budgeted in state funding um we're going to get additional 484,859 more and our recapture is 14,400 less. Again, this is their first near final, so this will be changing, but um in doing a quick tally this afternoon at this point, and again, please don't hold me to this. Um our deficit's looking around 4 million. So that's a little bit less than what we definitely less than what we had budgeted and less than what we reported in July. >> Is this for 2425? >> Yes, sir. Okay. >> Yeah, this this is
155August 25. just our preliminary year end. Any questions? And then I will also on the cash flow I I'll be giving y'all next month the 2425 again because I want to include the additional expenses that we picked up in August that we paying in September and then also give you the start of 2526. Any other questions? All right, no questions. We'll move to 11B3, human resources report. >> So, I'm going to go ahead and talk about um enrollment. We continue to look at enrollment and attendance on a day-to-day basis, even putting in um our uh withdrawal forms instead of a paper copy that we tended to look at quarterly at attendance meetings. Um we went to a Google form so we can see them on a day-to-day basis exactly why kids are leaving um and
156and tweaking seeing is there anything that we could have done to keep a child in the district. Um you'll see we've had 31 students as uh when this was um sent to y'all. It is broken down by where these students went. Then we move into attendance. You can definitely see Fulton is the place to be. Um Linda is rocking over on that campus. I don't have last week's, but I'm pretty sure middle school did pretty dang good last week and they got pajamas, I believe, on Friday. Um, so continuing to focus on those two areas, that's going to help this lady sitting next to me and that final dollar amount. Um staffingwise, uh we have um looked at our hiring processes and um changed um some systems uh to better enhance how we make sure
157that we are hiring the best people because our students deserve the best. Um, and so that link just takes you to the document that outline step by step process from interviewing all the way to onboarding a staff member. Um, you'll see the vacancies that we currently have listed. And Mr. Vogle, I know you talk about retention and it is absolutely unacceptable that we have a 30% turnover and we can do lots of different things to we can pay teachers. we can pay um a custodian but I truly feel that what makes a person stay in a district is how we make them feel and we recognize the efforts that they are doing. So the first person I do want to recognize tonight is Cresta Starns. She is our PE's assistant. She has stepped up so
158much this school year um with our PES director being out um for other reasons. Um, she has taken on Skyward Q, which is the new Skyward system. There have been bumps and bruises, but we are getting through it. She always has a smile on her face, but more importantly, you can tell that it doesn't matter that she's not sitting in a classroom. She voiced um a concern about two uh kids in the district that would potentially leave us if we weren't going to really work on keeping them. The only reason that they stayed in this district is because she voiced. She spoke up. We were able to do what we needed to do to keep them in this district. And she is 100% the person to um take responsibility for that. So kudos to her
159and to the PES department. Um the other person, I don't have her on here because it um it happened last week. Um we talk about we are here to educate and we talked about reading and math and word problems. Um, and that is a huge part of of educating a student, but we also talk about what are we putting out after graduation? Are are they going to be a good citizen um in our community? What character do they have walking out of our campus? All of that is a part of educating a kid. And it takes a village to do that. But we also want to have fun. Kids don't come to school if it's not fun. Um, and so we try to make sure that we are doing things on campus and within the
160district that keep them engaged with us. And we try to make as many memories that they want to look back like we can look back on our high school days. Um, and we can reflect on all of the great things that happened. And last week, we had a senior student that was going through a very hard time in her life and she was going to miss out on a memory with her parent. And Dr. Carter, I know it was hard. You provided a memory for a family that they were not going to get. And while it is about educating kids academically, it is also about doing things that are best for kids. And we created a memory and you did that. And so I just want to say thank you. Okay. Any questions for Molly?
161I would suggest that you don't, but if you want to go ahead. We're going to move to our athletic report. Coach Reyes, I know that coach Sosa told you three minutes, but I'm pretty sure I've missed the game, so take as long as you want. It is tied. Diana's watching the scoreboard on the camera. >> She said I was gonna try and make it quick, but there's a lot of >> going on with that 12. >> I was I was giving them the update to eighth grade team score. Diana's watching it on the >> Okay, just to piggyback off of what Molly was saying and and that touched me um because I was at the tennis meet this past Saturday and I'll let you know what that that took place with that senior. Um she
162showed up to play tennis. She showed up and her sister was there and her baby niece was there. And so when we talk about extracurricular activities and the why, that is exactly why. So, um, I was very proud of her and of course, um, that felt like a safe place. So, I'm glad that that our district was able to to do that for her. I mean, she's the strong one here, but, uh, the fact that she felt like our district is a safe place, uh, speaks volumes in my opinion. Um, okay. So now for the athletic report, um, as far as participation numbers with the athletic period for the high school boys, we're at 222. Uh, the girls are at 176. Uh, with middle school, it's 180 for the boys and 156 for the girls.
163Going into the participation numbers, uh, as far as sports specific, it's pretty consistent with what we had um, our last meeting. I will say that cross country uh, does now have a complete varsity team, which is excellent because we need that in competition at the district meet. And varsity um, tennis has also grown collectively with the middle school and high school. they do have over 30 uh participants uh competitors now I'm going to call them. And um so now with the sports updates uh going into tennis uh they have started off pretty strong. They've played uh some really good matches and have been super competitive and it's definitely prepared them and made them better for district. Um they are uh they have started district already and they're currently two and one and this past weekend
164they did have a a district match against Yokum and they did dominate that as a team winning 10-2 and then immediately after that they played a non-district game and uh against non-district match against Pleasant and ended ended up winning that as a team 10 to8. So, uh, definitely Coach Scribbin is looking forward. He's excited about the continued district play and he's very optimistic of of the playoffs and making a good run at that. I'm going to jump on over. I know it says football, but I'm going to jump over to cross country. And, um, they are definitely running strong. Uh two weeks ago they competed at the K City um cross country meet and the JB girls finished second overall with Rayan Siki placing second, Jocelyn Rojas finished in fifth and Ava Kitchens in 11th.
165And then on the varsity side of that, Ellie Sparks led the girls with an impressive second place finish. and Miranda Heimy finished in eighth and LC Hell uh finished in 25th place. And then the boys absolutely dominated that meet uh finishing first place as a team. Uh standouts were Dan Sephuentes finishing sixth, Hunter Thole 23rd, and Matt Lynch 25th. And this past weekend, uh, they also ran, the varsity teams ran at the Islander Classic, um, and competed very well. Ellie Sparks and Royce Havens, uh, meddled. Um, so, Coach Thompson and Coach Blue again are doing an excellent job with that program. These kids are running and believing and and working hard for us, so we definitely appreciate them. Um, now we're going to serve it up to volleyball. and they have definitely been competing at
166a high level and uh they just finished tournament season um with the last uh tournament being at Golad and that is a very super cons competitive tournament almost all the teams there uh make the playoffs and make good runs in the playoffs. So that was definitely a good competitive tournament for the girls and they competed very well. they did end up um as the champions in the silver bracket. And also to add to that, Ellie left, which uh was recognized as all tournament um she received all tournament honors uh for the last two tournaments. So that would be the sitting tournament and uh goalad. So we definitely wanted to recognize her for that. Coach Clark has some highlights that she's super proud of uh so far. One of them being uh the huge win that
167they had against a state ranked opponent. Uh it was a home game against Industrial. And not only was she proud of of the efforts that the girls put forth and and all their hard work in getting that win, but she was super proud of the way the community, our parents, the student section, I mean that game was intense. And I think the combination of all that is what led to our victory. So, she was super duper proud of that. Um, also, uh, one of the highlights, and this kind of happened towards the end of of last year, but she definitely wanted to recognize it, and that's community members coming together and forming our Rockport Fulton uh, youth volleyball um, league that turned out to be a huge success. And one of the great things about
168that as well is we have our younger kids playing, but also we had um our our older our varsity athletes giving back, being out there, putting in time to ref and and to keep score and stuff like that. So then just those little ones looking up to their role models. I think that was that was a really great connection that that we were able to make. And then lastly for volleyball, um, Coach Clark Clark was very pleased. Again, Fulton, we're talking about Fulton a lot, but Miss Cox welcomed our our girls to greeting the students. And again, that's just huge. And the kids love it and our players love it. So, Miss Cox, thank you for having them. And now, let's talk about the boys of fall and um the the spectacular job that Coach
169Sosa is doing with them. and we talked about the last meeting he was wanting to add another team and have four full teams and uh he was very successful in doing that. We now have a freshman green team, freshman white team. We have our JV team and of course our varsity and I will say that he's super excited about that and definitely loves the work that they're putting forth. Uh they're definitely battling and uh just being able to have two freshman teams also allows the opportunities for growth and for them to to have a lot of learning going on on both sides of the both ends of the ball and stuff like that. So he's very pleased with that. I do want to say they have a game coming up this Friday against Kim Kade
170and and as you've seen our boys are really battling. Um, so they they're battling, they're just going all out. Um, and they could definitely use uh the the support from our community. And we encourage everyone to go out and and support our boys of fall. And uh you'll see that right now they're doing very well. They're putting up big numbers on the scoreboard and uh not letting the opponent score as many. So that's even better. Um, but definitely come out and support them. Uh, coach Sosa is very pleased with with our battling pirates and he's doing a great job. The coaching staff is doing a great job. So again, please come out and support Friday night. And I just want to say he's very proud of the way that um his pirates um are representing
171the green and gold. So again, come out and support. The theme is blackout night. So uh be ready. Friday night lights. Let's go. >> Okay. >> And teachers, don't forget to come at 5:30 to get sliders, crispy waffle fries, and a soda. >> There you go. >> Mike. Mike, is it too soon to call it a blackout night? That's a good one, too. Ouch. All right. And you can see all these great pictures up here of of our student athletes and just the fun that they're having and the fun competing and and being successful. So that's really great. Um just moving forward with our social media, our so our primary source of social media is Facebook and for communication with our parents SportsUs, the SportsU app that we use and both are proving to be
172very uh beneficial, efficient, effective, and uh so everything's going pretty well with that. So we're pleased with that. And then lastly, uh, UIL eligibility. So, Friday, this Friday marks, um, the end of the six weeks as per UIL policy. Uh, students must be passing all classes at the end of the six week mark to be eligible for extracurricular activities. And even though we are on a nine-week uh, calendar, we must pull the grades for the first six weeks uh, to be in compliance with the UIL policy. And I will say again, Coach Sosa and Coach Bias are doing a wonderful job getting the grade checks out, making sure that that we're setting up our our kids for the opportunities to be successful um and to be eligible and and to be able to play the
173sports that they're passionate about and to continue to represent RFISD and in the best way. So, go Pirates. >> Thank you, Coach Reyes. Thank you always for filling in for Coach Sosa so he can be at the football games. >> Oh, it's fun. I get to hang out with y'all. >> All right, we're moving to Mike Noatne, the fixer of the football lights. >> Everything was replaced. So, we did have we we we made sure that all that was ready to go for this Friday. All right, was a busy night. Okay. So, some of the projects we had going on here uh since the last board meeting, uh VCS, they were contracted out to do our communications upgrade. They showed up a few weeks ago and installed that rack there has all the equipment and
174for some reason they pre-built that before they brought it. So, then they had to haul that up the steps to the press box. So, save some time, but probably not their backs doing that. Uh but all that's going high school, middle schools, completely functional. There's some uh coverage spots that we're still working on at Fulton and Live Oak, but we had some solutions, so we're going to get some more coverage in there, but as of right now, it's been working very well. And uh next over there, Live Oak had a weld that uh broke on the bus gate. So, we had a Toz fence come out and they uh did a quick repair on that. And then that picture there with that red thing, that's the pump for the little live oak chiller that decided
175to spring a leak a morning before school started. And luckily Miss Poland and Odyssey worked with us. We were able to get the students over there while we made that repair. Uh we had repaired within a day. So uh Brandt came out and helped us with that replacement. Then we had uh the rest of the admin furniture was delivered. Uh pictured there is our guys. They've uh taken some of the older furniture away uh have been moved into storage and possibly may be auctioned off later. Uh the next picture is the new furniture that went in. Uh the company JR Inc. There's the ones that we uh purchase that furniture from and that's them installing it in some of the business office area. Is that you? That's HR, excuse me. HR business office are the
176ones that uh got installed this last uh this last trip they made. Next uh picture that is CJ's uh crane service. They helped us uh replace that he helped lift up one of our HVAC units that we replacing over at the middle school. Next picture is us. Uh that's David Cerna and Carlos getting gas and power hooked up to the replacement unit. And then that's Carlos there repairing a roof leak. And that's at the Fulton gym. And then that next picture, it's kind of hard to tell, but there is a guy in a little tank down there in the white hard hat. He is replacing the grinder pump for the lift station that services the new concession stand as well as the trainers restrooms. That pump failed. So he replaced it. And the next picture
177is another lift station we have that services the Kate buildings. So we're welding pump filled there. So David Serno was able to make that repair in house. Uh we're able to fit in that one. That one's a little bit bigger. So the other one you have to be pretty pretty skinny to be able to fit down there. Uh the next picture that's where that sponsor board used to be. You can see it was removed and then now those holes are now filled. And then so next picture that's actually here at the auditorium right outside. We had to add a well to this was bond to help with the irrigation for the new addition and that's some fencing that was added around it and now it has slats in it so it's covered up and just
178cut that fence off to try to keep people from being able to have access to that. Next just some hedges that were being trimmed over at Little Live Oak. And the last picture here that's uh David Drier. He's uh chalking the old practice field. Uh, coach SA wanted uh to see if we could do that to so the students could the athletes could practice on grass field because one of the away games they had they had a grass field. So just trying to get the athletes use you know make sure they were prepared to play on grass field and we were able to chalk it up real quick for them and did a great job. And then since the last report we did 9 we closed 920 work orders and that includes my report. Oh
179no I'm I'm sorry. Let's get the budget. So this year, this is finishing out this year. Uh this past year, 725,998 was our starting encumbered 680,97. Our August expenditures 38,824 and we finished with 40 45,91 remaining. Yeah, that doesn't include anything that happened since I I did that slide, but there's probably a few some of our upcoming upcoming projects. We still have access control coming also little live oak. We're doing all 12 classrooms. We'll be getting access control doors. We're replacing the frames and doors and also getting access control. And then the communications upgrade. As I mentioned earlier, still working on some spots at Live Open Fulton. And that concludes my report. meeting order. Are there any questions or items you'd like to pull? I believe it's just meeting minutes. If not, then I will
180entertain a motion. >> Motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Motion made by Mr. Randall, second by Mrs. Jarnell. Any discussion? Take a vote. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. 70. >> That will lead us to agenda item 13, which is close session. So at this time, the board recess and executive session. >> Going to do the election. >> Yeah, we're going to get back >> or afterward. Do >> you all have answers? I will say if I can I guess I can speak. I went back and looked Donna pulled for me May's election contract and looking at this election contract and I do by looking at the both now it does look like the 39,545 will be our portion because then you look at the top of the contract this is just
181with us. So in looking like I said in the way the May was worded I do think that's the same. We'll say the November election um is higher than our May elections. Um officials are like 10,000 more and equipment rentals like 9,000 more. Um but I and I still not for sure, but it by looking at both contracts, it does look like our expense would be the 39,545. So board, we I don't want to discuss it anymore until we have a motion on the floor, but if anybody wants to make the motion to bring it up for discussion, you can do it so at this time. If not, then we'll move into close session. I make a motion to approve the election contract with the Resis County for November 4th, 2025 general election. Second. >>
182All right. So, we're going to need a clear motion. You'll have to make a motion to to go back to 10 C and then make the motion just like you said. So, we got to make a motion to uh go back to item 10 C because it was tabled. >> Well, it takes two votes. Make a motion to make. >> No, no, no. We have to have a motion to bring back to agenda item 10 C. >> I make a motion to move back to item number 10 C on the agenda. >> Second. >> All right. So, motion made by Miss Austin, second by Mrs. Jarnell. So, now we'll move to agenda back to agenda item 10 C. Let me grab that real fast. that's to consider take possible action to approve the election contract
183with Ranges County for the November 4, 2025 general election. >> It was out of order. >> No, no, it was out of order. So, we made a motion to go back. That motion, the original motion was amended and amended and teddy and withdrawn. I make a motion to approve the election contract county for the November 4th, 2025 general election. >> All right, we have a motion made by Mrs. Jarnell. Do we have a second? >> Second by Mrs. Alustin. Any further discussion, comments, questions? So this is about the election November back to 7C >> 10 10 C. So just >> yes just to clarify. So what we did was there was a motion made when it was brought up amended and it it was tabled. But as long as a uh somebody makes a motion
184to reconsider it in the same meeting as long as one action item is voted on afterwards you can bring it back up. Thank you. I just want to be clear what >> any other discussion on it? If not, then we'll take a vote. All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? >> Yes. No. >> I oppose. >> All right. Motion passes 61. >> All right. So, now we'll go back to agenda item 13, close session. So at this time, the board recess an executive session pursuant to the Texas Government Code section 551 071, 551072, 551074, and 551076. And the time is 8:56 You like