001Good evening. The time is 6 pm on April 17, 2025. I call this regular meeting of the Rockport Fulton Independent School to order. Let the record show the 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 the prayer led by Trusty Randall. Heavenly Father, as we gather here near the close of another school year, we pause to give you thanks. Thank you for the dedication of our teachers, the growth of our students, the support of our families, and the guidance of this board throughout the year. Grant us wisdom in our discussions today, clarity in our decisions, and unity in our purpose. May our work continue
002to reflect a commitment to the well-being and success of every student in our care. As we look back on challenges and celebrate achievements, help us to move forward with renewed energy and shared vision for the future. bless this meeting, each person present, and the community we serve. In your name we pray. Amen. Please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance and the Texas pledge by our NJOTC. Once again, thank you to our wonderful Navy JOTC. Tonight we have Cadet Ogle Ham. She is the assistant unarmed exhibition commander. She is in her second year in the program. She is a part of the unarmed drill team and the color guard teams. She is lead for the drone club for the unit. Cadet Ogalam plans to join the US Army. Yes, I am M. Awesome. She would
003like to be a military police and work as a dog handler. Her secondary goal is to become a veterinarian with the Army College benefits. We also have with us this evening Cadet Ava Christians. Cadet Christians is her in her first year of the program. She participates in the armed basic drill team, armed exhibition team, unarmed basic team, unarmed exhibition drill team, academic team, and physical fitness teams. Oprah Achiever. Yes, absolutely. She is training to be an armory petty officer. Cadet Christians plans to enlist in the US Marine Corps. Her goal is to be military police to carry on a family legacy. She would like to be part of the K9 unit. She would like the the Marines to be of her career. Thank you so much, ladies. All right, that brings us to item four,
004public comment. All right, we'll move on to item five, district celebrations. Dr. Austin. So, before we start tonight's celebrations, I want to take a moment because there's going to be a lot of celebration tonight. And I wanted to say I truly believe that this is a reflection of all of the hard work of our staff, of our coaches, of uh what you guys have done as a as a board. and it's come to fruition tonight because what we're bringing forward in celebrations are some of our best representatives because these are our state qualifiers, our academic allstate, these are our fine arts programs and how they have really advanced and excelled in their competitions. And so I can't wait to hear from their sponsors and their coaches about what they've accomplished because Pirate Pi tonight is
005in action with these groups. So with no further ado, I'm going to start with Dr. Carter because she is going to recognize our validictorian and saludiatoran of the class of 2025. All right. So, our next group, before I bring up their uh coach, teacher, director, actually I should say, I want to say a special thank you to this group because we wanted to make it a little bit prettier up here and put some decorations. So, our theater group helped us. So, please give them a round of applause and welcome Mr. John Lutman. Uh, and my kids did such hard work that they uh got first place at district. Uh and we won six individual awards at district as well. Uh and then at by district uh we faced a lot of fantastic shows. Uh we
006got fourth place which was alternate. We weren't needed as you can see. Uh but we had hope. Uh and there we won four individual awards. Uh, so if my theater kids could come up real real quick so we can give you those set awards. Sorry, we like to be a little extra in the theater department. Yeah. Uh we have Katherine Jones who got uh who was a part of the advancing play as well as got u honorable mention allstar cast at district and honorable mention all-star cast at by district. Just hand them uh we have Addison Cope that got honorable mention all-star cast both at district and by district as well. Uh we have Potter who is a part of our uh our one act team that placed first. Lovey Tate a part of our
007one act stage crew that placed first. It's okay. We have Elijah Pena who got all-star test at district. Uh we have Shannon Wedell who got all-star tech at district. We have Kaylee Delgado who was part of the advancing first place team. We have Maline O' Conor who is part of our stage crew for the first place advancing team and Parker Brown who got all-star cast at both district and by district. Several who couldn't be here but they also did fantastic things. I'm so proud of them and Without them, we we wouldn't be here. I don't know. As they make their way down, I will say I did my acting debut in their fall show in Little Shop of Horrors. If you guys did not see it, you should go to our Facebook. It was pretty
008good. One take. Uh, and if you want to do it again next year, please. All right. Yes. Mr. Kruzanne said, "Thank you for always allowing us to come on to your stage as well." All right. I would like to call up next our RFHS choir director, Miss Michelle Christner. and Miss Marcy Peterson. She is our fine arts department lead. I also wanted to invite up a very special lady who many of you may know, Miss Merlene Floreninoi, who is our phenomenal accompanist of which we would not be successful without her expertise. So, I invited her to come up with us. You know, success can be defined, you know, on an in based on an individual or or whatever time of day you're at. For me, success can can be defined conquering that uh the copy
009machine. When you have six or seven different things that just jam up and I'm like, and I'm not a pro at copy machines, but when I do fix it, I feel so accomplished. These young people that you see in front of you are so exceptional. As you can see, there are several that that were in the theater department and they are also in the band program. I am so honored to be their director. Um, we are going to recognize tonight their accomplishments going to state at the end of May. They learned solos that were in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and they received first division ratings from their judges. Um, so I'm going to start this off with acknowledging the class one soloists. And then we also have students that participated in the magical this
010year and they received a superior rating and so that means they will also be performing their magical piece at state. So with further ado, Donica Pool class one solo going to state. Okay. Now class one solo uh or magical is Dave Hernandez and he is not here with us. Um next is Analia AOA Parker Brown. Not just class one solo but he is also a part of our magical stick going to state. Clarissa Buck Miller was not able to make it tonight with us. She is um she received a class going to state on class one solo as well as magical. And next is our freshman Tristan Das. He performed a class one solo as well as performing in our magical. Now Mark Kelly, Mark Kelly was our allstator this year. So he went through
011the TMA process and he gets two certificates. He performed at TMEA this year in the small all state small school choir on bass and he was phenomenal. I was there for every bit of the rehearsal and was so very proud of my base. So congratulations Mark. He is also going to stay on assault and magical. Aubrey McCcler is uh has a class one solo as well as performing with the magical but she is not here tonight, not able to make it. Elizabeth Sain is up next and she unfortunately wasn't able to make it. She is has a class one solo as well as a magical. And uh her twin sister Jenny Sain, Jennifer Sain is going to perform her class one solo and perform in the magical as well. And we have Levy Tate who
012I call Lubat. Yes. So, Levy Tate performed a class one soul and she will also be performing in the magical at state. Congratulations. One last recognition that I want to uh bring to everyone's attention. This year I have three students that are going on to college and they are going to study music education. Um, and two of them, Jenna Hussein and Oelia Potter wants to be a choir director and they're going to my alma mater. They auditioned at uh uh for a scholarship and was accepted into the school of music at Texas A&M University Kingsville. Congratulations. And Mark Kelly has been accepted to Texas State University and he has also been accepted into the school of music and he would like to study music performance. So congratulations to my three seniors. Now, unfortunately or fortunately,
013I did not make my singing debut, but I do not think you wanted me to. Okay. All right. I would love to call to the stage now our RFHS band director, Mr. Ryan Thornberry. Um, I've got you're more than welcome to I'll just hand them to you after. Thank you all so much for allowing us to come tonight and recognize all the great things that the band has done this year. I'm so so so proud of them. We started the year with one of the biggest freshman classes that we've had in a long time. And uh when you add that much new to the band, you don't really know what's going to happen during that year. Um you just don't know how they're going to progress or how it's all going to mix together. Um,
014so we kind of had a rocky start as we made those changes and then all a sudden they've way exceeded all expectations this year. Um, I'm about to list off all the things that they've done and in every single competition we've gone to. Um, we've exceeded what we've done in previous years. So, we've had more kids make region, more kids make area, um, things like that. Uh this year we received superior ratings from every judge that has seen us perform. So at marching contest, at the concert contest, and at site reading, we got ones from every one of them. And in the band world, the only way you can get a sweep stakes is to have gotten ones at each of those competitions. You have to get ones not only in your spring competitions, but
015your fall competitions as well in order to earn the sweep stakes. and we did earn that this year. Um, thank you. By the way, can all the band folks that are here go ahead and make your way down onto the ramp? Thank you. Um, we added a patriotic concert this year and, uh, that's something that we've had in the past and I was really eager to bring it back. I myself am a military brat. Um, my dad was in the Air Force. uh retired from the Air Force and so it was really important for me to bring back the patriotic concert and we resounding success. Um we got to do it uh with our wonderful choir and we did that on top of the fact that we were still preparing our solo and ensemble contest
016as well as um getting ready for so uh UIL contests and things like that. So it was an addition additional burden yet we still were able to show amazing success at those other competitions. Um we uh it didn't seem to phase the students to have those other competitions. At solo and ensemble this year we took 38 students and uh to solo and ensemble competition but we came home with 51 medals. Um, out of those 38 students, 35 of them will be advancing to state. In region band, we uh had 14 make region band. Eight of those 14 made the top ensemble and five made area. And we also had an allstator. And to have this is a process where thousands and thousands and thousands of kids are trying out for on the same music. And
017to bring it all the way down from those thousands to uh I believe it's 15 uh trombones in the all state band and we had one of those 15. um is just I mean you're talking about less than 1% of the kids uh that start the process that actually make it. So we're very very very proud of Joshu Lopez for making the All State band. Now Josh came up a little early but that's okay. I'll read his he said uh not only did he make the all state band, he is also advancing to state on his his solo and on a trombone ensemble. So he's going to state three times this year. In region jazz, we had five students make region jazz. Two of them made the top ensemble and two of them also advanced
018to area. All of these numbers that I'm giving you are improvements from all the previous years. I I I track these things to see if there's things where we need to work on. And even with the number of freshmen we had this year, we had improvements in every uh department. Um so I'm now I'm going to read the students names uh that are here. And uh we had uh we have 77 kids enrolled in the band and I had 40 certificates to give out tonight. So that means that more than half of our band program are recognized and of that nearly all of them will get some sort of state recognition. I have Gabe Austria. He's advancing to state in his percussion ensemble, Devin Watson. Devon's advancing to stay in two ensembles. Now, at Solo
019Ensemble, you can only enter two events. So there's no way to get three people uh three events at state. So he's reached the top of what you can achieve. Um so two ensembles going to state. Congratulations. Foster stick. You play the bass or do you play the bass? So this year we were lucky enough to purchase a bass flute and that's something I've been wanting for a while because it allows us to expand our repertoire and uh we're able to play actually have a a flute choir go to contest this year and Foster played the bass flute. Siobhan Patel Siobhan's advancing to state in his percussion ensemble. Hold on. There you go. Maline O' Conor. Meline's advancing to state in her ensemble. Kayie Delgado. Kayle's advancing to stay in her ensemble. Iana Nurano. Ariana made
020region band and is advancing to stay in both of her ensembles. Emma Martinez. Emma is advancing to state in her ensemble. High five. Jack Hec. Jack not only made the region band, but he also advanced to the area level. Gage Tyler. Gage received a superior rating on his solo. Burke Johnson. Burke is uh made region band and is also advancing to stay in both of his ensembles. Alexerta Alex is uh advancing to stay in both of his ensembles. Matthew Lynch. He's advancing to state in his ensemble. Singleary is advancing to state in her ensemble. James Sto is advancing to state in his ensemble. Clinton Cheek Clinton's advancing to state in his ensemble. Joseph Maestro. Joseph's been busy. He made not only uh region jazz, but he advanced to area. He made region band and he
021advanced in both of his ensembles to state. Elelliana Lopez. Elelliana advanced to state in her ensemble. James Patterson. James received a superior rating on his solo. Now, um I did invite all of the band to come because of the trophies. Where are the trophies at? Oh, okay. So we have um our marching trophy, we have our sweep stakes, and um because we advanced at marching band, we also were able to advance to area marching. So these are our three trophies. So even though um the folks that are here don't have a certificate for solo and ensemble, they definitely contributed to uh having these uh sweep stakes this year. So I invited the whole band to be here tonight. So thank you very much. Maybe he want you to go ahead and call them by name.
022We're going to go ahead and call you by name. Okay, we have Laura. Come on by. Laura Maya. Laura Maya. Little sweet. Shannon Wedia Potter. Rashana mean Ariana Rendone. Did you find it? Parker Brown. Alana Gity. And of course, uh, next to me is Hayden Jeffers. Okay. Thank you. Um, so Laura, somehow we probably my mistake. Laura did advance to state. Laura, wave your hand. Where are you at? Laura is is going to stay on her percussion ensemble. I also want to say thank you to Mr. Fona, our middle school band director. I was just about to say All right. So, now we are going to move to our pirate athletics, starting with one of my most favorite sports and one of the hardest, cross country with Miss Alvara Blue. Uh, thank you for allowing
023me to speak today. I'm proud to recognize a dedicated student athlete who has earned the honor to qualify for the UIL state cross country meet. Yeah. Royce Havens has tr shown tremendous dedication, discipline, and heart. Putting in the miles day after day, balancing his academics, work schedule, and competing with focus and determination. Representing our school at the state level is a huge accomplishment, and Royce has made our campus, community, coaching staff, and family very proud. This season, Royce laid a solid foundation for his future. He continued to improve, setting personal records and showing major growth since his freshman year. His progress is a direct result of the of the work he puts in and the passion he brings to this sport. Please join me to congratulate Royce Havens on an outstanding achievement. We're excited to
024see more of him in the future and thank you and continue to support our athletic program. All right. So, we're gonna bring up our powerlifting state qualifiers. I do know that we have one playing baseball right now. Um, but I'll let the coaches talk about them. I think he has the special fan up here. Coach Bayz and Coach Alvarado, our powerlifting coaches. I call coach Bayz the enforcer. All right. Sorry about that. I hate microphones. really uh powerlifting is that one sport that is really is open to everybody in the school that's willing to work that's willing to put in the effort and get stronger and it really is the one sport that their work ethic is a direct correlation to their results you know like coach I'm casa the the weights don't lie you
025put in the work the results will show and our girls did a tremendous job all year. We started out with 14 and we ended up with eight girls and um getting up at at 5:00, 5:30, getting get to practice at 6:00 is it's tough for a lot of teenagers, espe especially some of us that kind of look like we just got out of bed and live two minutes away from the school and got there. Um and uh out of those eight we had seven girls that qualified for regionals and had the regional qualifying total. Now out of those three we had uh three state qualifiers. Uh Amadus Fernandez Marcel Sparza Elizabeth Garcia. Elizabeth was a silver medalist at the state be. She did a great job. Good evening. Thank you for having us tonight. And
026congratulations to all our kids and our college my colleagues uh from Rockport Fulton High School. What a tremendous celebration. I'd like to start by just uh we had uh 28 kids uh 28 boys that would come out and and work out, but powerlifting you only have a team of 12. So we had to rotate our kids. And unfortunately it's a team of 12 and and we we would rotate every Saturday. But, you know, they never they never bat an eye to get better every every week. It's a long season and uh this year we had five uh regional qualifiers and we had three state qualifiers. I'm very proud of that. Very proud of our kids and I'd like to recognize them tonight. I'd like to start with Kade Al. He is currently right now at
027the baseball field. Okay. He is a state qualifier. He is a Texas High High School Powerlifting Association scholarship recipient and regional qualifier. Very proud of him. Next, we have Trey Alvarado. He's a state qualifier and regional qualifier. And our last qualifier, state qualifier, Marco Ramos, state qualifier and regional qualifier. Going to miss these boys. Good luck to you all. Thank you. All right. So, we are going to end our celebrations uh for our pirate athletics with our athletic director, Eric Sosa, and he is going to go through our academic allstate students. Coming up with him is Coach Scrivens, Coach Raspberry, and Coach Blue. My staff. I love it. Uh, if you are a academic allstate qualifier, then come on up here, Michael. Go ahead, Neil. Come on. Come on, Mr. Patel. Come on up here.
028Okay. uh with this um it is seniors. So the coaches have different associations that they are a part of. Uh the real big one in in in Texas is the Texas high school coaches association. Uh we have a soccer association. Uh we have uh a powerlifting association. And all of these things they have all these associations have requirements that one it has to be a senior and then some type of gradepoint average along with uh GPA um uh ACT SAT scores and then if you qualify then there are different tiers and uh we have a quite a few of seniors that were able to qualify. So uh it's going to be in alphabetical order as best as I can make it. So uh as I call just come on up here and and get it.
029Uh as we heard Kate Austin, he was a state qualifier in powerlifting. He was also uh recognized on the elite team for boys powerlifting. Uh Gabriel Austria uh for team tennis, he was second team all state. Mr. Parker Brown, cross country, second team. I think he just left. Okay. Uh, Anna E. Carryon, soccer all state team. Congratulations. Jacqueline Crab, team tennis, second team. Amoris Fernandez, girls powerlifting, first team, and also soccer all state recognition. She would get to Kalia Flity, uh, volleyball, second team. She is also a part of our district softball team and district champion softball team. Uh, she is not here today, but second team volleyball. Caitlyn Garcia, the girls powerlifting elite team, volleyball second team, and soccer all state team. Abigail Gonzalez. She was second team cross country and all state soccer.
030Kimberly Guzman, all state soccer. I think this guy's not here. I think he's on the pitching mound right now. But Sean Howell, he was second team football and second team or elite team, excuse me, boys powerlifting. Mr. Hayden Jeffers, football, second team, all state, RFHS major. I love it. Hudson King, boys basketball, second team, and football second team. Michael Ramos, boys powerlifting, second team. Ava Moreno, girls powerlifting, elite team. Henriel Patel, boys power or boys basketball team. Congratulations, Mr. Good. Dawson Phillips. He is also uh playing some some baseball tonight, but he was honorable mention boys basketball and second team football. Elizabeth Sain, team tennis, honorable mention. Yeah. uh Mackenzie Shy. Uh she was all state soccer and second team volleyball. She is getting ready for the regional track meet that will take place tomorrow.
031Uh he is not here today, but Mh. Miguel Singleary, he is honorable mention football. William Stevenson, boys powerlifting elite team, cross country second team and football second team. And the last but not least, Miss Sarah White, team tennis, second team all state. And this is I I feel like this is a special uh uh a special award because it takes really no athletic ability whatsoever. It is everything about what you do in the classroom and that's what we can always control. Um, yes, I think all of these young men and young ladies are awesome athletes, but it's the education that we're really here for. So, uh, congratulations to all of y'all. Uh, y'all are really leaving a mark for the class of 2025. So, as they make their way down, I think it is so
032great to see our students in multiple different events, programs, and still maintaining their grades. I think it's just amazing. So, thank you again to our students, their families, our coaches, directors, and sponsors. And that ends our celebration. All right, we'll move to agenda item six, which is our board of trustees report. Any committee reports? Nope. All right, we'll move to B, which is our trustee continuing education report. And this is something I have to every year. Okay. All right. This is 6B. Trustee continuing education annual report. Uh under state board of education rule Texas Education Code 11.159 Texas Admin Code 61.1. Completing required continuing education each year of the service is a basic obligation and expectation of any sitting board member. As board president, I am required to announce that the following RFISD board members
033have completed and or exceeded the required continuing education. Kenny Kruzanne, Michaela Austin, Bonnie Randall, Eli Ramos, Logan Burton, Nikki Arnell, and Jack Vogle. That's all everyone. Do we need to get up and shake hands? All right, moving to 7A bond 2022 project update. Teal construction and Claycom Associates. We have Jamon and Josh with us. It wasn't needed, but it was appreciated. All right. Howdy. All right. So just dive right on in for our April 2025 update for your bond 2022 project. So we'll start talking about Rockport Fulton High School additions and renovations. Um project status 53% complete authorized uh $20 million of the $39.24 million um contract and substantial completion is scheduled for December of 2025. Um you want to talk about Yeah. So last month uh as you can see we've installed a lot
034of mason veneer uh windows continue to get installed. Uh there's a lot of drywall on uh throughout the whole building throughout the whole classroom. Um we'll uh the waterproofing is going behind all the mason veneer and exterior insulation. Um a lot of interior plumbing. uh while your restrooms are in the classroom wing fun athletic area. So that's moving along mechanical units, a lot of duct work hanging in classroom wing and obviously a lot of electrical walls and all starting to pull a bunch of wire. See a bunch of fire alarm and then moving on as we're moving into next month and um we will continue the mason veneer. Uh we're uh East side over here almost complete with most of that veneer and we're working around and we'll start actually on the west side facing
035the stadium. Start wrapping up a lot of that veneer we're going on our way out. Um we will uh be wrapping up a lot of the drywall uh on the classroom. Um start to see some of that stuff is getting finished uh currently and it's going to continue on. Um HVAC equipment will continue to get hung up work. Uh same thing with electrical. Um the windows in majority of the classroom wing are and all the smaller call punch windows are going to be wrapping up pretty quick and you'll start to see some of those larger openings getting closed in with some glass. Um and then the roof will continue on um throughout the out of the classroom wing athletic. Yeah. Um and kind of flip through some photos. Uh, one thing he mentioned is that
036they started installing windows and this photo, you can't see them, but I have a photo coming up. Uh, this is the continued masonry veneer installation. Right now, most of what you can see from, if you go out on that porch, what you can see is either masonry or is going to be metal panels. So, you can see where the metal panels are going to be, where the masonry is going to stay. Um, there's some windows. Um I we had a long process of going through exactly what we expect on window installation, what the standards are, what the manufacturer standards are. Uh building envelope is something that's extremely important to everybody involved and we want to make sure that we don't get leaks and we don't get moisture finding its way through other ways. Um in
037this photo on the left you can see uh your band hall and on the right you can see the choir hall. Not the whole thing, just where I was standing in the photo, but you can see the we're putting sound walls in there. One thing that we pay close attention to is when you have loud rooms like a band hall and you have a trombone, you want to be able to make sure that is isolated in some way. So, it's kind of in its own space. And you also want to make sure that you've got some pretty robust assemblies to keep the sound from leaving the room in the first place. So, you can kind of see the construction of those sound walls. Um, and then just there's additional continued installation of drywall insulation. There's
038like Jamon mentioned, it's just more it's all the stuff for the classrooms that are coming together right now. Um, you can really, if you walk through it, you can really see where the classrooms are, where the corridors are, where the bathrooms are. It's just the finishes are coming together. Every time I'm in there, there's a lot of workers working all at the same time. There's a lot of moving pieces right now. This is very busy. Uh there's a lot going on at this stage of construction. Moving on to Fulton Elementary. Um it's 90% complete. Uh authorized a little over 11.5 million of the 12.87 million contract and scheduled substantial completion is May of 2025. Um and are updated by area. The new classroom wing is scheduled to be complete by the end of this month.
039renovated area classrooms by uh May of 2025. Yes. So, last month we started uh the demo and really moved into that demo of the cafeteria area. Got a bunch a lot of the metal stud um up and started some drywall. Uh we uh in the classroom wing wrapped up all the finishes in the new classroom wing. Um and working our way out of there. We've got a couple retreats through the report, but that's on our way out. So, it's really good in there. Um, yeah. So, you'll get like all the marker boards and T boards are up in the new classroom. We also poured some additional parking along this street that was filling in a mud hole really uh but adding some parking along this street. Um, continuing on. So, we'll get out of the
040classroom wing uh in the next couple weeks. Um, we start seeing a lot of finishes in the renovation area cafeteria. Um, got a lot of electrical and all the low voltage stuff. Get all your duck finished up and hung up and start getting all those systems uh operational and working. And we are still continuing to work on uh punch list in the cafeteria area and we'll continue working on punch list there and in the classroom in the next weeks get punch list created finishing those jobs out kind of flip through some photos. It's kind of the interior framing of the new classrooms. So, one thing I do kind of want to address about that specific space is that sometimes when you open up a building that was built before I was born, it's not going
041to be you're not going to not everything that you expect to be there is going to be exactly how it was. We had a couple things that we needed to pivot around. We worked together. We figured out a new new ways to approach it. And I think we've got a a a great path moving forward and we're we're getting it in. I was in there just an hour before this board meeting started going around looking in every classroom in that space and I think you're gonna have a really nice space when when it shakes out. Um, this is your corridor between the existing building and your gym. Um, it's there's a couple of little things here or there, but it's it for the most part it's it's touch-up stuff in that space. It's it's functionally
042ready. And then uh this is a little further down the corridor. Um, this this photo is outdated. I send these in a week in advance. And that the that drinking fountain's already complete. Um, the bathrooms are fairly well put together. There's touch-up stuff here and there to to get put together. Any questions? Thank you all. Appreciate it. All right, that brings us to Agenda item 8A, consider take possible action to approve the resolution amending authorized representatives of the RFISD text pool investment account. And this one uh board, you'all have have it in your board books, the SER board. I think we're adding Dr. Austin as superintendent and then uh Miss Law, correct? Miss Law and myself are already on there. We're just now adding getting Dr. Austin added on there as well. Do you have
043any questions? If not, I'll look for a motion. I move the board approve the resolution amending authorized representatives to the RFISD taxable investment account. Have a motion made by Mrs. Jarnell, second by Mrs. Randall. Any further discussion? Take a vote. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries 70. All right, that brings us to the remaining 8B through 8F and those are going to be regarding the 2022 bond construction projects. And as uh we move through the bond construction, the stage of the construction, we're going to be seeing more items brought to the board uh for voting. So, I just want to let y'all know that. Um I want to be clear on explaining all all the items that come to the board because some of them have really big dollar amounts. Um, and but
044I want to make sure y'all know they're all in the scope of the bond project. Uh, so uh remember when you started planning the bond uh project, we we did some projects on our own. For instance, uh at the baseball and softball fields, we did the bleachers. It was a way to save us money. No, sorry to Clay Comb and Teal, but we wanted to not pay them a percentage. So, we took it upon ourselves. So, even though it's not in the GMP uh or the big project, it it is budgeted. So, um, just wanted to let y'all know. And GMP is the guaranteed maximum price. Uh, so as they come up tonight, I'll I'll try to explain, uh, a little bit about each one. So, item 8B is consider take possible action to approve
045the purchase of furniture for the 2022 Bond High School edition. As you can see in board book, uh, there's an itemized list of each piece of furniture for the high school along with some uh, renderings to see what they look like. Uh this amount has been allocated and will come out of what's called soft cost budgeted. It's a budgeted line item. So does anybody have any questions for Mr. Noatney? And if not, I'll look for a motion. I make a motion to approve the purchase of furniture for the high school bond edition not to exceed 550,000 out of bond funds. All right. We have a motion made by Miss Austin, second by Mrs. Randall. Any further discussion? We'll vote. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries 70. Moves uh move to item 8 C.
046Consider take possible action to approve the purchase of AV, that's audio and video equipment and network equipment for the bond 2022 high school edition. Again, this is another item uh the district took upon ourselves uh uh to purchase and install to save some money, ultimately saving the tax the payers uh tax dollars. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Noatne? If not, I'll entertain a motion. I make a motion to approve the purchase of interactive video displays not to exceed 90,000 and of network switches not to exceed 95,000. Second. All right. We have a motion by Mrs. Jarnell, seconded by Mrs. Austin. Any further discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. 70. All right. 8 D. Consider take possible action to approve intercom upgrade for the bond 2022 high school edition out of
047owner betterment contingency. This item is initially was budgeted in the uh in the GMP to install an analog system in the new high school building to match the old one in the old building. Uh but after a lot of discussion, it was determined that purchasing an aniquated analog system is not in the best interest of the district and might pose some problems in the future. Also, with the digital system, the intercom works over the local internet network, which means we can expand it um out to the tennis court. something we had already looked at before because of uh safety security reasons. Uh and that's something we can't do now. But since it's called an upgrade uh from the original budgeted item, it would come out of owner uh betterment contingency. Again, that does not increase
048the guaranteed maximum price. So, does anyone have any questions for Mr. Noatney on this? All right, I'll look for a motion. I make a motion to approve the high school intercom upgrade not to exceed $275,000 to be paid out of owner's betterment included in the GMP. Second. All right. I have a motion made by Mrs. Randall, seconded by Mr. Burton. Any further discussion? We'll vote. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries 70. Brings us to item 8E. consider take possible action to approve the use of contingencies for the high school additions and renovations bond 2022 project at a contract contingency. These are items that occur that neither the contractor, the the architect or the district have control over. Um it's unforeseen expenses, but uh we budget it in the GMP. So these
049items are covered. So again, I want to be clear that this does not increase the GMP and we will be still on budget uh for the entire project. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Noatney on this one? Not. I'll look for a motion. I make a motion to approve the use of contingency for the following change requests. CR 32D watering and CR28R HVAC equipment price increase and CR 44 canopy footing. We have All right. We have a motion B by Mrs. Jarnell, seconded by Mr. Romos. Any further discussion? We'll vote. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries 70. That leads us to item 8F. Consider take possible action to update authorization to review and approve minor modifications and construction work on the district's behalf. Now I just want to give a
050little context behind this action item. I believe with most school districts or most bond construction projects the superintendent is given authorization from the board to make change request change orders purchases within the scope of the GMP the gross I mean the guaranteed maximum price. Um however before the construction started this board uh voted on a policy uh to for the construction to only allow the superintendent authorization up to 15,000. Um this reason was due to lo local policy being that we we have to approve anything over 50,000 anyway. Um but uh we were a little nervous during the time of the pandemic to say the least. Uh and so we we thought that maybe 10,000 to 15,000 uh changes would add up and it would get us over budget. We were so scared to to
051go over budget. So that's why we made it originally. We knew that we'd probably have to address it at some time uh if it was causing delays and really we're we're just bringing this to the board uh to change a slight change uh so that we as a district make sure that we're not delaying anything any project. Um, so what this would do would give uh continue to give the superintendent up to $15,000. Uh, and then the bond construction uh committee would be from 15 to up to 50 and then of course at 50 would just be normal board policy. Um, and then uh just so everybody knows there's three board members on the line construction committee. Uh, I would prefer that anytime a decision is made that at least one is going to be
052there. I don't think it's going to be a problem because all three have about 100% attendance. So, good job for those that are on it. It's just a way to make sure that we're not uh falling behind on our part and not having to wait a month. Uh, so does anybody have any or Dr. Austin, do you want to add to that or anything? No, just like you said, just keep us on schedule and as we get further into this project, there's things happening really fast and we thought this would be the best way to keep us going on schedule. I'll look for a motion. I move that the following update be made to the authorization to review and approve minor modifications in construction work on the district's behalf. Superintendent authorization up to $15,000. bond
053facility committee over $15,000 up to $50,000 and board of trustees over $50,000. All right, we have a motion made by Miss Randall, seconded by M Miss Yarnell. Any further discussion? I said bond construction committee bond facility just to make clear. All right, we'll take a vote. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries 70. All right, that brings us to item nine, superintendent report. Dr. Austin. All right, we're going to start our central office reports with our featured campus of the month. And he's made it just from the baseball game celebrating his senior. So, Mr. Jerry, how was getting worried nobody was going to clap for me on that one. Yeah, I I know. I get that feeling. Uh, no, I do appreciate uh giving me the time to rep uh represent and recognize the
054middle school. And I know that we usually keep these to three or four slides, but I know from the last time that we were up here with there's been a lot going on. So I just wanted to kind of run through a bunch of things that have happened. So I I've got a lot of pictures. So um I'll just kind of touch base quickly on what we have. So um one of the big things that I wanted to point out was just safety. Uh we had a great opportunity where we brought in Sheriff Mills and his team along with Officer Cox and the Rockport PD and they came in and talked to us about uh students and different people making threats and when they use those terms. We keep hearing this a lot of times
055where kids just will throw out the term of I'm going to kill you or I'm going to do this. Um and and we just wanted to get to a point where we get the kids to understand how dangerous that threat is and how serious we have to take that. And so we had them come in to really express that um just to really give them some information and explain to them how serious of a threat that is. And along with that, Officer Cox was also able to go into uh bullying as well. So that was uh a great presentation. The kids really enjoyed it. Um few of the other pictures that we got up there is just looking at some of our safety drills that we do with some of our evacuations, our fire drills,
056uh checking doors with some of our students, even during um hold drills and stuff to see if anybody would would be willing to open a door for a student just to make sure that they're following protocol as well as our shelter in place. And of course, Officer Mills there uh monitoring the hallways. Um, of course, as we get into star season, we've been doing a lot of, uh, practice and review. Um, RLA has actually taken on this activity throughout most of the year. About every quarter at least, they do this where they mix with the seventh and eighth grade teachers and students. They mix up their students, seventh and eighth grader students combined rotating between all of the seventh and eighth grade RLA teachers and including in this case um our very own IC uh
057Miss Abara jumped in and was leading one of the stations, but they took a lot of time on this rotation in particular where they went through one of the stations being kind of a whatif scenarios for what if during the star test. what if I get stuck on a question? What if I struggle? What if, you know, just kind of anything that could possibly come up and gave them some strategies, but then also looked at some of the the big questions, text evidence, um, reviewing some of the big key points that they needed to hit on. Um, and the kids get a kick out of it because the eighth graders get to see their seventh grade teachers again. The seventh grade students get to interact with some of the eighth grade teachers. Um, and again,
058Star Review Science, the other day they had an afterchool uh set up and they had about 45 kids who showed up to stay after school for about an hour and a half. Um, of course we bribed them with pizza. Um, usually works pretty well, but uh, they also stayed, but they stayed very engaged. They were really excited. They had some games set up for them to kind of boost the learning. But one of the great things about it was it was also right about the same time that that fire kind of really kicked up and one of our teachers unfortunately had to take off to go check on our house and one of our social studies teachers jumped in, two of our ELA teachers jumped in and they were just like, "Well, we'll run a
059station. No problem." So, just kind of uh shows the commodity at our at our school and math uh math and science. Again, our teachers have really bought into this idea of kind of crosscurricular along with crossrade level. And in these pictures, um, we've got a couple, you can kind of see in the pan there where the kids are measuring what looks to be a crater. they were actually doing some activities kind of looking at uh Newton's law of force where they were measuring the force of velocity and force on the impact of the earth with a object and essentially measuring out what the crater would look like. And so you've got a picture to the top left where they're measuring different distances of how high that would look like and the velocity would create. But
060then what they also did was our sixth grade math classes were working on tracking data and documenting that data and then plotting it and then finding center center points. And so our sixth grade math teacher brought her kids over to the seventh grade science classes and they were using the seventh grade science data to work their math. And so they were combining the classes and so the kids got to see how real life uh data points were able to be used. So, it was really fun to see them working, interacting with each other. Um, again, we don't just learn with our kids, but our teachers getting in with our Carnegie learning. This is after we had Paris come in from Carnegie and she did another uh internalization with our teachers and they were looking at
061a lesson and going through uh kind of running through the lesson themselves. Uh, again, kind of a little bit of each of our pro teams. uh science with Green Ninja and then also uh some of our humanities team after we took the STAR interim and they had used some of their data with the lead forward uh material so that they could kind of start tracking some of their kids. Uh just looking at the community engagement that we had um we didn't get a whole lot out into the community, but we did a lot trying to bring the community in. And so we did hold our um our course selection night where we got a good number of our student body and parents to come in. I think for our seventh and eighth grade, I think
062we were close to about 87 to 90% of our parents came in to do the course selection, which helped get a a good number and good uh look at what we're expecting. We also had a trashin show with CIS and I'll explain a little bit more on that in just a minute. and we got a lot of parents to come and watch that. Also, our uh we've got one of our eighth graders is on the salt committee and so they were able to participate in a lot of those um strategic planning activities. So, our trash and show as you can see here, uh Miss Anita with CIS has done an amazing job. if I I could probably spend all day just talking about all the different programs that she has going on, but she got
063this great idea to run this trash show where these kids were able to look at different things and create kind of a fashion show out of items that they could reuse. And so, just kind of on the bottom left there, I've got a a student in the middle. She created this bee costume where the wings were made out of uh plastic bottles that she cut up and created the uh bee wings. Uh a lot of these other uh outfits, the gentleman in the bottom right, those are actually uh like old face masks uh that he used and created like a a gown, like a doctor's gown. And then the two that are just kind of to the second to the left, that was our primary winner. Her uh her and her sister built that. That
064outfit is actually pages from a book that she took and put on a sheet and then actually sewed them in together and actually had created roses out of it on the top and everything. And from this project, she's actually started to look into the fact that she's now kind of looking into fashion design as a possible uh area that she wants to go into. So, the kids had a lot of fun with it. And then some people actually wanted to take it even a step further. So, uh next year we're looking at how can we also take those materials and then recycle them afterwards. Uh come on. And all right. Uh hope squad. Uh we've been building the hope squad in the program or in the the district. We did our darkness to light walk
065uh to recognize uh suicide awareness. Uh we combined with Aran's Pass on this. We hosted it here this year. Last year it was over at Aran's Pass. Uh this year just from our students alone, we have raised over $5,500 from this uh walk. We had one student that during that night uh from midnight till 7:00 a.m. walked just over 22 miles. I think as a whole we were our our group with AP was a little over 760 miles for the night. Um, and uh, we're looking at Miss uh, Sims is getting the group together to look at they're going to donate part of that money to either a suicide prevention charity or to a mental health uh, charity that they're looking at. They're they're trying to find something local, but like she said, a lot
066of times it's usually Corpus or San Antonio is kind of our closest. So, but they're looking at what they can do as some options. So, uh, it was a fun night. Uh, it's amazing how those kids can stay up for most of the night. Um, I was only able to do about three or four hours and then I was like, I've got to get out of here. Um, we did a fun little activity uh last Friday, we recently, and I didn't wear mine in today, but uh we got the little spirit monkey things, the little tags that you can put on your lanyards. Um, and so we did an attendance matters activity where all of our kids who had uh 97% attendance for I think it was the month of March got one of the
067tags that had an attendance thing. But then we had one that was just a way to go. And on our half day uh the other week, every kid that showed up that day, we gave one to them. We had about 89% that day on uh our attendance because we've been noticing that Fridays we've been having some poor attendance. So what we did was we gave every one of those kids a way to go tag and then we told them the following Friday you get to wear PJs if you have that tag on your lanyard. We ended up having 95.5% attendance I think it was that day. So uh we've kind of looked at it. We actually, just looking at Molly's thing, I think we were at 94.3 or something today. So, I think we're trying
068to get those kids to realize that, hey, maybe on Fridays we may give them something. So, if we can get them to show up. So, we're going to try to kind of sneak into that and see if we can't get attendance working out. Uh, last week our some of our eighth graders, we had about 10 eighth graders go to the craft training center, looked at some jobs, uh, crane, pipe fitting, uh, instrumental. uh they had a great time with the counselors and uh Miss Anita again, she's everywhere. Um you could spend all day talking about her. And then I believe our last thing that I wanted to point out here was our NJHS induction took place uh recently and uh just wanted to point out that we had 61 students this year that were inducted
069into our NJHS. Uh so that just kind of showed how many students we had that had the gradepoint average to be able to meet that. And uh it was a great turnout of parents, great turnout for the students. Uh we really had a great time with that. And so just to kind of finish up, there's kind of a last picture of the whole group. So wanted to thank you guys for everything and appreciate the support you guys have given us. I just also want to say uh thank you Jerry. I saw that you put our new priorities and objectives on all of your slides. I was Yes, I was trying to make sure that I pointed that out on there. So, so we've been doing a lot of talking about our new priorities, our balance
070scorecard and our we're going to call it our 4 by12. And so, thank you Jerry for adding them in. And they matched. I checked. So, we're going to move to our teaching and learning with Jessica Robin. All right. So, you'll hear a lot of language um in weekly updates and monthly. We're living in three seasons right now. We're reflecting back on the past, things we've been doing. We're still living in the present, and we're also thinking about the future. So, you'll see you'll notice that we had a um quite a robust gathering of all of our principles and directors to really look at the systems that we launched this year. um and and really just a very thoughtful opportunity to bring in those live artifacts to be able to say these are the systems that
071each campus used to support some district-wide commitments in teaching and learning. Um and of course that went over into the other um three areas as well, but we focused um on those on those things that have just been critical work this year. And so if we don't stop right now to think about what we've done, in no time we will be already moving on and forgetting and and losing sight of those things because we learned lots of important lessons this year. So great feedback from the principles. We carried that process over into the work that I do with instructional coaches. And then I happen to know that some principles went back and started using some of those same systems in their buildings to do to use a process Dr. Austin let us in that we
072called start, stop, continue. So what are those things that we know that we need to just stop because they weren't working for us? They weren't serving us. We weren't seeing them turn the corner. What are those things we need to continue and improve upon? And then what are those things that need we need to introduce into the system without doing a massive upheaval of the system, but to enhance the work that's already happening. So um that piece is there. I gave you a few dates. I'm always a little leerary about putting uh dates of assessment release because we never know when TEA might hold out and say, "Wait, hold on, not yet." But that's what's posted. So, what I've given you in the report are those posted dates. We always will get a preliminary round
073early June. That's it's good for us to help some kids with summer school, but it's not um highly I mean, some of the accuracy is just not there. By July, we will have firm numbers that go into accountability. Any [Music] question? Great job clapping. All right, so we'll move right along to our business office report, Miss Kathy Henderson. So, we it's here for any questions. A couple things I want to point out. Um the tax our current year tax rates are just above last year. So, we're staying right on target there. Feeling good about that. Um, wanted to point out to you, if you're looking at the investment report, which is on page, get it under page five, you'll see that I'm not investing in the community securities or long-term right now because interest rates
074are dropping. And so, the long-term securities are two to three uh basis points below what the pools are. So, I'm leaving the money in in the pools a little bit more and just kind of keep watching that. So, um if there any other questions, I'll be happy to answer them. We're going to move to the human resources report, Miss Molly Adams. So, first and foremost, I do want to thank the Rockport Fton Education Foundation. They just uh wrapped up their grant patrol on campuses. Um and I believe they awarded about $40,000 to our teachers. Um and so we thank them for supporting us. Basically anything that we ask for, they are there for um us. So thank you. Um you will see that we did attend three job fairs. We were at um&M and College
075Station, Texas State and Texas A&M Corpus Christi. I did put a little video. Dr. Austin and I did take in a ball game while we were in College Station. Um, but lots of elementary education majors coming out. I wish we would have seen some more secondary, but there's a lot of um, elementary students. We actually met one of our fall student teachers came up to us, so we're excited to bring her a um, on board. I would say that probably every student teacher that we've gotten from&m we have hired. Um, and so we're excited about bringing her in. She'll be at the Live Oak campus. We did. We saw a Maple student. I just We're I think we needed to call the husband or or the boyfriend. That was the only hold up of getting
076that person here. Um, and just like Dr. Austin was talking about the 4x12. So, I actually met with um Angela and Chelsea in my office yesterday and we started our um basically so you have your strategic plan for the district and we have to break it down by department and then it's broken down by campus. Um and so we started looking at it as a as a department for our priority too. Um what we could do in all of those areas to enhance and to and improve. And so we have a good starting point of some ideas and everything and we'll continue to work on that. Of course, we are still looking at staffing on a daily basis. Uh we have started, I think it was last week or the week before, we met with
077our benefit specialist. Um and so we are looking at for the 2526 school year what that looks like. We are going to put on hold. We're going to get a few more months um of insurance gatherings. Um hopefully that will help bring the cost down. Um so some of our claims are a little bit high right now. So, we're going to gather a few more months and we'll be able to do open enrollment in August when everybody returns. Uh, retirement celebration is coming up. So, all of our retirees, uh, we are excited to celebrate them and on their next chapter. Um, maybe a little jealous, but excited for them. Teacher appreciation week is right around the corner and I have had um, some talks with some principles and they have some amazing things about to
078come out. Um and uh we um are excited about our elementary and secondary teacher of the years. We have interviews set up for next week. Um and those will be announced at the shining stars banquet. Um and then end of the year surveys that'll go to parents, staff, to the district, and then to a smaller group of like the uh principles, directors, and so forth. Those will go out next week as well. Uh you will see just as Mr. Hal talked about attendance. Look at all that green. It's amazing. They have been working their tails off. I appreciate them. Um and then last but not least, um on May the 1st is principles in the park. So that'll be a nice way to get families involved and also try to recruit some students to enroll
079with us as well. If no questions for HR, we'll move to our athletic department report. Coach Sosa, I do have one question real quick. Sorry. Sorry, coach. Um I'm just interested, Molly, on the end of the year surveys. Is is can you remind me is that something that the results of that do they does that end up getting shared with us or is that just staff? It is. We talked about we'll get them and we'll summarize and whether we do like a a voice over or we'll we'll put out there what we saw and then what we're going to do with the results. And we went over one for students, right? Yeah, we're going to do students, too. Uh, fifth grade through 12th grade. That's what we'll go to. Awesome. That's great. Thank you. All
080right. For athletics, um, right now our boys are, it is tied one to one with Calhoun. They're playing here, uh, right now. So, let's Is it on? Hello. Okay. Uh, boys are tied one and one top of the second. Uh, sorry, I'm kind of keeping up to date. Uh, but um, our girls softball team, they finished out an undefeated district championship this past week against single side. Uh, very proud of those girls. Proud of those girls, Coach Ray and staff. Uh, we're planning on having our first round uh, next week uh, towards the end of the week. So, once we get that information, then we'll make sure to share it to y'all. Uh tomorrow the regional uh track meet will begin. We have 16 athletes that will be participating in that, eight boys and eight
081girls. Uh our girls were district champs and then last week they were the threetime area champs in a very tough area uh with Bay City, Sweeney uh Colombia, all those teams up there. So there was a lot of speed, but this year has been very successful. Uh, I know Addison has broke a couple of school records. Uh, the 100 and the 200. Logan has done a really, really good job in the threes and in the uh in the 100 hurdles. Uh, we're really looking forward to tomorrow with the prelims and then finals will be on Saturday. Uh, this week was also regional uh golf. Uh, Talon Kinfield, he actually finished his round today. He ended up 35th out of 95 total golfers uh in the region. He did uh he did well. And then uh
082Hannah keeps keeps doing what she's doing. She had a a a tough back nine on the first day uh but then really uh did really well the second day. Uh was fourth overall. So she will be qu she qualified to state which will be uh in two weeks from now uh up in um uh up north of of Austin. I'm forgetting what the the name is, but it's Legends Legends Golf Course. Uh but uh that that's very exciting for her. She's been there before, so hopefully we can see uh some uh uh some some medals bringing back being brought back home. Um with stay going back to middle or going back to track, our middle school uh track team, our seventh grade girls, eighth grade girls, and eighth grade boys all brought home a district
083championship in the uh in track and field in the district track meet uh at the end of March. So uh very very proud of those those young kids. And then uh kind of to end off everything, um Coach Swinford, he is our strength and conditioning coordinator. Uh he was nominated uh for a national award uh and for the National High School uh strength and conditioning association. He actually won one of four state uh coach of the years and he was the Texas state coach of the year. Uh, and that's really a big deal in the strength and conditioning world because it's not just a Texas award. It's a national award and we have him on staff treating our our uh our boys and girls of the middle school from pre-athletics all the way to seniors
084in high school and he is a great asset to our our our team. So, um, that is that wraps up the athletic report. Does anybody have any questions? All right. Thanks, coach. operations report. Mike Noatne. All right. So, you have my usual report. Any questions? Be happy to answer. Uh, thank you. So, HVAC repairs. So, there's actually been quite a few large repairs we've been able to do in house. Pictured there is Tom Hill. He's our lead HVAC technician. He was doing a 20 ton condenser coil replacement on this building here on one of the units up on the roof. Uh, very large repair that he was able to him and his team were able to complete. Uh on the right uh you can see our grounds crew. They're chalking the lines for the baseball
085preparing for one of the games. Next slide. The budget we started with 725,998 encumbered 483,412. That should say March April expenditures really. So just under 25,000 and remaining 242,586. some of the upcoming work. We just finished doing all campuses walkthroughs minus Fulton which we're trying to do next week. Uh so preparing for summer work uh going through all the items that uh are prior to the principles and just making sure that we have a good plan uh on preparing to complete that before next school year. Another thing that's coming up is live playground replacement that was approved uh couple board meetings ago. We've received the border and the molt should be receiving we should be receiving sometime later this month. So hopefully we'll be getting started on that very soon. Other than that, that completes
086my report. Any questions? All right, that completes the central office uh reports. All right, that brings us to item 10, consent agenda agenda. The superintendent may consolidate items on the agenda summary for possible group action or any board member may suggest group action on items exped to expedite the board meeting. A request by any trustee shall remove an item from the suggested and consolidated action list. Is there any thing that y'all want to discuss or remove? If not, then I'll look for a motion. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. All right. We have a motion made by Mrs. Jarnell, seconded by Mr. Mr. Burton. Any further discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries 70. All right, that brings us to item 11, close session. So at this time, the
087board will recess into executive session pursuant to the Texas Government Code section 551071, 551072, 551074, and 551076. And the time is 7:38 p.m.