001Good evening. Let's call this meeting to order and let's begin with the invocation and pledge of allegiance. Please stand. Lord, let Lord let us take a moment to pause and reflect as we begin this evening's board meeting. We gather tonight with the opportunity to serve and help shape the future of our students and community. We give thanks for the dedication of every board member present. And we extend special blessings to those reelected and who are about to be sworn in this evening. As they reaffirm their oath, may they feel their continued pl continued trust placed in them by our community. May they be guided by wisdom, fairness, and a deep sense of purpose as they carry forward their commitment to every student, staff member, and family in our district. We also recognize the importance of
002ongoing growth. As these dedicated leaders engage in training today, we ask that you bless this training and that be filled with productive discussion, respectful dialogue, and a renewed spirit. We ask all these things in your name. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. Okay. Public comments. Yes, sir. Uh we have one person to speak. Uh I just want to let the board know in BED local policy that at regular meetings uh at regular board meetings the board shall permit public comment regardless of where the topic on the item of the agenda posted with
003the notice of the meeting but special meetings at all other board meetings public comment shall be limited to items on the agenda posted with the notice of the meeting. So Mr. Bern is your topic today of a posted item. Other business. Okay. Okay. All right. So, let me read the rules of engagement. When addressing the audience during the public forum, speakers commentary must adhere to the following. Everyone must model courtesy and respect. Speakers shall not employ profane or threatening language, nor shall they engage in any personal attacks. The public has the right to make critical and harsh remarks. However, the expectation is that the message delivered by the speaker is done so in a constructive manner with a collaborative purpose. Speakers are expected to respect both the decorum of the public meeting and authority of
004the board. The board of trustees request that derogatory or inflammatory statements and personal attacks on individuals be avoided. Caution should be exercised in publicly attacking specific individuals. In accordance with board policy BD local, the board shall not deliberate to respond to any subject that is not included on the agenda posted with the notice of the the meeting. Speakers who have signed up to speak on the specific agenda item must focus their own comments on the posted agenda item. We have Peter Bernol who signed up to speak general public comment this evening. Uh Mr. Bernol, you have three minutes to make your public comment. Dear board members, thank you for your time and presence and congratulations to you two for winning once again another election. Over the past several months, I've taken deliberate goodface steps in
005working with the legacy band booster um and district administration, resolving escalating issues surrounding the booster organization. Despite efforts, multiple opportunities for correction, no meaningful action has been taken to address concerns raised. To this date, the district has failed to reinstate the booster club ability to fund raise support students acknowledgement or reverse of improper removal of elected boosters executive board. Provide justification of due process and action against the parent volunteers. Address public misstatements of during the booster meetings regarding the 2020 missing funds. Respect the legal autonomy of the club, a 501c3 nonprofit, and equity concerns. District officials forcefully have removed elected boosters and executive board without cause of lawful authority of violating organization independence government. False false sorry falsely stating public booster meetings. No no investigation took place regarding missing funds contradicting the written documentation from
006CFO of July 2024. Restricted parent involvement in student support activities in violation of both Texas law and district policy. uh prohibit the club from using its illegal established names effectively in silencing operations and failed to provide any formal notice and justification of transparency for these actions in violation of government norms. These actions conflict with the following legal provisions under TX's Education Code. 11.15B, Overreach of District Authority. Texas Education Code 11513FNG, misuse of administrative power, ethic misconduct. Texas Education Code 26001, denial unlawful parent involvement in public education. Texas Education Code 37105, improper exclusion for school property. uh Texas Education Code 443, mishandling of agreement related to public assets and Texas Penal Code 3103 and 3710 unauthorized proper procedure and false public statements. Because these are serious remain unresolved, I formerly notifying the board that I will
007be submitting a complaint to Texas Education requesting a special accreditation pursuant of Texas Education Code 39003. This is no longer a matter of internal disagreement. This is a matter of government failure and legal non-compliance and the suppression of parent community involvement in the public education. I stand ready to provide supporting documentation to TA with fully cooperative and all requires an investigation stemming from this request. Thank you board. Thank you. Okay. Consider approval of canvas votes and declare winners of May 3rd, 2025 school board trustee election. Yes. I'd like to call up Scott. Scott is the one that will present this information. Good evening members of the board. Dr. Ball. On May 3rd, the Southwest ISD held a joint election with the city of Lidle to fill two atlarge places. There were a total of four
008candidates running for these two positions. Early voting was conducted at the district administration building and McAuliff Middle School from April 22nd through April 29th. And of course, our election day was Saturday, May 3rd. The district contract contracted with Bear County to host our elections. And at this time, district administration recommends the board approve the canvas of the 2025 school election results and to declare Miss Ida Sadulkin and Mr. Sylvester Vosquez as the winners. Thank you, Scott, for your work. Thank you. Entertain a motion. Thank you. I move. I'll second. Motion second. Any questions? Anyone hearing? None. All in favor, please say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes. Okay. Minister the oath of office. Yes. I'd like to ask Miss Monizard to go up and she would be administering the oath of office. Please respond.
009I do. And congratulations, Mr. Dulkin. Mr. Bosquez. By the power vested in me as notary public servant for the great state of Texas, I hereby administer the oath to the newly elected Southwest ISD board of trustees. Do you solemnly swear that you will faithfully execute the duties of the office of trustee for the Southwest Independent School District for the state of Texas and will to the best of your ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state? And do you furthermore solemnly swear that you have not directly nor indirectly paid, offered, or promised to pay, contributed, nor promise to contribute any money or valuable thing, or promised any public office or employment as a reward for the giving or withholding a vote at the election at which
010you were elected. So help you God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Consider the election of board officers to serve from May 2025 to May 2026. Yes. Yes. Um I now open the floor for nominations for the office of board president. Take any nominations. I second. All those in favor say yay. Yes. I I And yay, too. Any the one opposed? Say no. Then um we have our four president Mr. Mr. Thank you. Okay. Okay, now we'll open the floor for the position of vice president. I nominate Ida Sadulkin. I second. Any other nominations? Hearing none. All in favor for Ida Sulkin for the position of vice president, please say I. I. I. All oppose say aside. Congratulations. [Applause] We now open the for the floor for nominations for the position of
011secretary. I nominate James. No, I nominate for Oh, my bad. No, excuse me. Okay, you're nominating for number 10. Okay, there's a second. Any other nominations? Hearing none. All in favor of for secretary Lorina Bernal, please say I. I. All oppose. Congratulations. Flo. I'll now open the floor for nominations for assistant secretary. James. I second. Any other nominations? Hearing none. All in favor of Jim Sullivan for the position of assistant secretary, please say I. I. All oppose. Motion passes. We now have our slate of officers. Mr. President, can we take a small break, get our food, and then take a late train? Let's do it. is here. Good evening board members. Thank you for being here tonight for our team of eight training. So tonight we're going to continue a discussion that we have been
012having all of you before you. You have a document that looks like this. I know it's not new to the board, but we what we want to do is really spend some time giving you some information. Some people call it a scorecard. Some people call it a dashboard. Whatever you choose to call it, it's really a mechanism and an avenue to keep track of your goals and how we're progressing at a as a school district. Back in the fall, we talked about stra uh strategic priorities and what would be the most important ones to the board and to the superintendent, myself, which has to do with retain, recruit, and develop talent. Number two, improve academic performance. Number three, optimize fiscal and operational effectiveness. And number four, foster a safe and supportive environment. In doing so,
013I work very closely with our senior staff members. And each senior staff member represents a certain area, which we call the division, and they have a specific strategy that they're in charge of. What we wanted to do is develop a dashboard so we could monitor this and the board could have access to see this on a regular basis or we could also use our brown bags to report one of these specifically at every brown bag starting in the fall. Thanks to Dodie, we were able to develop this inhouse and did not have to go outside to do this. So, I think you'll like what Dodie has developed and how we're presenting this information. But tonight, two purposes that we have. A to share the information with the board and B to see if there's any
014changes that the board would like for us to make. So for our team of eight, I contacted region 20 and many of you got to meet Michael um in the back, but we discussed how important this was as we develop our team to have very specific priorities and strategies that we do. So when in talking to Michael, he said that this would be a perfect team of eight training. So I know Michael would like to say a few words in regards to the way we're doing our team of eight training. Dr. B. Yes. Very quick, can you click on the screen so that Zoom workplace uh Sure. drops down. Yes. Thank you, Dr. Ball for the opportunity to address the board honored board members. Uh Dr. Ball and I did discuss several options for the
015team of eight training and reviewing with her the fact that you have set some board goals that are directly related to what's required of the board and the district by TEA standards. This does fall under the requirements for team of eight training and therefore instead of me standing up here and telling you how to establish those, we're going to review those tonight and then you can make adjustments to those and the uh this training will meet the requirement for your team of eight and you will receive credit for your team of eight that you have to perform each year and we appreciate the opportunity to be here. If uh there is anything else that you or Dr. Ball needs from me or region 20, please feel free to contact us. That's what we're there for.
016We're there to serve. Thank you very much. As many of y'all can also notice that uh Miss Barson is not here. She's attending a funeral. So Dodie is going to be uh covering the ones for her area. So the first thing that you notice on the screen is the the strategies with the goals and the team has been working on whether the they're completed, in progress or on track. And tonight you'll get to hear about each specific one and how we are doing. And we want this certainly to be interactive. And what I mean by that is for you to feel free to ask us any questions. So unless there's any questions, we are going to get started. Okay, Dodie, you're first. Thank you. Good evening, board. Um, so I'll kind of start with introducing
017the dashboard to you. Um, as you can see, it kind of starts with an overview page. And this is just a snapshot. So, you're not going to get a lot of details, but you'll be able to see kind of the status and then what the strategy number is so you can reference it back. But this dashboard was designed with the ability to dig deeper. Sorry. And so you do not have to reference the sheet in front of you unless you want to because all of the information that's on that is also over here and we'll be able to go to those pages and explore that as well. Um it's important when you look at this that you don't make a generalization. So I just want to point out one goal for instance is um 4.2.
018If you look at general, it's showing that we're at four and a half percent, I believe, 4.12%, which may look like that's really low, but that's an kind of a reverse goal, our max is 5%. We want to stay under 5%. So, and that's so just because it's looks it's a smaller bar doesn't mean it's that we're not on track. Um, so we wanted to point out that it's important to notice the wording that goes with it as well. Um, because it kind of guides you as we're going along. Um so are we gonna do you want me to just start with mine? Okay. Specifically um this would have been Miss Barson and Miss Barson oversees the retain, recruit and development of talent. So under that area we have two goals. U so Dodie will
019be covering those two goals. Uh the first goal is to increase the uh participation of employee feedback in the annual employee survey from 79% to 82%. Um as you can see if you look toward the bottom these are all of the strategies that we did in order to accomplish this goal. And you can see that we have completed all of the strategies including completed the survey. And we're happy to re report we have completed and met this goal. Um we actually exceeded it. we had 88% participation this year. The second strategy um for AHR is the stu the superintendent will develop a plan to enhance teacher retention by implementing mentoring programs and building support systems to improve retention rates for educators from 80 to 82%. So, as you notice, the graph here is blank, and
020that is because teachers that have more than uh well, all teachers have until the very beginning of July to resign or to uh decline their um contract. Um so, we can't really tell you that we're there yet or not. But what what we can do if we scroll down and look at our strategies is because we worked specifically with our new teachers, we can tell you all of our teachers with less than four years experience that we have offered uh to come back or we have invited to come back next year. 84.6% of them have agreed to come back next year. Um so we do meet with them regularly. So we were able to um survey them and kind of get that information. So we do look like we're on progress. um and making movement
021in this goal. We just won't have the final results till July. So is I'm sorry. Go ahead. So is a new teacher orientation that got extended added to that also or this just during the year. Uh so what we do so we have a new teacher orientation and we start the mentoring pro uh program at that point. Okay. That's why so yes it is included in this. I have a question. So now we increase the participation in the survey or the feedback thing. What are we doing with the feedback? So, what we do is a couple of things. Each principal has gotten that back. They have been instructed to bring back a plan. They are to develop their two strengths and their two weaknesses and a plan as to how they're going to address that.
022So, we do it that way. Districtwide, I work with the ESAC, which is employee superintendent advisory council. We look at the district And we also target what were our two weaknesses and then we develop a plan as to how to address those. And then when will the board see the feedback? You mean the data from the survey? We can share it at the May board meeting. The June brown bag would probably be better. Great that we're getting more there's problems that that we're seeing, you know, systemically know how. Yeah. By then, will the campuses already have some type of plan for their weaknesses and their strengths? Yes, they have to bring it to me uh for their evaluations which start June the 16th. Can we see some of that? Of course. Um AHR also has
023um one strategy under the financial section which is section three. Um and because this is has to do with attendance and so attendance does directly impact our finances but it um lives under AHR because it is a pupil services. So I can show you um that our goal was to increase in um student attendance from 91.8% to 92.8%. Now this is a goal that we can measure um with checkpoints because we do not take all 174 days average them together and send that to tea rather tea chunks it into six weeks chunks. So we've already got six weeks one done ready to send it to tea six weeks two and then tea will take all six of those and average them together. So through five six weeks we were at 91.9 u I'm sorry that's
024the wrong one that was last year. You're right. Yes. 91.9. Um that was last year's. Yes. So as you can see the green line represents this year and the blue represents last year. And so because we were tracking it, we know that we started above where we were the previous year and we were able to maintain that until January. In January, we noticed a drop in attendance of certain populations based on some executive orders and different things that were going on in the community, in the state, and the nation. Um, and so what we spent the next six weeks do was trying to build relationships and recover from that. So, we are back above where we are, but we but we just don't know how much that one dip is going to hurt us yet.
025So, that's where we stand right now. Jody, would you also take a minute to talk about the two upcoming waiverss that will be coming up in the May board meeting? Absolutely. So, um TEA does allow us if a campus or district has an attendance percentage that is 10 percentage or more 10 percentage points or more lower than the previous year. and it qualifies under one of their um acceptable uh reasons, they will let you apply for a waiver so that that uh day's attendance does not um include in your overall attendance. So, ResNet qualified for one in September due to safety. Um there had been some uh swatting threats made. uh parents kept children home uh out of fear of safety and that is one that the state does allow us to apply for a
026waiver for. So we will be applying for that one. And then in January we had a very cold day with ice but we were able to hold schools but some families did not feel safe attending um regardless um and specifically Indian Creek. So that campus did qualify for a waiver on that cold weather day and we will be applying for a waiver for that as well. So I would like to mention that in reality both of these goals are new and anybody from my senior staff can chime in both of these are goals are new in the sense that the district did not do the Chazby survey before. So we started that two years ago and there was not a new teacher academy that we started two years also. We started with 10 days came
027the teachers which most of the teachers have said phenomenal things in regards to that. All of you have attended them um and seen how interactive they are. We cover in the new teacher orientation we cover everything from curriculum getting your laptop discipline special ed bilingual. I know that Dodie does a piece on attendance. So, a variety of things that we like to do in June, excuse me, in July. So, when they start and they started their campus, they already have everything that they need. Would anybody like to share anything about Well, I would talk Oh, sorry. And then we can do attendance in just a second. anything about new teacher the feedback or the mentors. So we did have consultants working with our new teachers and so we also got feedback periodically and so from
028that feedback we would also have conversations to the principles but overall the teachers having their own mentor to go to and get answers and take them through the processes because everybody in the state of Texas is experiencing the teacher shortage. We have a lot of DOI teachers, but not just Southwest. Everybody does. So, we want to continue to enhance what we do to support new teachers. So then we can talk about attendance. Well, we just wanted to point out that I mean this trend data, if you go back in history and look at our trend data, we we see the same patterns like at the beginning of the year, you know, all the kids are here first couple first six weeks, everybody's coming to school and then you start getting closer to Christmas. After Christmas,
029there's some other things that were in play here. You we always see a drop and then it kind of builds back up and then in the end of the year, you know, after star test, you start to see a little bit of a decline as well. So, this is not a pattern that we're not used to even going back before COVID. Uh the one thing I wanted to point out that we are seeing a percentage increase, which is really good. We're getting closer and we're building it, but we're also seeing uh high enrollment. So, that ADA number is a lot higher. So, we are actually receiving a lot more revenue. Uh and part of the strategy and budget this going into next year is with y'all approving changing the ratios in the classrooms for staffing.
030We're seeing that increase in revenue because the inflctuation of the students and a higher 88 uh percentage number. Uh normally in the past we would be adding a lot of additional staff with that but we're able to maintain good class sizes but not adding a bunch of staff. So, that's part of the strategy we use to using ADA, using attendance on our revenue side, uh, to try to help meet our goal that I'll talk about later when it we get into the the revenue and, uh, the expenditure piece and next year's budget. And I did want to point out the main page does have the enrollment number for today. Um, so talking about that higher enrollment, you can see that we're at 14,880 students. Do we have any one of our campuses going over and
031beyond right now? Yeah. Don't you have the chart that shows all the campuses? The campuses. I do. Yeah, she you can see it. I know that um in working with Miss Garza, she mentions that there are some that are making some very significant gains. Um so you can see some of these right there. Correct. And same thing, trend data. We usually see higher numbers in elementary and our secondary students. You know, they're bigger schools. So like our high schools and middle schools, sometimes you see a lower percentage. Uh and then also you can kind of look at the areas and based on our demographics and of our of our students and our neighborhoods there's a trend there where we see a little bit lower attendance as well. So you can see 13 of our of
032our 18 campuses are at or above our goal current at the end of the fifth six weeks. Am I in your way? Oh yeah. So, you want me to read them to you? I Sun Valley, Big Country, Elm Creek, Southwest Elementary, Cast Sky Harbor, McNair, Freewall, Indian Creek, Maka, Media Creek. Oh, Media Creek. Sorry. Bob getting cold. Getting cold. Southwest icewood makola and southwest legacy. I can go get my driver's license now. And is that on agendas? Yes. About 93.5%. Like right there in the middle. She's on it right now there. Could you look at that? She's got the arrow on. That's pretty. Wow. Sun Valley is doing really well. So, Sun Valley started their own tutoring early and they started doing some really good um community work um as soon as October speaking to
033the parents and started targeting attendance. So, the parents that had high abar and the parents really accepted the information they learned through it. So, it's been also missing out. Are we copying that? [Music] The rule that we have about you have a fever. hours. And then they don't have a fever when they go to bed and they don't have a fever in the morning. I mean, parents are still keeping them home because it's not 24 hours. Yeah. So, I mean, I know my daughter-in-law will not send them to school if it's not 24 hours. or something. So the health services is in AHR and I can tell you that that is something that we have brought um we are discussing in our division on um you know where the rules come you know where was
034there or origin of this rule. Is there a state or a medical policy we have to follow or is there something else? So we are looking into it not just for that it actually came up because of excused and unexcused um as well. So we we are looking into that already and so hopefully by and when we start next year we'll have better clarification on exactly where that came from and if anything can be changed we can make the adjustments. I'm going to ask my friend Google I would assume it comes from some medical I I know other districts have the same rule. I know but you know sometimes well I only from experience when we went through CO they were we were getting all the information from our our health center in San Antonio
035the bear county to tell us you know how long you got to be out for co and like they were the giving us the rules I know but this has been a rule forever I mean little ones they may have a fever for five hours and then it might not even be a full-fledged fever how it's just a little tiny bit and then you have to stay up we're looking at that ands Also, we allow a lot of notes, parent notes to be excused. So, I know that I've asked the team to look and see what how many notes do other districts because if we allow 10 just by a parent writing a note and we excuse them, we're only hurting ourselves. Yeah. But on the other side, if you have a kid who has
036a fever at noon and then they don't have a fever at 5, they're not going to take them to the I mean that's a waste of money for the community and even if you try to take they can't just write a note. Yeah. Then we have to balance it. I think I understand like you know little Johnny did a feel good yesterday blah blah but we I mean we don't we don't send we don't run to the doctor every time our kids sick. You just give them Tylenol because half the time you call and you can't even get an appointment the next day. You can't get an appointment until two or three days later. Some a lot of times it's not immediate. But we will we will definitely be looking at that. Yeah. But not
037all insuranceances work that way for you to take them to a med clinic and seeing which which policies and procedures we've had because we've just had them for a long time. Rule, right? Which ones by law we have to have and we'll be updating that. Mary Lou Hernandez is the one that is going to be working on a student parent handbook this year. And I know that she's already gotten the copy from TASBY and I think from Walsh. So she'll be using those as a guide. And then I think there's the rule is say somebody has a dentist appointment at 10:00, right? So the cut off is what 10 something. But you take him to school in the morning. This is what I heard. I hope it's true. take him to school in the morning
038and don't take him out until 9:30 and then I bring him back to school, then he's not considered an excuse or he's if they have an appointment and bring a note back and do not miss a subsequent day. So, if they can be there from 8 to 9 and leave and they don't have to come back because they were present at some point during the day and they brought a note. If they return to school the next day, then that absence does not count against us. We call it an exemption. If um they end up taking two days off, well then that nullifies the note because then we don't know for sure if they were sick or not. If the doctor says can't return to school for two days, then that would nullify and we
039would not be able to give it to them. But we have really been trying to educate our campuses on that rule because we know we can recover a lot. And and again, what Miss Lada is doing at Sun Valley, I know that's one of the things she talked to the parents about because they felt like, well, if they're going to be marked absent anyway, I'm not going to bring them. Now that they understand that they can uh use that doctor's appointment or dentist appointment and still get uh credit, then they've uh started attending more. And some campuses are better at ensuring that they get credited. Then there's others that you'll say, well, I brought them back and you still counted the maps and they still don't change it or don't fix it. And so that's
040something that we have to deal with and we're dealing with all the time. Yeah. I went to high school. We had to fight a lot of times with the teachers who just would not listen to the emails from the coaches when students were going to be gone. All three of mine when they were there was a handful that we identified. They didn't care if they were sports gone. If they were gone, they weren't absent. They would say all year to fight to get those changed or not. Well, I know that we've tried. I mean, certainly not perfect, but I know that Miss Garza has done four or five um sessions about educ educating parents. I know that we've talked to the PE post about the importance of change it because we've noticed some of the
041things we hurt ourselves just like at the very beginning I don't know if you all recall we had over 80 teachers I'm talking about at the very beginning they weren't taking attendance so that we had to really get strict on that so we're we're definitely making attendance a priority um so and then the school sending the notes home that's when you get saying that your your kid has been absent for four days in a row. Well, then it was a trip they went on with the school, but they didn't put the right, you know, student ID number or whatever. But those notes really help they help the parent to be able to know what's going on and we have Miss Garza and I have worked together to improve that process as well. And I want
042to bring up the fact that we talked about how substitutes the teachers don't leave their computers. And I know that y'all were saying, "Yeah, it happens." Well, I talked to a few substitutes after that and the substitutes say, "No, they don't. They do not leave their computers most of the time. So, we cannot even do the attendance." We'll look into that. Yeah. Jody, I know you work with that, so you Absolutely. Jody, could you also talk about the update that you're doing? We talked about at senior staff that some individuals might be receiving an email or a phone call that says we need your shot record even if the child's been in here since kindergarten if you so you could talk a little bit about that. Absolutely. Um so as I'm learning this role you
043all of you know I started in the incurriculum and instruction and I moved over into this. I'm I learn a little bit more when um so if we look back about 2017 2018 or even 2019 majority of our records were paper and kept in a folder and at the end of the year if they were moving from say fifth to sixth grade the there was a process for getting those files transferred to the next campus. Um and then in 2019 um I take that back then that was say 2015 and about 2015 we bought one software where we were trying to go electronic it did not work as we had planned for it to work um and so some of the records got digitized but not all and so that created some real inconsistencies in
044moving the files from place to place. So then in 2020 um we had we did get another software that was going to let us put all that together. Uh we can do it all in frontline now. Um but as we also know 201920 was also our COVID year. So we we're behind on that. So right now we're in the process of really good getting in. Every campus has a list of which students files are complete, which ones are incomplete. Um, our high schools are a big priority because we need to make sure those especially our seniors and our juniors are complete so they're ready for graduation. So the campuses, the reason it's happening so late is because they've been working all year. They've been looking for the paper folders. They've been going through docu and
045we're trying to find those records. We know they're somewhere. Um, and then we just have a few that we haven't found yet and so we are reaching out to the families and asking them to provide us additional copies. So you might get a phone call from a community member that asks you why are they asking for this now? So we wanted you to be aware of that. Thank you. I really want to commend Dodie. Um this is not easy um putting together this dashboard. She has been instrumental on the backbone of doing this and I think it looks really nice. I mean you only seen a little bit. We still have a lot more to show you but I don't want to continue without thanking Dodie for for all putting all of this together. There
046you go. Thank you. So the next Mackenzie said she's been helping you a lot. Me too. I was over there helping. Okay, everybody helped. Winston too. Winston. So, so now comes another very important area. So in strategic priority two to improve our academic performance. I have seen in the short time that you can go ahead that the gains that we are making and what I have seen everything from purchasing curriculum that we needed for for phonics and the rigor that we're doing and we are getting better and better at making sure that things are happening consistently and fairly at all the campuses and at first I'll be the first one to share that you know I wanted to give principles a lot of autonomy um but that autonomy sometimes doesn't work out so really having
047to look at what are the best practices and making sure that all the campuses are doing those best practices and helps me lead all that. So she has three goals under this area that she will be talking about and so you will see here that it has been also goals to you at the middle of the year data. So we do I would say analyze a lot of data from the beginning, middle and end of the year. And so this goal has not is still in progress. So a lot of work that has been accomplished and then also part of the work has been shared with you as items that have been approved. But here with reading it's been you know our goal is to hit that 74% from 68 for the sport in 2024
048to 74% this year and meets will be 41% and so along the way has been some strategic moves moves that were also TA but TA doesn't let us move for certain reasons like the curriculum has to be approved um just c there's certain things that we are not allowed to do until we get TA approval. But along the way, you'll see that from October on forward all the way till April, I mean, it's kind of like non-stop work that has been going on. This year, we did create some new assessments, college checks. They did become a big headache for so it was a lot more data and so it became more, you know, just the data was not coming in every nine weeks. This data was coming in maybe every two weeks. But when you
049have a good data along with the data you have to be analyzing. It's not just throwing out there numbers. It's what is the campus doing? And so I think the summer committee got a little taste of what that looks like that whenever data comes out then what do you do with that? And so here we've been able to work with our principles. This year has been a focus and whatever data comes in, we want to make sure that from ECRS to ridable information to the checkpoints in October, all those instruments that we introduced in October, we wanted to make sure that that's still early enough that if the work gets implemented and then across all the campuses, then we should see some good trajectory moving along. So here as we are you know just here
050recently we did purchase the phonics. We started with just kinderg we had even more money and we came back and we purchased third grade. So now we could say that when it comes to the products portion from break we have a robust program and so now again it's just implementing it good roll out good implementation with fidelity and everybody just you know pretty much following through with the work with fidelity. So our goal like we mentioned here is we have our our benchmarks coming along and so our data we should be able to come back and report to you 74% or 46% by June the 4th we're going to be getting some black and white data we still have to come back and scale it out and make it more understandable. So by June 4th
051that's the data we're looking at for us to share with you the end of the year. What does the end of the year look like? And so some of the data that we did share um some of the work that we did along with this is we created a middle of the year with our principles. So this way the end of the year to talk about the data we do start at the beginning of the year with something that's called accountability stories. So the principles have seen the power of them understanding accountability and then they've asked also in secondary every department has to do their accountability and so in the elementary and then even in the high school they're asking every teacher to then talk about this is your data what are you looking at
052what is your look like with all that. So that's what we can speak to when it comes to reading real quick. Yes. Um, so with all of the I don't know benchmark, do you think we're on we're on track to get to 74. So for math it's it's still back in December. We're still what we could say not all of the assessments. So we were looking at here um that was the benchmark in February I believe in February. This is where we landed. We were 29% and 27%. And so when we're looking at that data, we came back and analyzed the December data didn't look like that, but the February data did look like that. And for many reasons, one big reason that we heard is the test is covering 100% of the we still
053have not covered 100% of the bymies and the retaching and all of the work that happens in the springtime. This is very early in February. So for math, nationwide, math is were trending not so fast and so in math is the area that we're concerned because then it goes back to fidelity especially in the elementary where they've had Eureka then we hear the principles we really paid a lot of attention to math this year um in order for us to to train them so maybe math but we're concerned in reading we feel like we're doing good Yes. So in reading, you know, it is the first grade that has to take the online test. So now we're going back and looking at we might have to app the keyboard. So something for reading is an
054expensive software. We're asking the teachers to use it. to implement it because we could be spending almost $200,000. So those are the new what did they say? So they are they are using it. So that's one area like oh maybe they didn't they could cut that right teachers like it. The reason they like it is that the students are able to respond to an essay and they don't have to do it traditionally. They had to read, edit, score the papers. And what we were finding is that he was a one, you scored a two, he scored a three. So they were not calibrated. So one teacher that had more experience less teacher, she had struggled. And if you're willing to do like a return of data, that was a lot of writing for the students.
055the students can do the writing but it's the teachers taking the time especially at secondary when there's like more than 100 kids per teaching so now with writable the teachers love it because immediately will you also mention a little bit in regards to what you're doing this summer for the curriculum writing part of it to help have teachers prepared to also improving our so the silver commist so internally this is through our teaching and learning pro director this has been like an ongoing work so we've had wonders for almost eight years wonders is already getting ready to adopt a new program this is coming from the state so what we did here is like instead of tweaking everything we're going to just edit some pieces so internally elementary work is going to get done internally.
056Now for secondary it's like we got a lot of things to to build for secondary. So for secondary we're going to be doing the summer has already been approved. So we're going to bring in English language arts and we're going to bring in teachers from each grade level. We're also going to do some curriculum writing for TSI which is a college. So, we're have a total of um four teachers. Another thing in talking to Bonnie that she said was very important to her that she used to have many years ago. I don't know when it changed, but she used to have a position that focused just on the early literacy component. Um, and we're going to go back to that because we're going to go back to having that position. We had somebody from um
057the community ed department that left. So we're kind of we're trying to be very conscious which you'll hear in a minute about the budget. Uh so instead of building that position, we're going to move that FTE there. So Delila, do you want to speak a little bit about that? And I think the state acknowledges that because the state we presented to you under house and house is just third. So we have to really emphasize that the work that's happening in kinder first and second and third is just your outcome. That the work that happens between kinder to second is very different. the support committee. If those teachers are not like doing their part consistently, then we're going to suffer third, fourth, and fifth. All third, fourth, fifth is now comprehension, reading, fluency, or all the
058teaching of the reading happen in the early. So here in our district, we're training the teachers. There should be no reason that we're still getting the 50% first not by the time. And so that's like our reality that we need to and you know put somebody there that is monitoring the work that is happening in K through second grade. So in K through second grade each grade level has around 54 teachers. So you're talking about maybe 150 teachers 200 that we have to support just K through third grade. So us having a position for that person in itself versus a K through five person supporting all K through5 you're talking about over 500 teachers um at the end of the day. So we appreciate that support. So the next one is for math. So for
059math is the area where nationwide we've seen statewide and I think the state understood the need for that. Here we were able to get law two grants and we brought that to the board last year. So all that work of law two happened this year. Lasso three was um accepted and approved by TA. So we got more money over $200,000. So, we've been doing a lot of training with the teachers, with the teacher leaders, and also with the principles in order for them to really understand what math should look like. So, what we're talking about is the productive struggle. It's okay for kids to struggle with the math, but we're not going to have the teachers do the lesson planning, but they're going to have to just do the internalization. So, you're going to hear
060a little bit that our curriculum, we're going to have to pay for the curriculum. And so, there's like a little that's the caveat that the state give us too much wiggle room because if we buy the curriculum the state wants then we get additional funding. So you see how like yeah there's other vendors that we could have selected or the teachers like because right now in the survey the teachers are saying CNI didn't give us much much to say. Well we didn't get much to say also because the state of telling you is either this one or this much and if we buy blue bonnet they're saying that they're going to give us $40 more if we want the materials printed. So then it kind of gives you like you know just you know you're
061trapped pretty much into making that decision. Along with that loss two and also three we learned our lesson. Of course it was during co time we purchased Eureka. It's a great math program and it's not like the way we learned I would say the traditional math way of like one plus one you do one little bubble another little bubble and that equals two. There's a science behind it. Just the way there's a science behind teaching reading there's a whole science behind teaching math. And so the teachers have to adjust for that. Well, how can they adjust? It's by also being part of good training and that good training has cost us some money. And now with this law two and law three, we've been able to train not only the teachers but also the principles.
062So the essential part here is that we need for principles to become instructional leaders. It's not just the teacher in the classroom. It's going to have to be the the principal leading all that work. So whenever we're telling the principal this teacher is doing XYZ, that principal has to understand carry those conversations. Now we might meet but then the principal has to carry on with that work and you we could see in our data the principles that are you know have taken you know just that responsibility like Dr. was saying, you know, we we started with autonomy. We live in that state. Autonomy, we want to trust our principles. We love them. We definitely do. But then you could see where there are some pockets that when we give them that autonomy, then well, you
063know, the teachers are getting tired and that's what we hear and the teachers don't want to. And so, you know, there so and then we've got the great teachers that they might even have to look at the curriculum, but they already have success. So, here the fact that we've had so many new teachers, we have a curriculum that is pretty much verbatim. It tells you if you look at page three, tell the students to turn to page three. Nobody had to invent that. Like this is coming from experts, you know, in the math. And even tells you draw on the board whatever you need to draw. And so over the last years, I mean, I would say in the last over three years, we've had overund teachers almost every last three years. So, so all
064the training that we did after co, guess what? We had to do it all over again. And even when we thought we're done, we we're not because in the next year we have another 100 new teachers. So we've had to keep that in mind that our curriculum has to be very user friendly of where they can find it, what they can do and then go back into the planning. Now the planning and that's been something that it's hard because the teachers have to grade papers. I mean we understand it. I mean the work of a teacher is it's it's beyond the clock hours that they work here. It is. So with that I think the state has been really that now we are purchasing what's called HQIM highly qualified instructional materials but that list is
065coming from the state so we really don't have much room to say you know which vendor we want it's vendor that already the state has approved so for math we've also done what we look at through Eureka Eureka has very specific unit checkpoints that we didn't even have to reinvent anything we just got that from our for our content team they went ahead and got the unit checkoints And that's what we told the teachers. This is what you're going to go ahead. You're going to teach and you're going to test and grab data and then analyze it to know what you're going to have to retach and then just pretty much make some tweaks in your teaching. So for math, you'll see here we're in progress. Um I didn't want to say the the math
066we got to see committee% it was very different but it did especially for those kids. um the part where it's more of like they're building the word problems already and learning and it wasn't just simple numbers it was getting up to here then this and that but the working already at word problems and different and still I mean definitely the the if that is going across the whole district of every just every third grade teacher is doing the same thing then definitely the looking at that's what we were talking about fidelity just being in unison of everybody being able to do that making sure we get all the teachers to do and so with lots of three the unison part is going to go all the way now all the way to algebra one to
067the high school so the the way they were taught you know just the different aspects of math that same vocabulary is going to be carried over to middle school next year and so yes we're we're hearing it from the teachers why are you changing it but we're also looking at that same thing that we've got some good successes in fifth grade math and you'll see your meets and masters is much higher in the elementary. Then you go to the middle schools and it's like like there's there's a um something is missing. So we are purchasing a more highly qualified instructional material with lotus 3. We have the money to do that with and so now we're going to train the teachers over the summer. There's like over the summer there's going to be a lot
068of training going on for math. And so that's that's pretty much like our our data shows that we're in progress in progress to see some growth. our math data indicates that as well. And so as I'm speaking to the data is that we've got checkpoints. We can do a benchmark in February. And so the curriculum has its own data data that they can own assessments. So when it comes to assessments and checking points, there's plenty of opportunity for us to do that. And I think one of the things that's really important, we've been listening to the teachers about the assessments, but what's done with those assessments and changing instruction and that's something that Delila talked about yesterday in with the ESAC in regards to now the campuses has to use that information to monitor the
069students whether it's small group after school. many campuses did Saturday, but making sure what they need from the data that they get from the assessments. What do we think about what the house approved about? No, about three, right? How do we feel like going to be hard for us to Well, we're already sort of doing it, right? We're doing like Yes. Exactly ma'am. So right now where the state is not having to me I think it's phenomenal because the more data you get the more changes and the more tweaks you can make to any work. So here is just like we already have if you look at our assessment calendar that's been like that was like lot of heartache because the teachers are not used to kinder was not used to testing the kids but
070we got to know what they're doing too right so map is very similar to it beginning middle end of the year. So we're we're already Yeah, we're already doing it. And it almost confirms the work that we've been trying to put in place where although the teachers don't like it. And why? Because then it becomes transparent, right? So the So you know, so much quicker. Yes. So So it has to pass the House again and then the Senate in order for it to was a second vote and then we'll see. We talked about this in in an art I was at too. I'll be talking about this. I was going to send it here in a minute. So that's the that's the the piece of the work with math. Now with math um we did
071lose our secondary math content team and we already hired someone. So that person will be coming in in July the 1st and we already have the work ready for them to start. The next piece was um our D's on that campuses just them having move up up a letter grade and this has been um conversations where we have come to the conclusion that autonomy there's no way they can have autonomy in the DNF campuses. We're looking at some pivot points of how we monitor them. We do have our ed of elementary, ed of middle school, ed of high school. you do a great job by staying on them, but now what we're trying to look at when do you plan, how often do you plan? And so just pretty much them back in and the
072DNF campuses are not going to be able to dictate much of the work that they do. So for example, we have seen those um some good growth. So the first one I think where do we have la co I think h co in yellow yes oh so is h co we made strategic change to leadership like I mentioned to you is leadership is super important so there with that leadership we've seen the tremendous growth already at 69 and this is by looking at our map scores um we do have some concerns with Bob Pulp now Bob Pulp has had some leadership changes For the last three years, they've had three different principles. For the last three years, where are you seeing? I'm sorry, the red one. 45. That's Bob Hope. Bob Hope. Yes. The campuses
073are colored by their campus colors except for Hidden Cove. They yellow. So, we have Bob Hope. Yes. Bob Hope. Hidden Cove. Um, and point to the little legend. Go to the little legend. And so this is what their benchmark scores are. This is their growth measure that they show in the map. Line three, the bon meeting with the principal. Who is it? Is it? Oh, this is the ones that we have here internally. And so we meet it all meeting with the principal or so it's a Dr. W meets with the principles. Okay. It should be monthly but that's uh we help we have a monthly meet with the principles and then by monthly we also have we go into the campuses uh more than once a week uh more than once a month it's
074twice a week. So hope has 44% growth. Yes, that's what it's it's indicating. And then you see there's two lines here. The top line is the target for an elementary campus and the bottom line is target for a middle school campus. Did it move at all while Pope from when at the beginning where it was right? So it's not that's not a percentage. It's 44 points. Um and so it when it comes to growth, you start at zero and then so you figure every kid's supposed to move one year. Growth is this kid's on track to move a year plus a month, a year plus, you know, three months, something like that. That's I don't know the exact formula. and Lisa are the experts in that. But that's what the 44 points shows is that
075we've already earned 44 growth points if we keep our trajectory where it is. So what is the 45%. That is a test score. I don't know which test score was that. It is the average. So this is what we call dirty data because you know the A through F accountability is a very complicated formula. Um so when we're looking at it this way, we're just trying to say this is where we were. Are we growing? And so um We have taken all of the benchmarks that they've scored this that they've completed this year for all of the grade levels that impact their letter grade and averaged that together. So this is last year 45% or this year that is this year's 45%. With all the cumulative tests from benchmarks to checkpoints, all the test have
076they grown? I can add that to this. That can be one of the changes we make where I add that because it doesn't show it right now. Yes. Off the top of my head. I I I don't think we can tell you. So, we'll have to add that a graph that compares for And is 44 a good number? So, the goal by now should have been that they should have hit that yellow. Okay. So, and so if they're not hitting the yellow, that means that they're not going to be moving litter green. I'm sorry. Moving a letter green. They won't be moving. So, might move a letter grade. They will. Where were they? Oh, they weren't there yet? Okay. And is there any resistance in the 45% and the leadership there? I mean, what's the
077problem? They're not the principal is not resisting. Um, it's just a huge gap to to close in one year. But she's going to go up a whole we think. But we're talking about two different things, I think. Right. Because I I thought you'all were talking about is Boop resistance. I asked about B. Okay. And you I'm talking I just noticed that the yellow is the only one. I know that Hidden Cove has made some great strides because great strides. Yeah. I'm thinking like they might jump two litter crates with the work that we're seeing there. And what was Bob Hope last year? Well, we don't even know what they were last but we do. What did we project? So there it's here. So at the I know you can't see from where you're sitting but
078it says campus Bob Hope and then the letter in parenthesis is what their predicted was. So of the five campuses here Resnik was the only F. The other four were D's predicted as this was last what they're predicted for this past year. Yes. So is it the campus itself the students? Hope it's a little bit of both. Yeah, a little bit of both. We're talking last year, not none at all this year. Right. Right. This is all last year's and then this is this year's growth. The growth. Yes. That is correct. So according to this growth only the yellow school of the elementaryaries is going to go up. The red is going to stay the same. We we have That's pretty close. No, no, I'm saying the elementary. Oh, so the first three are elementary.
079Delila, I don't When Lisa was explaining it to me, she talked about if you get above the line on both, you're absolutely going to improve a letter, possibly two. If you get above the line and at least one, you that depending on how close you were last year, you can. Um, and so we know Scobby was just under the line of being a C campus last year. I know we were talking about elementaryaries right now, but even though Scoby's only met one of the lines, they're definitely going to be one that improves. So, Scobby did a lot. Yes. Yes. And these are all our DNF campus as we said, right? What about resic is on there in purple and we think they're going to go to there's other factors that aren't on here that can
080impact that as well. So do for the DNF campuses domain two is all about growth. So we look at growth it's they're very close to hitting that target which is that first yellow of them being able to jump a little green. What I'm looking at for yellow him co yellow column they are feeling like they're going to be jumping two letters. I'm looking at by looking at their data from you know all collective. So hidden last year was projected to be a so I think um it's pretty close going to be close and this is all based on as long as they go up at the end is based on but our projections are the the map data that we have in the benchmarks that we use. So, what is the projection right now for
081Bob Hope? It's not going to make it. Looking if you look at it right now, they're going to go down. There's no stay the same. I'm just wondering if they have No, they don't have that much time left, right? No, they already took it. Yeah, they already took it. They will stay. Yeah, that's it. Well, we don't know. Right. The numbers are yet. No, not till end of May. By June, we should have it. They haven't. Is it going to be released that they say or is not? They have they have the ratings. We'll get we'll get that and we'll be able to do our whatifs and then we'll see what the state decides to do. Do we have any schools that we think are going to go down? Uh yes, I would say yes.
082I I'm worried about Med Creek. Um, so was Medial Creek left like that or it's gone it's gone down from what it was left when the new leadership took over? I'm concerned right now with some of the things that have happened this year. So that's our so difficult to predict all this stuff. So this is why like for all these 2.1 and 2.2 and put there in progress because there's like a lot of work to speak to and there's like a lot of numbers and data and percentages and when you're looking at map it says this you look at benchmark it says this and so at the end is can we go back and see how is the work happening so when you walk into campuses like the weather you know the academic committee visited
083you could like I mentioned you could see the work so there the growth I mean they were a be because of their growth and that campus was a net so you have all the right pieces and like a puzzle if everything is just or kind of had all the right people that came together and fixed it. And so that's what Dr. B is speaking to that we do have some leadership challenges that is impacting the student success and we'll be bringing that information in close session at the June board meeting. We're not going to do that thing where we predict and everybody knows that we made an F and all that, right? Remember last time? No, I'm I'm sorry. I meant um in regards to any possible, you know, changes that we need to make.
084So, thank you, Deila, for for this information. Thank you. Um so, another one that's also been very important, just curriculum is very important, but also looking at our finances, um waiting to see what the state does. Um and I know that Brandon had some information that um he got just today. So, one of his goals, which of course we're not going to do the attendance because we already did that number one. We're going to do number two having to do with the budget. And since the very beginning, the board try asked us to try to save $4 million from our budget deficit. So, he's going to share some of the things that we've done to be very fiscally responsible. Again, want to share that we do have a healthy fund balance, but it's not a
085fund balance that we want to go into um every year. So, what Brandon is passing out right now is some of the budget savings that we've been working on and then also some of the news items that most likely are going to be passed out of the legislative session. So, can I say something about the the actual tool that we're showing? So, I was able to see our neighbors uh an example of what they did as far as goals more goals with how they track that as the year goes on. So this would be an example down the goal would be is that we create goals most of that probably would be going away for a regular board meeting. So at each board meeting or in close session with Dr. Bo or whoever we would
086just kind of give you where we're at right now we're just showing you right now because we're building this as a tool. So going into next year's budget obviously a lot of work to do for the budget because it goes all the way to August. But this is just shows you, okay, we started a goal as the year goes on, here's where we're at. You go back to the attendance go. So this the same thing it just kind of it would be the data that we had for six weeks. That's how we track it. That's how we fund. So we could just give you a snapshot on where we think we're going. Right now we just give you a moment, but this would help you see it like live either at a brown bag or
087once a month. you go to like goal with the reading score two.1 so like we have all this on here and showing you what we're doing but we're building as we go but this would be okay this is what we were and this is like our scores I guess this was benchmark or math data here's our benchmarks here's our goal and as the year goes on you're going to see kind of tracking so you can see it there as December February April so we can track it five months and then we show you just like you know okay here's where we're tracking kind of give you an idea of where we're going I know we went through everything you're seeing how we're building it developing it and all the things that we're doing as we
088go to get to the go and then go back to u the same thing here as we do the map you can see this would all this stuff down here we probably wouldn't share with y'all but each morning we can spend about 15 minutes going through each chart and talking about where we are because that was kind of the tool that we saw. Right now we have all the extra data but we probably take all that out just for the regular meetings to go through. But before we start Brandon, could we take maybe just a five, seven minute little quick break? Sorry. I'm sorry. So really as of April, uh our goal is $4 million. Uh you know, the members of the budget committee here, we've gone through a process where we uh looked at
089staffing ratios. We brought that to you as to get approved. Uh then we went to through a uh a stipen uh exercise to look at stipens to see if we have excessive stipens, things that we can do without. I know those are hard decisions uh that you guys had to play a part in. We're going to make somebody unhappy because we invest in with money. It just happens. Uh but we're trying to find I don't want to call it waste, but things that uh we were doing that possibly don't need to be doing anymore because uh we are I know the word came up broke. Like we're not broke, but we can be if we continue down the path that we're on. So having a deficit budget with a healthy fund balance, but as you
090see uh through the when Scott presents, he's showing you over time uh that your your rainy day fund is get going to be depleted if we continue the way we we're operating financially. Uh and so that's kind of big for us. So this is a right step in the right direction. uh we can't accomplish this all in one year, but over time based on our growth and our revenue, hopefully from Austin, which I'll talk a little bit about uh that we can get back on the right track and get to a balanced budget uh and then one day start building back up our fund balance to uh save it for things like capital projects and nice things for Christmas incentives and those types of items that we've been able to do in the past. So,
091this is kind of showing you and as we go through the year, so like next month I can bring, okay, here's what we've done. uh now and there's where we're at uh trying to reach this goal. Uh I put 3.1 on there because I wanted to share with you a running tally that I have here that you have in front of you of the savings that these are true savings. There's a couple on here. There are some pending items, but we think that's going to happen. So, I'm not going to go through each one and and spell them out because these some of these people are people. So, we just need to say it out in public who these are leaving or what's going on. But kind of get you an idea. If you get
092down to where it says u yeah because I was looking at the black and white one the red one. So like right where is red the first one insurance contribution. So why where you're seeing the 2.4 million I was we were at 3.1 and there's two items there. One of them we're going to work on uh to to to make sure that we can put it back into the savings. But when we brought your medical rates for the next year for our employees, y'all made the decision to add to that. Right now, we're estimating it's about 56,000, but this depends through enrollment. If we had more staff or if we if less staff takes our insurance because of the increase, that number can go down. But so, as we were working, we were getting to
093this number of 3.1. But you throw in that $500,000 now. That's why you're seeing that 2.4 down there. There's another item on there that we're going to work through. We do have a coordinator that left CTE that was budgeted with CTE. Now they're going to do something different. So, we're trying to figure out a way. I have it on here, but we're going to try to figure out a way to pay for that federally. The rest of those in the bottom uh are items that we did have to add. I did talk about when we went to do the ratios. One area that it just it's just growing on us. I don't know if you go back to the first slide or the slide with the enrollment that you showed right there. So you see
09414.8 enrollment is a district. We're over 20% uh special ed. So 20% of our budget I mean is is going to special ed. So we're receiving about $16 million in from the state of Texas. 100% of that goes to special ed department and we're spending $20 million locally on special ed. So most districts aren't doing that. Uh and we also have uh our our federal uh allocation that comes in that we have on top of that we're spending 20 additional million total we're so if you look at local budget so the state of Texas and the foundation gives us about $16 million for special debt. They tell you you only have to spend 55% of that on special ed. We spend probably 120 $125% of that. So we actually have to use other general ed
095funds to cover because we're spending $20 million on special ed in the general fund and then we have an additional three 3.2 million that we get from the federal government. So we're spending about 20 almost $24 million on special education in our district. I'm just using an example because uh that's one area we can't we haven't been able to stop because we are growing in that number. So we had to add I only bring that up because that's why you see the red down there. Those are positions that we did have to add. There was no way around it based on our the numbers that we have in our schools. So, are you saying that because you had to add all these things that's going to be a reason we don't hit? No, the only
096two that those were accounted for in that 3.1. Sorry, so the special ed population that we took into that account. So, really the 3.1 only has to do with all the special education part we added plus all the subtractions. Really, it's the coordinator and the insurance which is where we're off about 500 almost 600,000. Okay. So those that's the I just want to bring that up because our goal was 4 million but then when we did that we all agreed kind of like that that might not impact us not you know it may impact us not getting to the 4 million that we're trying to do. I still think we're going to get there because we haven't touched budgets yet. So we're going to look at budgets department across the district. The other side of
097that is we're not able to do revenue now because uh we can do some runs on revenue and projections but we're still waiting on the legislator which is the second sheet here. Uh so we were really excited. I know Dr. Paul was excited. Uh Scott was real excited uh with the house bill that they proposed. Uh it did cause us to have an increase in salaries which we get more money. We want to do that. Uh and then they were going to increase the basic aotment to a significant number. It wasn't as much as we wanted, but it was going to be good for our district. Uh and then the Senate has their own bill. Uh and apparently today uh the Senate sent out uh this one pager with uh Representative Buckley from the House
098on it as their proposal. So it's like they've made a deal which they pretty much are going to throw out the House bill and propose that go with the Senate bill. And I don't know, this is kind of like speculation right now, but everybody's kind of like it looks like there's been a deal been made between the House and the Senate, and this is what they're going to propose. And really in this proposal is $4.2 billion are going to give be given to teachers. So, they're going to propose eight 8 billion across the state, but 4.5 is going straight to teachers. Why is this important? because in the h house bill it was going there was going to be significant increases for teachers but it was going to be librarians and nurses and counselors as
099well. This bill does not have them in there. Uh and so you can look at the numbers if you're enrollment over 5,000 which that's us. So if you're a teacher three to four years of experience you get a $2,500 increase which that's the house bill was probably not going to be that much. And then if you're over five years you get $5,500. So any teacher that has 5 years plus is going to get a pretty substantial raise. Because they're so far behind us these rural schools, their scale is so below the the the other areas. Correct. The closer you get into the metropolitan areas, the the higher the wages usually. So this is significant for us because there's really no set aside for any other employee uh in this this version. uh they have some
100other financial the rest of it teacher preparation very specific on how you can spend that special education which I told you we really need that so that's going to help us but that is going to be designated for special education early learning is a new program so those funds are going to be designated to tackle early learning uh in our early ages CTE is a program that funds going to be specifically designated CT not to be used on salaries for bus drivers or anything else and And they have a school of finance reform. Flip fl look over in the back. So there's at a the 8 billion there's 1.3 billion left for the rest of us to spend on these things. Basic increase. Correct. But no, this the the big catch to it, which has
101got us the financial people in trouble, which is going to be hard to explain to you. They're messing with tier 2 funds and taking away how much our golden pennies are worth to give us it back into the basic a lotment. So, they're taking our money somewhere else and putting it in the basic lot. So, it won't be an increase for us. We'll actually lose funds because we're going to get more money in our golden pennies than we would for $55 in our basic lot. We have Yes, we do. We have all of them. All of them. I thought we had all our pennies. Yes, we do. And so then they're going to tell us we need to spend money on school safety alignment, which I mean they're telling us where to spend it. Uh
102they're giving 255 million to charter facilities funding. Has nothing to do with us. 300 million to small midsize a lotment that doesn't any funding for us. 42 million for regional variations in insurance costs. That's DRS which we're not in. And then 300 million in miscellaneous adjustments and tier 2 impacts and that's like a whole harmless based on voting. Pretty much the whole bill is all of it going to teachers and the rest of it going to go to programs and it's no money set aside for us to give not really help our deficit because there's no money going to be set aside for operations like transportation. There's no transportation a lotment. There's no our facilities budgets that's gone out the roof. Uh, and then we need if we're going to give five teachers at 20
103years will probably be more than all our assistant principles based on this this skill. Oh, it doesn't include it doesn't include anybody but teachers. But teachers, not even like even in the the House bills at least. And now they're still going to work on it because they're going to sit negotiate, but we're being told that it's a the Senate is a kind of a non-negoti. It's either you get this or you don't get that. And so the House is I mean we want to fight call them and say, "Hey, take care of us." But then we don't want to go at least we're getting our teeth or something, but at the same time, it's not really going to help us with our deficit. So, if we so our nurses, librarians, principal, I know we're not
104getting if we want to give them money, then our correct. And the other piece to this is so when you give a flat raise, so they're saying we have to give every teacher 5,500. They're going to give us the money for that, but they're not going to give us the money for the benefits that they we're going to get charged like taxes and things that we pay as a district for that. So, there's going to be an added cost to us by giving these raises as well. So, it won't even be enough money to cover the raises for the teachers because it's not this is a flat the way it's written is flat. So, that means you can't take out the taxes and the TRS that we have to pay for it. Uh that goes
105that belongs to the district. So, it's it was Yeah, it was a pretty it was a pretty rough. That's why there was such a push to contact your legislators because and now they didn't think it out very well. Correct. The senators don't listen. Correct. So I I bring that up because this is pretty crucial. Uh because yes, okay, I'm going to tell you this. So I'm going to say it. We're going to we added to the entrance. If this goes through, you have a whole bunch of employees that I mean it's going to probably get away with what we did. So at least we did help, but that's not going to help us with our $12 million deficit because luckily we've done here and we have some savings, right? What we're hoping to get back
106into the 9 to7 million deficit and then keep working on it next year, but it's going to be hard because you're going to have a bunch of teachers making a lot of money and we're going to have bus drivers and custodians and assistant principles and counselors and nurses and librarians that are not getting anything. We might have to have assistant principles want to go back to the classroom. What do you think the other districts are going to do? They're already in also. But prior to this, prior to this coming out at the last region 20 meeting that we had, most of the superintendent did say they were still going to give a race. Even something small 1.5 2%. Everybody was still talking. SISD had already announced, but everybody else was talking about giving. So we
107give a 2% this happens then we got to give them an additional. So that's why you said we don't really want to give teachers raises until we find out what they're going to do because if they give that we already gave them 2% to them. Then we have to put whatever our raise is. So whatever we like right now whatever our scale is we have to add $5,500 per teacher that's over over five. So we don't want to increase that yet until we see what that's going to h play out. I'm hoping they're going to go back and say no that's let's figure something else out. maybe it's 3,000 a teacher and then here's a little bit of pot for everybody else and let's put in the nurses librarians at least to help us cover
108those folks and then we can use some of our savings to help everybody else. Let it be known. Then couldn't we just do raises for everybody? We wouldn't have to give our teachers a raise if we're already saying they're going to get this much money. Correct. So then we would So what we're going to need to see is we're going to see numbers. We're going to need to see if we give professionals this percent, this is what's going to cost us. we give librarians, nurses, whoever it is, then we need to know what we're looking at. Yeah, we'll start doing the runs on that and then we'll also get the runs that we're going to use when based on this. Uh the hard part is it's hard to do. We were able to do that's
109why we had to show you some data from the House bill because we had the language was spelled out for us a lot better uh and it matched up to our templates. This is not this is just like What happens is when they're discussing this, they don't go into detail about all these other things that I don't know. So they're not I know they're not so they're not in school. Yeah. So this was the information that we had um in regards to at first, you know, we felt very good in regards to the savings that we were doing. Um we still feel good, but it's it's going to be difficult. Um, so we're going to move on to uh strategic priority 4. Okay. Um, and in there we have some uh two of the items
110that Dr. Hogan is helping us oversee in regards to the metric. So Dr. Hogan, if you want to start to address those. So the first one um on here has to do specifically about the behavior matrix. And where this came from is our results during accountability specifically for special ed and bilingual. And that's typically comes up when um we are at a specific rating and that's usually looking at scores. And what we did is kind of a root cause analysis. And really what we found from a lot of the information from teachers from the campuses and just looking at our data is it came really down to a lot of classroom management which goes back to a lot of the conversations we've had today. We have a lot of DOI teachers. We have a lot
111of brand new teachers that are still learning just how to navigate a classroom. So what we did was we um created a behavior matrix that is a a districtwide um um in terms of a plan itself and then each campus really went and looked at how they were going to implement campus. So really tailoring it to their students. So the idea with this because we meet with TA on a monthly basis is to make sure that by the end of the year 100 of our 100% of our campuses have taken that matrix and they tailored it for their to their campus. So every month we have met on that. Um our last meeting with TA is actually the beginning of June and we will submit all of the matrix um pieces to them and we
112will have 100% of the campuses that will have tailored that matrix to them. What's interesting with this work um is that as um because I have our MTSS coordinator um Natalie Alanise who's doing a lot of this work is that each of the campuses really have taken the time to see that every campus has unique challenges. They all have challenges right now but in terms of really understanding who their students are understanding what their teachers need in terms of training and just expectations in terms of what goes on in the classroom. It's really helped to kind of help them look at what needs to be done moving forward for next So this is really although we're we want 100 of the 100% of the plans by the end of this year, the idea has been
113to move this work forward so that every teacher every year really has an opportunity to hone in on those skills. Um so that's that particular um goal itself. Any questions about that? And this benefits all students. It's just that we were targeting specifically because of the two groups. Okay. Thank you. Maybe we could talk about the next one in regards to the uh special ed referrals. So, this is um one of my favorite goals because one of the things that and I know Dodie puts up that very first screen that shows you 20% of our population for special ed. Last year, one of the things that I um really focused on was the fact that in terms of the region, region 20's average last year was really around 11% was what most districts kind of
114felt that was the average 11% and we sat at 19%. Um the upcoming information for this year is the region is sitting at 16% and we're at 20%. So we have really reduced that number and that gap between what the region is and what we are. One of the ways that we addressing that is really looking at our referrals. So, the idea here with this particular goal is we're reducing um the percentage of um our our um assessments that do not qualify. And all that really means for us is that we're turning in really good referrals because if it's not a referral that really is a genuine referral that will potentially looking at a disability, then we aren't looking specifically at intervention. So, this is making sure that the the actual referral are coming in
115are really showing that we're doing due diligence in terms of looking at the intervention and making sure um that we have done really exhausted all of our efforts prior to actually moving into referral. Um and so we started at 6% um and you'll see that that number fluctuate within the month because springtime is always our big our biggest months um in terms of actual actual referrals, but we are as of today sitting at 4.12% in terms of the do not qualify rates. Um The idea for us is the the gold standard is really 3%. That's what you want to see is 3% of your of your referrals um actually being. So we're we're getting closer to that and that really has taken a lot of effort because every campus is really having to to be
116very genuine in terms of looking at their intervention. Thank you. And then I have the last goal. Uh the last goal is that we want to ensure that 90% of our campus will pass the intruder detection audits. Uh currently we've had 16 audits this year and we've had 11 pass and five fail. Uh two of the failures, one of them was uh basically when they come on they check two things. They're checking your doors, but they're also checking that you have door logs. So you're supposed to do weekly door checks and log those. Uh at one campus, I'm not going to say names because we're an open public forum and we can share this in close session at one point. One of them was basically the person that they met with wasn't the principal and
117that person didn't know where the logs were. So, we got dinged on that. The second one was that the logs were updated, but there was two days missing off the logs. Uh, and then the other three where we had, you know, somebody let somebody in. Uh, then we had two doors that weren't. And so, we still have two uh pending uh two campuses that still need to get uh their their audit. uh the strategies we use is if there's if it there is a finding there is a process that we have to follow there has to be retraining of the whole staff uh and so we do have a department that focuses on that and so we'll track this but our goal is to be at 90% uh and right now we're at about 73%
11890% for the 256 school year correct this is to show you that we're because we started this kind of already after we had findings and so we're showing you what this is going to look like for going into next year because when we started started creating this, we were already in January, we already had three campuses that didn't meet the audit. Uh, and so going into next year, the goal is to be 90%. Real quick, how are we in line with other districts? The pro the thing is this is not public knowledge. We don't announce it. We have to turn it into TA and then we have to report to y'all, but we don't know. There's nobody can go in there and see. Okay. So, you think it should be higher than 90? It should
119be 100%. But 90% would be all you know all but one. We could say 100%. But are these these are monthly checks, right? Is it No, these are we have to do weekly logs quarterly. These are once a year. Once a year TA has a group that comes in and they they try to breach your school or once they once you pass that part, they come in your school and they want to review all your logs that you've made actually done your logs. When we have a a school that we have like finally like you talk about the logs, do we let the other principles know this is what happened so that way they can make sure they're set up. So yes. So actually what we have when we found out that they weren't doing
120their logs and I get the email I have we have somebody that checks the logs weekly because it's all digitalized. So if they if they hadn't updated their logs by by the Friday, the principal and me and the executive director uh get a email giving them directive to get their logs updated. So that's it because they they'll go around and do their their checks, but then they'll forget to log it and if it didn't if they didn't log it, it didn't happen. So that's the key to that. So, but yes, if we have a special search situation and we find out it happened on a we had one of those uh where I don't want to get too much details, but we we were able to tell the all the principles this is what happened.
121So, be aware this could happen on your campus as well. Okay. So, now this is the time that the board can give us input in regards to you feel that one of the strategic priorities should be changed. the goals under those priorities will change. For example, as once we get the test results um in regards to whether it's the map, the the star data, all that that could definitely change once we see where we end with attendance, then we would adjust uh the goal. Um so but the big chunks of the strategic priority is does any board have a concern that we continue to focus on those things that our that our focus continues to be to retain recruit and develop talent. That one of our our second strategic priority our focus be to improve
122academic performance. that the third one be to continue to work on optimizing our fiscal and operational efficiencies and then the third fourth one, excuse me, that we foster a safe and supportive environment. I think the current goals are are a work still a work in progress, right? And I think we, you know, I commend you all for where we're at. Uh and and I think we just continue going with these goals and and then take a good look at some we got more numbers and hopefully we know more about Austin. What do you think about the dashboard? Does we start to use that once a month starting next school year to share this information using this dashboard? Do you like the create public info type dashboard or staff board only? it' be senior staff and
123board. And like I said, I know you we're putting all our notes on there just to kind of because we're building as we go, but I think it'll just be dashboard for you to see, okay, where are they at? Like it's just a a glimpse of like are they even are we on task? We are we working on it? Are we started? Where are we? And so any other comments, questions? I like the dashboard. And I always say this about Dodie. She's like I remember when Dod was in curriculum instruction. We came over where we made her do all this stuff and like she had to learn how to do algorithms and all kinds of so like she did a really good job. We went over there and I said, "Hey, this she created it.
124She she did a phenomenal job. Phenomenal job. And McKenzie helped too." But and Winston and Winston Winston's like, "What? We said it already is increasing the participation. It's good that we're going to increase the participation. We're going to have to know what we're going to do with the information. Oh, on goal number one. Yeah, the surveys, the climate through surveys because I mean, as board members, we hear like, oh, so and so at this school is horrible. So and so this is horrible. And you just really like my people. So then are they really horrible or the other 80% of the teachers say they're not horrible? So that's going to be really important for us to know. Okay. So we you know from the same people would you want it by campus or like a
125overall district like a cumulative like because I I don't know how we could probably put a dashboard by campus but that would be like a whole another session. You know what I mean? No, I don't know how I want it. I would want to see it by campus. I mean, what? Oh, you can see it by campus, but like just for a quick update for you. Yeah, kind of dashboard by campus and then an overall but to us to campus. We can do that. That's easy. We have we have that. We can definitely share that. Too much information. Yeah, right. On this um priority one, go two, the retention. Is there any way discuss it with anyone else with the I mean I guess trying to retention uh retain the teachers. It seems like from
126one year to the next they do leave and then next thing you know it's like they're finding out the grass is not greener on the other side and they're wanting to come back. What is it that we can do to keep them here and not wanting to go with just a simple talk or maybe hey maybe we can move them to a different school or something just to keep them instead of leaving. Right. And and and we do do that currently. You know there was a teacher today um that was crying in her car. Yeah. And somebody had to talk to her and you know let her know okay tell me what your concern is. So we we definitely do do that. It's part of really the retention program in regards to having the mentor
127knowing that you can go talk to somebody. Um, so supporting them in different ways. So we definitely want them to stay without ever having to leave and find out the grass is not that great. Yeah, exactly. So what is the We hear it all the time. What is the norm for them to know where they go to or who they can talk to? I mean, is there a specific person in charge of counseling them? the the specific person that oversees this is Leslie. So Leslie meets with them, talks to them. Then we also have two consultants that go and meet with them and talk to them and provide us a feedback sheet um on a monthly basis. Okay, that's what So going back to the budget. Yes, ma'am. We did we we based our budget
128on a certain amount of correct what was it going into this the one we're ending about 131 okay so what was are we going to get any more money because we have better ADA it's going to help us with correct at the end of well so between what I'm running on template wise and revenue wise versus what the state predicted for us because they looked at what we were in the past and so they created this a lower amount because we were turning in lower amounts of 88. We're far exceeding that. So last year there I remember I think I shared with you that we actually didn't settle got an extra like6 to7 million. I'm thinking it's going to be closer to 10 this year. So it's in the past where they were overpaying us
129and we had to deal with it. We're actually going need to get us up. It's why it's bad for us is because we actually need the money because we have the the people and you know paying it. So, it's good to have a good fund balance because we don't all invest at all because we need to have some cash on this hand to make our payments and then we get our money back. Uh, and so it's going to be good for us at the end of this year, we're going to see some pretty good revenue uh in comparisons to the previous what ADA was. So, yes, Brandon, in the future, if we um decide that we need to, you know, whenever we're ready to build another more schools or whatever, what has the legislature said
130about that? Is it going to be get even worse than what it is now? Well, as far as building schools and as far as helping us and bonds or Oh, well, first of all, that our values now are to a point where we will never get any more state aid. uh just based on our landscape in our area. Uh we that's been gone for us for almost three to four year probably more than that since the last bond. So I I don't see them giving us any more uh facilities a lotment or anything like most of that's kind of gone away. Uh so I don't there's nothing in any legislation that shows that especially with this increasing and uh so that would be a reliance on bonds only. Right. Correct. Yes ma'am. The sheet that
131I just handed out is the district should be very proud of these are all the teachers that we have that will be receiving their teacher incentive aotment. Um so all the board if you could this is the entire schedule so you can make it for all the day some of the day or of course none of the day but if you want to join us as we go and celebrate the teachers on Tuesday May the 20th that's the schedule the campus and who we'll be going with. Also, do remember that on May the 20th at that board meeting, you'll also get to congratulate them and see them. That board meeting of next week, May the 20th, is a huge board meeting. So, we'll actually be meeting in the cafeteria, we are recognizing all these teachers,
132the soccer team, the uh Penguin Project students, the student of the month, the attendance student. I mean, there's lots of individuals. So it was over a hundred individuals that we'll be u celebrating. So we're going to move the meeting there so everybody can come in um and be comfortable. So please keep enough. Yes. Yes. We'll be able to accommodate there. And um then the last uh a few things that I wanted to remind everybody is that on Friday, Chief Palmo continues to honor and celebrate the police department. So it is another um burger bun bash. So if you'd like to go to recognize the police department, that is going to be on Friday at from 11 to 1:30 in building 700. So everybody's invited. So, one more last thing. Over four months ago, I made
133a promise to the students to the specifically to the football team that if they beat John J, I would treat them to a lunch. So, one student reached out to me and he did not forget about this. So on Monday the 19th here at the stadium, you're invited if you'd like to come have lunch for with the football team for beating the John J team. So this was a promise made a long time ago, but honoring my word and specifically because they did not forget they where is that going to be at? at 12:30. Um just at the stadium in between like where the concession stand is and that we'll put up the soccer team did the football. No. Oh, the stadium will be here. The football stadium. But I'll I'm going of course I'll
134send you a text and remind y'all not. It'll be in the Friday notes. Monday notes. Yes. Are you trying to say I sent too many notes? Friday. Well, only this time, guys. Only this time because I was out of town. Are y'all gonna on Monday the 20th? Are you all taking the checks to the teachers? No, they don't get the checks. We're just taking a big one of those big checks, but not their actual check. We haven't gotten the money for that yet. Okay. So, they know that'll be coming in their June paycheck. You mention senior walk. Excuse me. Senior walk. Oh, senior walk. Please don't forget that's tomorrow. Mhm. So, we start that. Okay. That's all we have. And the walk is at 7. What school is it tomorrow? Uh, Southwest High School. Oh,
135sorry. What time do we start? 5:30. 5:30. 5:30 is the festival. 7:00 is the walk. Is the walk at 7 or the walk? The actual walk is at 7, but there'll be lots of food trucks if you want to come. And anything else? Um who's where cast next week. Oh, okay. So southwest tomorrow. Calm down. Hearing nothing else, this meeting is now adjourned.