October 20, 2025 Venus ISD School Board Meeting

001We're going to call to order the regular meeting of the board of trustees of the Venus Independent School District on October 20th, 2025 at 6 PM. And we do have a quorum. If everyone would please stand for the imication and pledge of allegiance. Okay, we have a a few of our students are going to say the pledge together. >> Ready? Really 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. We'd like to welcome everybody here tonight. Thank you for coming. We'll go to item four, recognitions. Mr. Gatewood. We're going to start with our uh student of the months. This we're going to start with uh the primary school. Uh Luciano, are you are you present? Come

002on up, sir. Uh, Luciano is a kind, responsible, and brings a great attitude to school every day. He listens respectfully, helps his classmates, and puts his best effort into everything he does. His curiosity and love for learning shine in the classroom, setting a positive example for others to follow. [Applause] Uh, next we have Venus Elementary, Jesus. You don't know if Jesus made it. Okay, we'll go ahead and move to the middle school. Trinity. [Applause] Trinity is a sixth grader and is always a ray of sunshine. She does what she's supposed to do, is always helpful, and works incredibly hard on anything that's asked of her. She is a leader in her classes, in our school, and always sets a great example for other students. She is a model bulldog. Uh, next we have the high

003school, uh, Clarissa This recognition is presented to Clarissa for her exceptional character, steadfast work ethic, and quiet leadership. Clarissa is a brilliant and dedicated student who consistently goes above and beyond, balancing academic excellence with selfless service across multiple school organizations and a part-time job. She is honored for her helpful spirit in the library and her tireless commitment. [Applause] Okay, awesome. Now, we're going to move on to the support staff uh from primary, Mrs. Sardoui. [Applause] Mrs. Sardoui is truly the heart of our office. She greets everyone with a smile, brings a positive attitude every day, and is always willing to step in and help wherever she is needed. Her kindness, professionalism make her a wonderful support for both students and parents alike. Uh, elementary mah elementary [Applause] is a dedicated employee who deeply values the

004well-being of the students she exists. She has consistently thrives to motivate and encourage them. Most notably, she has demonstrated remarkable initiative by stepping into the behavior room, managing students and the classroom effectively during a teacher's absence. Her ability to build strong relationships with students makes her an invaluable asset to Venus Elementary School. [Applause] And the middle school is absent, but Mr. Hyde high school. Ashley Elliot Elliot, is she here? Ashley. Okay. Uh, next we'll move on to the teachers. What's that? No, he's not here. Venus Primary, Mrs. Walker. [Applause] Mrs. Walker goes above and beyond for her students each day. Being an effective teacher takes more than delivering great lessons. It requires patience, kindness, and flexibility. [Applause] Venus Elementary, Karen Williams. Okay. Venus Middle School, Mark Christensen. He's right there. [Applause] Mark is always positively

005impacting students to think more critically both inside his classroom and outside during his strategy game club. He develops a report with students and for love and learning that keeps them coming back for more. He also coaches TSA students from both the middle school and high school, allowing them to follow their academic passions. He is a he is an amazing educator [Applause] high school. Uh coach Vu [Applause] Coach Vu is exceptional is known for his exceptional dedication and commitment to our student athletes. Nam consistently goes above and beyond to ensure our students feel supported and celebrated, demonstrating his outstanding character and work ethic year after year. [Applause] >> Is Mrs. Kamacho here with the awards. >> Did you want to read about it? >> Sure. >> Yes. For the second year in a row, Venus High

006School is proud to celebrate the achievements of the students who earn academic honors from the College Board National Recognition Program. Every year, talented students claim an award based on their achievement on College Board assessments, including the PSAT and AP exams. In 2025, the program offered three awards to students of all backgrounds and across schools nationwide. the first generation award, the rural and small town recognition award, and the school recognition award. This year, seven Venus ISD students were awarded these awards. Eligible students must meet the following criteria to qualify. Earn a GPA of B+ or higher. PSAT, National Merit Score, qualifying test score of within the top 10% of assessment takers in each state for each award program or a score of three or higher on two or more AP exams by the end of 10th

007grade. They also can qualify by attending a school in a rural area or small town or be a first generation college student. The following students were awarded the following national recognition award programs. Gage Britain. [Applause] Gage was awarded the school recognition award and the first generation recognition award. [Applause] Presley Frasier. Presley was awarded the school recognition award. [Applause] Jennifer Gonzalez. [Applause] Jennifer is awarded the school recognition award and this is her second year in a row to qualify for the College Board National Recognition Program. Not with us tonight is Haley Caseberger. Haley was awarded the rural and small town recognition award and the school recognition award. Um and it is also her second year in a row to qualify for the college board national recognition program. [Applause] Elena Roer. [Applause] Elena qualified for first generation

008recognition award, school recognition award, and rural and small town recognition award. [Applause] Avery Sansom [Applause] Avery qualified for the school recognition award. [Applause] Nolan Wendell. [Applause] Nolan qualified for two awards, the rural and small town recognition award and the school recognition award. All right. We are very proud of all of our College Board National Recognition Program award recipients. This is a national award. Uh it's very selective, so it only goes to the top of the top. Um so let's give one more round of applause for all of our winners. >> Uh last but not least, I want to recognize uh four individuals. Uh these individuals, they work tirelessly behind the scenes. They are what I I consider the engine and the heartbeat of the school district. Uh, if I call them, I'm going to call

009them one at a time. I want them all to stand up there for a group picture. Uh, we're going to go ahead and start out. Uh, is this principal month? Uh, Miss Leanne Ortiz, come on down. [Applause] >> Yes, ma'am. >> Take the gift card. I know you're gonna take that. Lana Witworth. [Applause] Kimberly Buck [Applause] >> and Santiago Kamacho. You guys got to line up for a picture. I'm not going to let you off the hook there. That easy. [Applause] We'll go to item number five, opportunity for public comment, including any item on the agenda. And we have Jeremy Wendell, who has signed up to speak. So, I have something that I read first. Um, so I'll read that and then you have five minutes to speak and we time it. So, um, when

010you get to about one minute, Kirby will let you know, count it down for you. Audience participation in a board meeting is limited to the portion of the meeting designated to receive public comment in accordance with this policy. At all other times during a board meeting, the audience shall not enter into discussion or debate on matters being considered by the board unless requested by the presiding officer. Individuals who wish to participate during the portion of the meeting designated for public comment shall sign up with the presiding officer or designate before the meeting begins as specified in the board's procedures on public comment and shall indicate the agenda item or topic on which they wish to address the board. Except as permitted by this policy and the board's procedures on public comment, an individual's comments to

011the board shall not exceed five minutes per meeting. >> Do you have any questions on that? >> No. >> Okay, >> I'll start when you start. >> Okay. Uh good evening. I'm here to uh express my concerns regarding an ongoing situation in a dual credit English 1301 course from Hill College that is affecting students that ironically included several that were here tonight being acknowledged for their academic outstanding academic achievements. An issue that involves an item that's also on tonight's agenda. AI. I've reached out through the proper channels and gotten no response from the principal, the superintendent, nor an acceptable response from the counselor who stated that I had to take it up with the Hill College dean as Venus will not get involved. I'm here to inform that I will escalate as high as I

012need to go to advocate for my student. The Hill College professor for the student for the class is using AI detection software to potentially fail our students as part of her rule that no use of AI should be allowed in the classroom. The professor is accusing several students of not writing their own essays but using AI technology to write them instead. The hypocrisy of using AI detection software in itself AI uh backed to grade our students should not be lost here. According to my student, the professor has stated she does not read the essays prior to running them through the detectors. Instead, making that the first step of her grading process. If the essays are detected as having any portion of AI write writing, the student receives a grade of zero. This is apparently not

013an isolated incident as classmates that took the professor last year have have told my student that in order to pass, he has to dumb down his papers in order to get past the AI detectors. The majority of AI detector websites specifically state the technology should not be used in this manner. If the technology is to be used, it should be part of a holistic approach with human interpretation being the largest component. Setting aside that AI detectors are notoriously unreliable and prone to errors with countless studies and tests stating as such that reliance on detectors shifts focus from st subst substantive feedback to mechanical scrutiny depriving students of actual meaningful learning. the mistrust and anxiety that is being fostered by constant unsubstantiated actions existence that can reduce student motiv motivation and damaged self-esteem or the broader

014broader ethical standpoint of who is liable when these detectors error the the teacher the school or a tech company that is making a profit off of these tests. I want to discuss the lack of support being provided to our students. These students are still Venus ISD students and at the end of the day are trying to graduate from Venus High School. The dual credit course is a bonus. When issues like this arise and questions are asked by parents, we are told that Venus will provide no assistance and we are on our own to advocate for our child. Even though the school is aware of the issue, nothing is done. That is except for a classroom announcement by the counselor making the same accusations against our students without providing any proof except the computer said you

015cheated, so it must be true. If Venus is going to offer these opportunities to our students, then Venus administrators need to be more diligent in betting out the professors that are subject they are subjecting our students to. What is the point of having this dual credit class if it does not actually teach them anything except for how to game the system? Why is it acceptable for BSIS to state they will not get involved when they are ultimately responsible for their students in their school? Especially because these types of issues affect not only our students college futures but also their high school graduation. The goal for all of us is a quality education for our students, but this course and this professor are failing this test. I'm sure if this was a school administrator administrator's child,

016there would probably be a different response than what parents are getting. Thank you. We'll go to item number six, public hearing to discuss Venus Independent School District State Financial Accountability Rating. Mrs. page. Good evening. Tonight I'm here to talk about the school first rating, otherwise known as the financial integrity rating system of Texas. This is the 2425 first report. However, it's based on the 2324 financial data. So just a couple um things. One is the points. So to get an A or an superior achievement, you must get 90 points. A B above standard 80 to 89. C meets standard achievement 70 to 79 and F substantial substandard achievement 0 to 69. I am proud to say that Venus ISD received a 98 out of a possible 100, which is up two points from the prior

017year. So the two points that we gained was on the correlation between future debt requirements and the district's assessed property value. Last year we got eight points and this year we received the full 10. That's all unless there's any more questions about it. >> Anybody have any questions? Are there any public comments? >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Go to item number seven, presentation on campus reports. All right. Good evening. Turns out without introducing our staff members, mine is really short. So, um October is a wonderful time. It's a long time um a long stretch of time without a break, but great things are happening at the primary school. Um we are prepping for Red Ribbon Week next week. Uh we're going to do a trunk or treat. Um fall fun day where

018we do an indoor field day. So that's just a great activity to get parents in the building. And then last week we held our first ever um our bilingual classes hosted their first ever Hispanic Heritage Month parade. So it was the coolest thing. about 150 students. They dressed up in their best um Hispanic cultural attire. They made per uh signs of of all the um South American countries. And so it was wonderful. We had music and then we had about 50 plus parents attend in the morning. So great event and I'd love to be able to show y'all pictures next month. But other than that, we're good to go. Thank you. There you go. Okay, we finally have our fourth grade bilingual teacher that we have been waiting on. She is still waiting on the

019results of her test, but in the meantime, she is doing a fantastic job in the classroom with our kiddos. So, we're excited about that. We finished our first CBA and we're working towards tracking our data and doing some interventions. The fun stuff has been this whole month we have spent time celebrating the Hispanic Heritage Month. Also, our fifth graders researched, did posters, did crafts, things like that, and set that out in our library. So, that was exciting for the kiddos. And we also have um celebrated our custodians on custodian appreciation day. The kids throughout the day took each of took flowers to them random times throughout the day. Um also along with our heritage month we had I have pictures but I didn't get them on time to get on here. Um, our kids got

020together. The fourth grade group got together and we had authentic Mexican food. We had crafts. We had games. We had fun. We had so many parents come and support that and make the food for us. And kids rotated from station to station learning about their Hispanic culture that a lot of their friends celebrate. So that was our highlight for for this month. Okay. >> All right. Um, middle school things going on at the middle school. Um, we started our new bill schedule this week with some built-in intervention time during the day um to work with kids, but we've been doing afterchool tutoring. Um so as of when I submitted the board report we had completed 575 hours of afterchool intervention with 124 students. Um so the teachers are working very hard at that time um

021and and working with kiddos. We have about 120 to 125 students staying each week for afterchool intervention on top of now we are doing the during the day. Um we have math and ELA did their um first CBAs and so we've had data meetings with those teachers and working on plans for addressing those gaps. Our attendance we have an attendance challenge going so the month of September we were at 96%. Um we're doing lots of uh challenges. We have a Zern challenge for one of the online programs they're doing. We have Alexia challenge. So we are we are doing all kinds of things. Kids at middle school love competition. So, um I guess our fun thing we did some uh um climate culture, climate stuff with our teachers. Um October was our mi murder mystery.

022Um so we had out of 42 teachers, we had about 25 stay after school and we did a murder mystery and I was not the murderer this year and I did not get murdered this year. So it was good. So all right. Thank y'all. Is it on? Okay. Uh, first thing I want to say is how proud I am of the kiddos that just got their awards, their academics. They put a lot of hard work in. As you notice, a lot of them are good students, but that translates out to being good in band and cheerleading and other things and out in the community. So that's always refreshing to see. Okay. Uh we celebrated uh custodial day and these ladies especially the ladies on the day shift are uh generally a part of the school

023and um she pretty well Dona Ila pretty well is in charge of the hallway and the cafeteria. Uh I was told to pick up a piece of paper I walked by today and I happily did it. Uh so she cares about that place like she does her own home. On the next one we have uh FFA. Uh we all know this is a busy time for uh shows and what you're seeing is the heart of Texas and Waco. We had our cattle students haul their livestock. Nicole Smith came in second out of 24 with her. I hope I say this right. Santa Gertruds her Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, she uh she's a little bitty thing, but she's likes those the cows. She's I don't know how that happened, but she's good with it.

024Uh football is still going. Uh our boys are still leaving it out on the field. And uh I took this picture because it pretty well embodied um I guess community and pride. I looked up and Cotton was in the coach's chair and he was actually doing some instruction. He was actually telling the u lower classman, you know, their read what to do and some were getting upset and a little heated and he calmed him down and as I looked over the coaches looked at him and they let him go on. So, um I think he's got coaching in his future. We had teacher appreciation and this is one of my one of many of my favorite events. It's always good to see the kids select their teachers. Here you have Miss Torres. As you can

025see, she has six different kiddos that picked her. So, they make a difference. You know, just that one year, they seem to always come back to that teacher makes a difference in their in their educational journey there. And then we have band as I like as I like to say the best band in the land. This picture was taken um when they were at the Wildcat marching contest and out of 23 bands I think they placed 10th and that was good practice because this last week they were at UIL and for the sixth straight year they received straight ones. So they are headed to area and they will be at the Denton uh Colin Stadium. I think it's 12:30, 1:30, 12:30, 12:30. So, uh, we're kind of excited to see what they they have for

026us Saturday. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And then the last picture we have is our National Honor Society blood drive. Um, Mr. Pratt on the left has taken this over because she was in National Honor Society all through high school. And, uh, they signed up for the blood drive. We had 57 donors and 53 of them 53 units were collected. And I find out that the reason being on the other four, two of them fainted, one of them backed out and the other one her iron was too low. So I learned a lot at that blood drive. But all in all, they collected about $1,000. So that was a good kickoff for for them. That's always good to see as well. For upcoming events, we have PSAT tomorrow. We have the parent conference scheduled for the

0277th or PD day and Upwardbound is on their second weekend college tour on November the 15th and I think this time they are going to UT Tyler and they will be in U LSU in Louisiana. So that program really gets them to different universities. Thank you. Item number eight, presentation November. Um, item number eight, presentation of emergent bilingual program annual report. Miss Robin. >> Well, I have two goals tonight and they would be number one for me to cover all of the things that TEA requires that we cover in an annual report and to keep it under 10 minutes if I can. And I promise I will um do my best on that. We report in October um of 2025 about the EB program in 2425. You want me to use this? Okay. The first

028thing that the template asks me to do is to remind you guys that chapter 89 is the governing um document for special populations specifically subchapter BB for our emergent bilingual population also known as English language learners and there are four types of bilingual program and you must choose one. There are two types of ESL program and you may use one or the other or both. So for us, our bilingual program in grades preK through five is dual language immersion one way and that means the students that participate in that program are emergent bilingual students learning two languages. We have ESL contentbased um primarily at our primary and our elementary and that basically means that the majority of their teachers are ESL certified and so in their four core contents they have an ESL certified teacher.

029Um, for those who are participating in that program, they have a certified teacher all day. And it changes a little bit when we get to middle school and high school. The requirement there is that all of our English teachers have ESL certification and um we don't pull those students out to any special place. It's just by definition pull out means that only their English teacher has the ESLert. Um, so here are definitions of the one-way program. And for us, the one-way program is English Spanish. And the students are taught uh in both languages as close to 50% of the time in each language as we can. Um, we want the reading teachers, we really want all of the teachers in the dual language program to have bilingual certification, but definitely those that are teaching reading,

030uh, which we do, uh, we do not have quite enough bilingual teachers this year. However, if they are paired in groups of two, you may pair a bilingual teacher with an ESL teacher. And the bilingual teacher teaches the Spanish language arts and reading and science and social studies in Spanish. And the ESL teacher teaches math and the English language arts and and reading. And we have that in several grade levels this year. And the goal is at the end of fifth grade for those students to be biliterate. Um fluency in the oral language and fluency in reading and writing. And there's the contentbased ESL program which I've um really already given quite a bit of explanation to but contentbased means they have u an ESL certified teacher for in in the four content areas reading

031math science and social studies. And the goal of that program is for the English learners to attain full proficiency in English. and um they are able to have some uh support in Spanish as needed. And the pull out again is for students who are in secondary programs where their English teacher is the only one of their four core teachers who have ESL certification. Of course, we would like to have more at uh both secondary campuses, but this is an acceptable and legal way uh to serve our students. Um we also uh serve those secondary students in um a variety of other ways that are above and beyond what uh TEA requires us to do. Uh at middle school we have two AVID Excel teachers. Um and that is part of the AVID program but it

032is a different curriculum than the AVID elective. Only ESL students are in that program and we have two teachers that spend the majority of their day um teaching those support classes. At high school, we have AVID elective for any student, but we have lots of ESL students that participate in the AVID elective. And we also have two pair professionals that are bilingual at high school that can push into the classroom and provide support for the ESL students. All right, these were the number of students enrolled in each program in each grade on each campus last year. And you can read those numbers for yourself, but B is obviously for bilingual and E is for ESL. The reason we have ESL in preK through grade five, even though we have bilingual, is that it is the

033parents choice when we have that first EL pack about which uh program they choose for their students. You can see that most are choosing the bilingual program um uh compared to the ESL program, but some of our students at the primary and elementary level are in ESL because our bilingual program is a Spanish bilingual program and we do have students who join us from other districts and from other countries um whose first language is not Spanish, we have Chinese, we have erdo, we have several other other language, maybe just one or two students in each of those languages, but we provide their services uh through the ESL program. And the state doesn't actually require that I report this. Um, but starting in grade two, I have counted the number of students who are in their

034first three years in the United States. And you can see that there's 37 uh districtwide and how many there are in each grade level. in grades two through five, much easier to serve them because they have a bilingual teacher. And we moved to ESL in six through 12. You've already seen the TLP uh the TLP composite scores. Miss Kamacho has reported that as part of her required um assessment and accountability report, but I will remind you that um these are students K through 12. Um there are not 665 students but there are four tests um for each of the students and the 9% are our students who scored at the beginning level and most of those students are kindergarten and first graders and the newcomers that you saw on the previous slide. Then we have

03541 at the intermediate level of proficiency, 39% at the advanced level of proficiency, and 11% at the advanced high level of proficiency on the comp composite score. And so those 72 students that are part of that 11% are the only students who were eligible to exit um from the ESL designation uh last year. The other requirement for exit besides the advanced high telpos composite is to pass reading language arts and in three through eight and English one or English two um at the high school. So if a student has that advanced high composite they pass reading they pass English one or they pass English two. Those are the students that meet all the requirements for being able to exit. So um you can see here that um in our district grades three through eight we

036had 65% a score approaches and higher um uh on their reading test. And for EB students, we had 47% at approaches and higher. Math 48% of uh Venus students in grades three through eight uh scored approaches or higher on their math their grade level math star and uh EB students three through eight 34% uh scored 34% or higher. Now moving to high school, English one and English two. Um 62% of our freshman and sophomores uh scored approaches are higher on their star u their EOCC exam English one and English two EOCC exams. Um, we're not quite as proud of our EB students approaches and higher percentage. That was 27%, but we have a lot of things in place for this year to help to support that being higher. And we did have eight additional students

037above that 20% 27% that passed their summer retest. algebra um 64% for all students and uh 39% for EB students with an additional seven passing the summer retest. uh biology 91% um passed um in the spring and 73% of the EB students passed in the spring with two students uh two additional students passing in the summer. Uh US history 93% and uh for all students and 86% for EB students. 53 students in the grades that are indicated there met those criteria for uh Telpas advanced high composite and passing their reading or English one English 2 EOCC's. These are the number of teachers uh that received bilingual ESL professional development during the year last year uh by grade level. These are some of the professional development sessions um that we offered. Those are some more of

038the professional development sessions that we offered. Now, um I omitted Venus PI Primary. Probably shouldn't have. They just required me to report on those students in STAR and EOCC grades. But I will say that Venus Primary um their intervention plans are different than the other campuses because their students are younger and because uh the classroom teacher takes care of the interventions for those kids in prek and first. Last year, Venus Elementary was 30 minutes at the beginning of the day. And last year, uh, middle school and high school were after school. And you've already, um, heard, um, Mrs. Buck speak to the fact that they are going to continue after school. Plus, they'll have their genius mindset during the school day. and uh and high school will have bulldog U and Mrs. Whitw worth your

039students you are planning right now for your students to have intervention how many days a week? >> Two days right now. the other two. >> Excellent. Um, these were the parent involvement activities for each campus last year. Um, each campus is required to hold one. Um, and we're required to hold one that is for the community, which is the last one. You heard uh Miss Ortiz and Miss Witworth talk about how they've already had two um celebrations during the school day and but we will all have one at night before the year draws to a close. Um this is how we recruited. This is how we helped uh the teachers who did not have their certification but were teaching. um in um the bilingual and ESL positions. That's how we supported them with test preparation.

040And below you will see how we provided for stipens for them and for what reasons. last year. Um, three of seven obtained, uh, the appropriate certification. Uh, we had seven last year. We're going to have seven again this year. And if anyone has a question about what our biggest challenges are with our EB students, I would say it has been making sure that we had all of the positions filled with teachers who spoke the right language and had the right certification. And sometimes the three who met their goals last year may not even be in Venus ISD this year. They may have gone on to another district to work. So that has been a challenge. Um that has been a challenge as well. Um I promise you don't want me to click on the link

041the link for the exception waiver from last year. That's the document that we have to complete and send to TEA by November one every year if we don't have the right number of certified teachers in each grade level. Um the print is very small and it will take quite a while uh to go over that plan but that link is live and you've probably already looked at that when you have looked at your board packets. It was approved last February and um in 2425 we were looking at 2324 uh state assessment scores and so we actually met level A for 2324 and that's comparing EB student state average to EB student state average in the state, not comparing non-EB to EB students. Um, we met the goals in the plan and we decreased the number

042of of teachers under the Spanish exception last year. That's why they approved the plan. and this gives you the guidelines for why we're here together tonight. Um, sharing this information number one because you need to know this information and number two TA requires that we share that information. And I believe that is the last slide. Any questions from from anyone that their report may have triggered? >> Any questions? >> Thank you very much. We appreciate it. We'll go to item number nine, AI update, Dr. Futch. >> Thank you. >> Okay, so um thank you for having me here. I'm excited to update you about what we're doing in the district with this and um kind of where we've come and where we are now. So, we started uh in 2023 with the AI committee. We

043wanted to be very purposeful and intentional about how we were going to do this in the district. So, we asked a few stakeholders to get together and we had meetings throughout the year of 2023 and and through those meetings we had AI trials determining how we wanted to use it in the classroom with students. We updated our acceptable use policy so that we had AI in our acceptable use policy about what is correct and incorrect usage of it as well as staff and student guidelines for use of AI at the district level. Then we moved into the initial implementation plan which was last year where we focused at the high school level with specifically implementing um int AI intelligent tutors with our students and our staff members. We did this because we really wanted to

044focus in on individualization and personalization for our students and the teachers had control over the entire AI platform. They could see the student chats. They could block the chats. They got flagged if there was inappropriate conversations happening. We really wanted to focus in on making sure that we were using it in the correct way. Students were also trained on AI use that year and we specifically taught them AI literacy skills, prompt engineering, how to use it and when to use it. And I met with PLC's every six weeks last year to keep updated about how it was going in the classroom this year. Sorry, moving into um that goes over the teacher side of last year's uh focus where it was uh the teachers created the AI tutors. They were based on standards, content, and

045outcomes. We also assess student outcomes because they had integrated quizzes within the intelligent tutor that teachers could see whether the students mastered what they wanted them to master. And again, we had the ability to completely control that system and integrate it within Canvas as well. so we could truly differentiate using it in Canvas. On the student side, we focused on background knowledge, filling in those gaps because we have students that come to us that have so many gaps, especially at the high school level, that we don't have time in the classroom to fill in. So to give them their own basically intelligent tutor to support them was very powerful. A lot of students used it as a research assistant as well, a writing partner, and for that personalized learning piece. So this is some of

046last year's data and I even put in some excerpts of some tutors that some teachers had created. That is the introduction to the tutor. So that is what the tutor was supposed to be working with the student on. And you can see that we had um 84,673 total student prompts. That is every time a student went in and asked the tutor to help them with something. That's how many times that happened. But you can see that we had 189 custom tutors created. that is what our teachers created and 1,6002 custom tutor chats. That is the group of prompts that our students used within the custom tutors our teachers made. What really um kind of made me really happy was I saw this being used not just in our core classes but our music appreciation teacher

047at the high school was using it to help the students learn music history which is really interesting to me. Um then moving on we are working on refining our And this year, the first year of imple implementation is never smooth. We all know that. So this year, we're taking what we learned last year and we're re refining it. We're moving forward with the program at the high school and we are focusing in on students and how they evaluate the outcomes and use it within their classroom. At middle school, we are focusing on AI literacy because we moved the AI tool down to the middle school this year. But we also got a grant for a program called Curod because we really want to focus on writing across the curriculum. And what Curod does is students

048can go in and they answer a question, an open-ended question, and they get immediate feedback that the teacher can see. And then the student rewrites using that feedback. They're not waiting on the teacher to give them feedback a day later. They get that immediate feedback. Then based on the feedback, they rewrite what they need to fix. and the teacher can support that with the reports and the ability to see everything on their side. We did train students again at the middle school campus about AI literacy, how to use the program that we're implementing. And we did do teacher training as well. This year I'm going in every four weeks to PLC's instead of every six. So I'm there more often. And I am working on updating and focusing on teacher student use and the integration

049plans. That way we can be more flexible and up to date with what we're working on. This is something that we're really refining this year as conversations with our students around AI use, when to use it, when not to use it, evaluating the outputs and those prompting strategies. This is a profile of an AI ready graduate that ISTY came out with. These are the skills that the workforce is looking for when students graduate to use AI in the classroom. So when they go into the job force, they need to have these skills because I can tell you, I've seen what people are posting on the job post and they're looking for people that know how to use AI productively. It's no longer have AI do your work. No, you have to be a partner with

050it and you cannot miss the human element piece. So that's what we're having conversations with our students about is you cannot leave the human element piece out. And so these are the skills that we're really trying to figure out and work with our students on. And this is some of our initial data and some tutors from this year. We have 25,779 um total student prompts. This year we have already had 62 custom tutors made compared to 189 at the end of last year. I say that we're moving forward pretty good with our teachers using this to create those custom tutors for students. And as you can see, some of these tutors are actually pretty interesting the way our teachers try to get our students engaged with learning the content. So questions. I made it 10.

051I made it short so you could ask questions and so it would be 10 minutes. Anybody have any questions? >> Thank you. Yes, exactly. >> Yes, that's part of the refinement stage that we're working on. Now um there is a checklist called every that we are going to be implementing where the students go through this checklist when they get an output to double check the uh to double check that it is correct that there's nothing in there because we know AI can be wrong. So, we want our students to be able to doublech checkck their information and then to take it and put their own voice, their own piece into it because that is one of the most important steps of using AI is that last piece where you evaluate that outcome and take it

052and do something with it. So, we are implementing that this year. And I will tell you that at the beginning of the school year, one of the things that we have started doing um with our dual credit students is we have been training them on academic use and AI integrity. And one of the things that we do is I go in there and I actually teach a lesson about the correct use and the incorrect use and how to follow a syllabus and when you are supposed to use it and when you're not. >> Do we do we have a tool within our AI platform that allows them to self And for those when my kids went through school, Grammarly was about all you had to >> get a subscription to Grammarly. Is do we have

053our platform that allows them to >> to double check their work to make sure their work doesn't get flagged? >> No, because the platform that we are using is teacher created and the teachers can see everything that they're doing in there. So if they're using it to help them edit their work, the teacher can see what they've done with editing their work. This is used at the high school campus. So, we don't ask them to really check their work to see if it's going to get flagged because the teachers are the ones that are guiding them through the use. >> Any other questions? >> You said that the the teachers write these um >> tutors. Yes. The teachers create them. What training did the teachers get on the AI and everything that taught them how

054to do that, how to do it properly, what to look for? What type of training do the staff get? >> That is where the additional inservice comes in and that is where myself going into PLC's every four weeks because I am keeping up with the usage data. I am keeping up with everything on the backend for this to make sure that we are trying to implement it correctly. I am having conversations with teachers. I am having conversations with students sometimes to see how it is working and how it is doing. So I am very flexible by being able to go in to the PLC's every four weeks. So I'm at the middle school every four weeks and at the high school every four weeks to have these conversations around how it is being used and

055to make sure that the teachers are truly trained on it and they know how to make these effective intelligent tutors. >> But is there was there a training court was there a >> I mean obviously you know how to use this. >> Yes. What type of training was used and how long were these teachers trained on how to use this? I realize you go in and check that, but what was their initial training? >> Their initial training was an hour and a half uh during August inservice. Okay. >> Where at the high school campus last year, it was myself and my trial teachers who had used the platform before. So, my teachers that were actually knowledgeable about the platform in the classroom assisted in the training with the teachers last year at the high school

056campus. This year at the middle school campus it was an hour and a half again and I had one of my teachers from the high school that is a amazing u use case for this came down and helped me train the teachers as well so that he could answer specific questions about how he utilized it in his classroom. So we made sure that they were truly trained on this and they receive ongoing training as well. So if there's anything that the system updates about I find out I go in and we do com we do update trainings. >> Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. >> Can I ask a question on the back end for the teachers because I heard you say when the students were doing their work, we're running it through to see if

057it's flagged. We're so if are we also doing the same with like the teachers if they're going through and they're running it through and it's flagging, right? Because we're asking our students to double check their work. We're double-checking the output >> and then our teachers are running it through saying, "Hey, this is flagged." Are >> because I I heard the parents say we're accusing students of X, Y, and Z. No. So is our our teachers ultimately if it flags, are we then going in independently and reviewing that work to see if it also made an error reading the student's work? >> When I say flagged, I meant that there has been inappropriate content used within the chat. So if a student is asking the chat to do something that was inappropriate or using language that

058was inappropriate or something that was concerning, the teacher gets a notification and so does the principal as well. So that they can handle that right there. However, we do not have anything that flags AI use for the students actual work. >> Yeah, that was the way I understood it is like back in the well I say the older days, you know, you you wrote your paper, you plugged it into Grammarly and Grammarly sent it back to said, you know, a third of your paper has been plagiarized. >> Go back and re >> That's what I was thinking. That's what I was understanding. >> Our platform only flags >> inappropriate content. So, it doesn't it doesn't flag whether or not >> because The tutor is there to support the student in gaining knowledge in the back

059end and trying to support them with uh the piece that the teacher really wants them to work on. For example, um if a student is struggling with um well, I'll give an example. A teacher is teaching in physics class and there are four content uh specific uh concepts that he wants to get taught to the class. He can assign a tutor that helps the students investigate those concepts. Then determining which one they most engaged with, he assigns that uh student to be with a group of other students that were invest that were invested in that content. They create a lesson and then teach the rest of the class about that content. So the tutor kind of supports their learning but doesn't really do the learning for them. >> So outside of the tutor, what other

060AI tools are we using? like what other AI tools are the teachers using just in dual credit classrooms, right? Because again, I have a daughter who's doing that through biology, right? And she would submit a lab report and she would get a kickback from her teacher saying, >> "I have no control over what is done during dual credit. I only train the teachers that are a Venus ISD teachers." Um, and I can tell you right now based on myself just going through college that there are teachers that say no AI. There are some teachers that say some AI. It is truly up to the college professor how they determine what the students do in their classroom. And I'm telling you that as a student who was in college just a little while ago that the

061professor is truly the one that makes that decision. Most colleges don't have an AI policy. They leave it up to the professor. And so for Venus, because we are a high school and because we have students, we do have a policy and we do have a program. that that does not correlate to what Hill College does. >> So, we're only monitoring and managing just this this program with the tutors. So, and I understand like the dual credit teachers are through Hill College, but they can be our teachers, right? Like, so they're not all of our dual credit or all of our because biology, she was one of last year she was one of ours. Yes. But she also taught the dual credit program. So, she is one of our teachers essentially. So, that that's kind

062of was my question is >> to her So it will be up to her to use that. So again, I think that was my question. So if we're monitoring AI, are we only monitoring this program or as a district are we monitoring it all? >> Well, there's no I mean, there's no way you can monitor all of it. >> There's really no way that we can monitor all of it. We have shut down almost like every single other AI system is blocked for students. They cannot get to any other AI system but the one that we are allowing through our firewall. So, we have it blocked on our school devices. That's not to say that they can't do it on their home devices. We have no control over that. But as far as our school

063devices, we have blocked every other AI system besides the ones that we have vetted and we know are appropriate for our students. So, we have blocked everything else. For our teachers, we have asked them to only use two different AI platforms, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot because we have an enterprise subscription with them and our data is safe and protected. So, we are being very intentional about how we are looking at this and we are being very aware of the things that are going on and trying to pivot and meet the needs but still protect our students >> and prepare them for the future as well. >> And great job. I know you're reporting on our platform, but in general AI, >> I just my my my question is a very general question of not

064not necessarily related to you, just in education in general. Okay. Are we are we in the day of AI AI, which is on the national news every day? Yes. Are we training our kids that >> yes, you I mean I would almost say, yeah, you should use AI to help you write papers. That'd be ridiculous not to. we're using it for lesson plans and everything else. But here, make sure when you do that, here are tools that you can use to go back and and double check to make sure because I mean sometimes your summaries are uh maybe a little more less summary and a little more copying. So, uh I just didn't know that was a general not necessarily really to you just in general of are we training our kids that if you're

065going to use AI, use the checks and balances that come with AI to use them effectively and efficiently and legally because in college >> you get ousted. >> Yes. They kick you. They kick you out. >> That is true. And so again, it goes back to training our students to know when to use it, when not to use it, and that they have to follow the rules of the institution that they're at. And not just >> that would fall on principles, not on what you do as in your capacity with the district to train students on proper AI usage. >> What that does is it falls on me to train the teachers to help train the students. So I again that part that's part of the PLC training piece is to go in and have

066conversations with teachers about how to have conversations with students about how to get students to evaluate it. And yes it is a big thing out there in the world right now and there are so many districts that are battling with this same thing but compared to other districts that are just beginning this process we are a little bit further along. >> Any other questions? Thank you. Of course. Go to item number 10, PEK update. Mrs. Kamacho. Okay. We're here to give you a quick update on our PEK program. Next, next slide, please. All right. So, current enrollment for the PEK program, um, we are at 127 designated PEK students, and that's in grades 9 through 11. um and that is um in five programs of study. So in our 11th grade cohort, which is our

067highest cohort, we have 35 students. Um and for that cohort, we only offered three programs of study. So they're in welding, teaching, and cyber security. For our 10th grade cohort, we have 42 students. Um and this year, that year, for that cohort, we began adding uh we added two more programs of study. So the students in 10th grade um are uh divided across five programs of study. And for our ninth grade cohort, which is our current freshman cohort, we have 50 current PEK students. Um and that's across those same five programs of study. So, welding, teaching, cyber security, criminal justice, and animal science. Um for next year's cohort, um our goal is to continue, if you look at the cohort numbers, they've grown each year. Um and so our goal is to continue um increasing

068those cohort numbers each year um through recruitment um through some things that we do in the program um and also as we increase our capacity to serve those students. Associate degree progress. So um here's some progress on the the ultimate goal of each PEK student is to um to get an associates degree when they graduate. So, for our 11th grade cohort, um 13 are on track to graduate with their associates degree. For our 10th grade cohort, 32 are on track to graduate with their associates degree. And for our ninth grade cohort, um students are taking their first college class. So, right now, everybody's on track. We hope to keep it that way. Um even if a student is not on track to um to graduate with their associates degree, they still can. um there's still

069a way we still can catch them up. We have certain things that we do. We do a summer bridge. Um they can take summer courses. The main reason that a student would not be on track for their associates degree is because they're not TSI met by the right time, which we're going to talk about that some more in the next slide. Um and then even if a student does not graduate with their associates degree, they can still graduate with up to 60 hours of dual credit classes. Um, and usually even if a student does not have their associates degree, they can still graduate with a level one or level two certificate or an industrybased certification in that area. Um, and even if a student does not graduate with their associates degree, we still support them

070in year five and year six. Um, so a big pillar of the PEK program is support after graduation for students. And so if they don't, if they're one class or two classes short of their associates degree, once they graduate, then they still receive re um our support to go on and do that. Um and okay, next slide, please. >> I have a question. When you say support, what do you mean by that? >> So um year five and year six support um is something that we haven't done yet. So we haven't delved into it because we don't have a cohort there yet. Um but basically we um we have uh crosswalks and we have agreements with both community colleges like the ones that we use Hill College, we use Charlton. Um we also have crosswalks

071with some um four-year universities. And so that allows those students to continue. So um as PEK students, we are required to support them in year five and year six. Um as they once they're um graduated, they're still even though they're graduated and they're no longer ours, they're still our student. So, our cohort's not there yet. Um, so we have I have some general ideas about what that looks like. Um, but until we get to year five, um, also students who do not go on in their chosen program of study do not receive um, support. So, it's if they were in a teaching and training program and then they want to continue in teaching and training, then that's how we continue to support them. Um, and a lot of that is through our agreements with those

072universities. But when you're saying support, are you talking about they can call and get help? Are we talking financial support? Like what does support look like? >> There's financial support, but it's funded differently for PEK. And so it's funded differently for those five and sixyear students. Um, and we don't really know what that looks like yet because we don't know I mean we have there's numbers per student, but we don't know how many students that we will have in year five and year six. So that that funding is different for PEK students. And again, I know you got more presentation to go, but so a student is entering 10th grade, is not TSI compliant. They've taken their I think there's what nine hours of possibilities, three classes they can take without TSI. >> Um, depending

073on the student, so will you go to the next slide and I think this will answer your question. I believe this is TSI. Well, no, it's the next slide, but just as a cumulative for um at the end of May of 2025 of last year, our our PEK students have completed 768 hours of dual credit classes. Um and that is in those two years of cohorts. So, okay, next slide. All right, TSI. So, um students in cyber security, teaching, and animal science need to be ELR and writing complete by the end of their ninth grade year. um those are the most academically rigorous programs of study and so um if a student is not TSI complete then it potentially puts them off course usually by one class and that's usually their dual credit US history

074um that they would normally take in 10th grade and so now if they're not TSI met they can't take that class yet um and so we have to get them some additional support that year um and then they're so they're still able to graduate they're still able to do everything but potentially that pushes that class back one year for them um or even two years for them to get their associates degree. So the welding and criminal justice um they need to be el writing complete by the end of their 11th grade year. So they have a little bit more time and support. Um and then um we also have another another thing that we're doing to support the students um to be TSI complete is we do our dual credit math classes a little different.

075We have a program called Tarlton Today. Um, and Tarlton Today is a a special kind of program. It's considered dual enrollment and not dual credit. Um, and what that means is a student that takes a college algebra class, one they do not have to be TSI met to take it. Um, but once they take and pass the class, then they are TSI MET because them taking a three-hour dual credit class automatically makes them TSI met for math. So, this is a really good opportunity for students who might have might struggle. um our Tarlton Today teacher that we have is our um she's our employee. She's our teacher. She's wonderful. But they what it does is it also takes um she's specially trained by Tarlton, also a dual credit teacher. Um but it takes like a

076threehour one semester college algebra class and it extends it over a whole year. Um and so they get the high school credit, but they also get the math credit, but it can slow it down a little bit for them. instead of, you know, putting it in in a semester, it's able to take that semester class um and really extend it out over a whole year. So students, >> no, it's college credit. It's college algebra, but once they take and pass college algebra or statistics, we also offer statistics through Charlton today. So like they would take college algebra, which is math 1314, you know, they can take it through Hill College, they have to be TSI met to do that. It's a semester class. Um, and depending on some of them might take it online, some

077of them might take it hybrid, but if they take the Charlton Today class, which um, 95% of our students take math through our Charlton Today dual credit classes, um, then one, it allows them to spread it out over the whole year, it gives them extra support. Um, it works the same way. They're just they're getting a high school, they're getting a college credit from Charlton instead of a college credit from Hill College. But once they taken pass that class with a C or higher, then what that does is that meets because they've taken and passed a a um dual credit math class. Now they say, "Okay, you don't need to take TSI. Obviously, you know, you can handle the class." So, it's a little um a little way around it. Yes, it's a dual credit

078class. >> Well, it's considered dual enrollment because of the way they do it because they they do get a high school grade. >> Yes, they can. They can accept or deny the college credit. Yes, it is done a little different. They make sure that we use the verbiage dual enrollment instead of dual credit. Um but yes, they get they get the dual credit for it. Um it they can actually accept or deny credit, which is another um really cool feature of it. So let's say a student does get in there and is really struggling. Um they can decide not to accept credit and then they get a chance to do it again and try again next year and it's not putting necessarily a low grade on their transcript or college transcript that's going to go

079on there forever. Um so there's a lot of good features of that program, but that is a really um we've had a lot of success with that program. Um TSI math is usually a harder um component for students to pass than ELR. Um and so students are able if they're not ready yet, they can go ahead and take that class. They get the extra support. Um once they pass the class, then they don't have to worry about taking the test anymore and they move on. >> Is there not is not an equivalent for English? >> Um no, there's not. Now Charlton Today is they are adding class. Charlton Today program is brand new. It started like three years ago with one class and so they are adding classes and so um I'm not sure what

080it's what it looks like. It it may be in the future. They added like 10 classes this year. Um there are requirements that you have to meet. Um and so that may be something we can look at in the future. >> So at the end of my 10th grade year, I'm still not TSI compliant in English. Am I out of the program or do or >> No, not >> because I can't take English. I can't take 1301 as a junior. >> Right. You're not out of the program, but now you're out of your course sequence. So, you can still be a PEK student. You're off track to complete your associates degree. You're going to take regular English three. We're going to get you some help for TSI. We're doing some things like TSI boot camps.

081We have some special preparation that we're doing for them. Um, and then once they um they still have the opportunity to take that course either um the second semester, summer, or their senior year if they want to get their associates degree. If not, then they still have their other dual credit. They're still on track to either get, depending on the program, level one, level two certificates, IBC's, whatever that is. So, um, >> but aren't they stuck now? They haven't passed at the end of their 10th grade year. Aren't they stuck? They can't take any more college hours because they haven't passed. They're not EA large. >> It depends on the class. >> So, like welding like welding for example. I don't want to take up your whole it's very I just I was want to

082look at our PE tech numbers. They seem to be down. So, I was wondering are they dropping out of the program? are they getting halted or or what? So, that's what I was trying to figure out, but it's it's maybe a later conversation. >> Yeah. And um I do have um I have some more information here at the end, too, that if y'all want inform more information, y'all can um come join because we have a couple of events that we're doing. Um any more questions about TSI? >> Yeah, I have a question. When do we first start taking the TSI? depending on the program. So for your cyber security teaching and um animal science program, we start taking it the end of their eighth grade year. So first time is the end of their eighth

083grade year because they have to we we give them every opportunity. We do do a summer bridge. So if they take it the end of their eighth grade year and let's say they didn't do very well, that's part of something that we can do in summer bridge for them. Um and then we give it to them for they have four opportunities to take it every year. So in 11th grade we only have five students who are TSI complete. >> Am I reading that right? >> For both ELR and math. Yes. But >> but they need they need all of it. >> Yes. But those students some of those students are in the Charlton today program. So they have not taken math. So they they may be complete they so they have actually taken our cyber

084security students they they took math because the cyber security program of study has a little bit more rigorous upper level math. So they had to take the the TSI math. Now that we have the Charlton Today program, um, a lot of our 11th grade students, uh, like you'll see 16 are ELR and writing complete. Those, so 16 students are ELAR and writing complete. They didn't they may not have taken math because they're in the Charlton Today class this year. >> Oh, okay. >> So they didn't have to. So they didn't take it and not pass it, but we went Tarlton today. So for those students, we did not test all of them for TSM. >> Can you go back one slide? Mhm. So, we've earned 768 dual credit hours. Do you know what the number

085is before we went to PEK? Because we used to do dual credit hours. Do you know how many we earned >> before we actually had a PEK program? >> Um, not off the top of my head. I can look it up for you. Okay. Um, and this um this is just PE dual credit P dual credit for PEK students. So we also have um I do have the number of regular um dual credit hours as well compared to this um but this is just PEK students. This is not all of our dual credit >> and then this is from the beginning of when we started the program. >> Yeah. So this is a two years because this is since this is at the end of last year. This is the students that are in 10th

086the students that are in both ninth and tth grade any dual credit hours that they have earned in those two years. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. All right. So, PEK designation status update. So, 2022 2023 was a planning year for us. Um, 2023 to 2028, this is what's considered a provisional phase. So, this is years one through five. This is our third year in the provisional phase. Um, everybody has to do provisional phase. And then what happens is um once you graduate your first cohort of PEK students um then you'll able to formally apply for an actual designation status by TEA. So currently we are on track to earn our designation status um by meeting the PEK blueprint design elements and that includes a whole bunch of data including all of our testing data

087as well as our student uh demographic data um their success for each cohort um what they do after all of those things. So we have to submit that every year. Um, we actually just finished submitting our PEK application for this year um, and for next year. All right, this is the last slide, but I did want to mention um, I did not have a chance to put it on here because it was not planned yet or the date was not finalized yet. Um, we do have a PEK advisory board meeting. Um, I'm going to send out formal invitations to all the board members. Um, there'll also be some information on social media. Um what the PEK advisory board is is it's a chance for community members, industry members, um our IICH partners like Hill College

088and Charlton, um school staff to all get together um and basically we share a little bit about the program, but more than that, we get feedback from community members. So what they want to see as far as workforce programs, what they want to see as far as um programs that we might offer, what they see that industry needs are in the area. Um so we have reached out to a lot of community members um a lot of municipal members members that are in the industries for the programs of study um that we have in our PEK program. Um, so anybody anybody's welcome to come whether they're a parent, a community member, a business owner. Um, and um, again, we're going to post that. I will send y'all formal invitations, but we'll also have, like I

089said, it's a little bit of information, but more than that, um, we get a chance to get feedback from everybody so about what they see the needs are for Venus and for Venus ISD. So, what kind of programs do you want to see? What do you want to see students do? What do you think is most necessary for them to study? what would what do you think, you know, what what kind of trends do you see in industry? Um and um so we're going to do that. That'll be November 13th. It's at 10 o'clock um at the Venus High School Library. Um and again, we will post that on social media as well. >> I have one other question um what we're teaching. Is there something around somebody had mentioned this or something but something

090around whatever it is it has to be a high earning career? >> Yes, it's >> how does that work with teachers? >> Great question. So wonderful question. >> How it um this is the question always the question. Yes. So for for a program of study to be PEK it has to be what they consider high need high wage. Now this is what Texas Workforce Commission considers high need high wage and so um we have things that we have lists that we have to go and we have to look at and so they teachers are considered high need high wage so it's not really a consideration that we make but again that's why we get community input too um to see and the other thing is on if we have actual career paths um as well

091as like four-year articulation agreements to bachelor's degrees for every one of these programs of study And one of the career paths for teachers is it it starts out because when students graduate from this program, they they on upon graduation, they get their educational aid certificate um and they'll have their associates degree. Um and so and then what that does is they have an agreement with us. So they get things here like priority interviewing. They can actually go to school and work um come to school or work here as an aid um and then they can continue on to get their bachelor's degree. But that career path has other things except teachers. Like it does include administrators, coaches, those kind of things. Um even though teachers is technically on the high wage. Um so high need,

092high need, high wage. >> Yeah, it has to be both. Yes. Yeah, it has to be both, but technically it hits both there. You know, it may be like pendulum might swing more one way. >> I guess I guess so. But yes, that's a great question. That's why we have had a lot of feedback. Um, a lot of a lot of times when we get the community feedback, um, we have a lot of people say, "Oh, we should do this. We should do this kind of program. We should do this kind of program." Well, we all I mean, we all have ideas about what's needed and we would love to do a lot of programs, but there are certain guidelines for PEK. Now, that doesn't mean that it's not something that we can't do in

093a traditional CTE program, um, which works in tandem a lot of times with our our PEK programs. So, you're welcome. Any more questions? >> Thank you. >> Okay. You're welcome. We'll go to item number 11, special education update. Miss Peterson, >> good evening board. Um, Rosie, thank you. Well, my presentation is not as fancy as the previous um presentations this evening, but it is uh just basically some straightforward information with numbers. Uh I will be presenting in the future a more uh comprehensive uh report for special education once we get our results driven accountability official report. Uh we'll be getting that later um in November. Uh so this is just giving you a report of where our current numbers are. I went back to 2023 using our on data suite um to pull this data.

094So um currently um this year as you can see I've broken down the numbers from um to indicate dyslexia section 504 and special education. If you look at dyslexia first you can see those numbers have increased uh since 2324 school year from 75 to 112. Now 112 does not mean we are instructing or pulling out 112 students for dyslexia instruction. Those are just the ones who have been identified with dyslexia. And I'll give you those numbers here in a different slide uh for those pullout numbers. Section 504, as you can see, those numbers have decreased. Part of that reason is because our dyslexia students have been moved over from 504 into special education. Uh this year, all of our students receiving dyslexia instruction are fall under the special education umbrella. In the past, we could

095do either 504 or special education. Um, as you can see, our numbers are trending up in special education. Part of that is because of the dyslexia identification, but that's not the only reason those numbers are going up. I believe we're doing a better job of identifying students. And so, um, I believe 279 and this has probably gone up in the last couple of days. I believe this is our highest identification in the history of Venus. At least if you go back prior a couple years prior to 2023, I believe the numbers were even smaller. So I think to the best of my knowledge, this is the highest number we've had. >> Includes >> That's a good question. There is a difference in section 504 and special education. Uh section 504 is more about um no

096discrimination based on uh disabilities and it's more about civil rights. So we identify students under section 504 who are students who have an identified disability but they might not need special education specially designed instruction. So in other words they might need accommodations uh but may not need the special education services. Some of those accommodations could be like oral administration if there's reading difficulties. Um, so that is the main difference. Uh, special education is identified as having a disability and requiring specially designed instruction. So your students in section 504 do not have a a special education teacher going into the classrooms to support them. Um, the teachers just provide those accommodations. Is that could be temporary? Yeah. Section 504 could be a temporary disability, broken arm. Um, sometimes we carry students with diabetes or a health

097condition where they don't really require special education services, but they may need the attention of the nurse or they may uh have frequent absences. So, they would require um some accommodations if that if that makes sense. Okay, next slide. So this information these are three consecutive slides uh where this information was pulled from in our on data suite. So if you'll I have it u more clearly in the the fourth slide here. So just keep going. Miss Rosie and I put them side by side. So So programs by disability placement since 2023. These reports can be a little bit deceiving because they identify primary disability only. So you might see the numbers in those on data suite slides for for um speech but uh and they may say 3740 but that's only students who have

098been identified with a speech impairment and no other disability but if you look at these numbers we serve 111 students for speech therapy. Um the mainstream inclusion, these are students who uh where teachers are pushing in or pair professionals are pushing into the classroom to provide support. Uh if you look at those numbers, they've gone down since 2324. But if you look at the resource numbers, those have gone up. Those are the resource classrooms where students are pulled out of the classroom, receive modified instruction in the special education setting. So that does have some impact on your staffing patterns and I'll share that in a future slide with you. Self-contained could be life skills or uh behavior. Um so we have we've gone down in numbers. Part of that reason is some of our students

099when they made the star alt 2 participation more rigorous um to meet that eligibility we started those students that didn't that no longer qualified to take the star alt 2 were moved out in to resource and so those numbers have come down. Full-time early childhood would be your program for your three and four year olds where students come for either a full half day, your three-year-olds, or your uh four-year-olds who come for a full day as a four-year-old. Those numbers have gone up significantly. So, right now you're sitting with eight students in a uh self-contained early childhood program. Okay, keep going. So that's where that information came from was on those. So case management if you >> only >> we well preschool uh prek would be four year olds but we don't have a three-year-old

100um or uh preschool. >> Yes. Yes sir. That's correct. three and four year olds. Um, so we have three dyslexia teachers. One is a uh resource teacher at the middle school who went for training this year because our numbers were growing and we were trying to support that carryover. Um, she has two class periods at the middle school. We have two other teachers that hit all of the other campuses. Um, mainly the the majority of those are at the elementary. Again, your total students is 112, but your students receiving instruction pullout services is 84. Next slide. So, this is campus by campus just to give you an idea of how what our numbers are sitting at, how many teachers are at each campus and how many students are in referral status. At the primary, we

101have 34 students. 13 are speech only. We have two walk-in speech therapy. Some of our littles that don't qualify for the full day early childhood may come in as a walk-in speech. Um the ECSC and the life skills um they basically share a student. So that can be seven or eight for both. Um give or take one resource and inclusion. You have eight students. And keep in mind um because it's the primary school, we don't identify a lot of students with learning disabilities at this age. So keep keep those numbers in mind. Um we have three teachers, three paraprofessionals. Case management average is eight and we have 12 students in referral status. So right now we have pretty good coverage at the primary. Um next slide is our elementary. This is where we have some

102challenges as far as on the cusp of needing additional staff. We have 117 students only 19 speechonies. Seven life skills students with one teacher and two pair of professionals. 91 resource inclusion and behavior students. Um so that is five teachers. If you count the two dyslexia teachers uh that's five. It sounds a little high but think in terms of dyslexia teachers. Um for that number we have four pair of professionals. We on average our teachers are managing 23 students uh for case management and then we have 13 in referral status. So right now we are covering minutes. So when we look at staffing we want to ensure that we're covering special education services. We are on the cusp of um needing some additional assistance. Right now we have those minutes covered but we are uh

103stretching with our uh students that are in referral status. So that takes us to our next campus middle school with 63 students. Uh as you can see the speech only the speech uh numbers go down. Uh we only have one that's a speech only. Um three life skills students. uh one teacher, one parah and one part-time in in that that's uh and then resource inclusion and behavior 58 uh we have additional teachers sitting at three when I say additional that's beyond the the one life skill uh one life skills teacher additional pair of professionals one part-time one full-time case management average 19 students and two in referral status all right so then the high school yes sir I don't know the terms >> on resource. What does resource do? >> That's a good question. So

104a resource uh teacher is a pull out teacher. So the student leaves the general education goes to a special education class and that content can be modified. So they those students may not be able to keep pace in an inclusion class and they need additional support. So they might need to to have instruction that is scaffolded to meet their needs. They may be functioning a couple of grade levels below or several grade levels below uh the typical um grade level student so that content can be modified. Okay. And then the high school slide, we have 71 and at this point uh we are phasing out our speech onlyies. 11 life skills. Uh one teacher, two pair of professionals, 60 students receiving resource inclusion and behavior support, four teachers, one pair professional. Case management average 15

105students and one in referral status. So you can kind of compare slide by slide um campus by campus uh what they're dealing with in numbers. So what impact does this have and this is my last slide. Um what are the changes? What are we feeling this year that might be impactful? This is not an exhaustive list. Um currently 22 additional students across district from last year in special education. And if you look at case management that equates to uh one additional teacher because when you think of anywhere from 20 to 24 students uh for case management uh so our numbers have grown uh but this is across district. Um the elementary has experienced a lot of that um growth two current substitute and district for high need situations. Uh we have higher numbers in resource

106students. Remember that slide I showed you where we have been progressively the numbers have gone down for inclusion and have gone up in resource. What impact does that have for a district? An inclusion support person could be a special education teacher or a pair of professional but if our numbers are going up in resource only a special education teacher can serve those students. So that will have some impact on how we schedule and how we serve students. temporary self-contained behavior. I Venus should take great pride in in knowing that we do great across the district. Our administrators do great across the district in trying to get students back out into the classes and trying to avoid students who um are placed in a self-contained behavior for long term. In fact, when students uh go into

107their art committee meetings, we already have a reintegration plan in order to try to get them back out uh with their peers. So, we we currently have some temporary students. So, that can place uh can have impact on a teacher who normally goes out for inclusion, but she may have a couple of temporary behavior um students who are currently self-contained, but not long term. And then our dyslexia instruction has increased significantly. Um, that's all I have. Um, I can try to answer your questions as best as I can. I know that we've met with all the principles uh with Mr. Gatewood to talk about, you know, our needs and and where we're seeing growth. And um, we will keep you ab breast as to what those instructional needs are. if in the event we need

108to add any additional staff based on these increasing numbers. Any questions? >> Thank you. Thank you. We'll go to item number 12, executive session at 7:42 p.m. for 551.071. 551.072 551.074 551.076 076 551.082 and 551.0821 0821. We're going to reconvene from executive session at 8:59 p.m. Go to item number 14, consent agenda. Did anybody have any questions on the consent agenda? >> No. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion to approve consent agenda. Second. >> Got a motion by Amber, second by Greg. All in favor? Motion carries. Go to item number 15. Consider approval of library book purchase. Miss Roberts back again wanting to buy more books. uh they have been posted for the month as um outlined in Senate Bill 13 and um haven't received any questions, comments or concerns. So like

109to propose or ask that you guys approve the purchase of the October library books. Anybody have any questions on the books? >> No. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion to approve um the book purchases. >> Motion by Amber. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Perry. All in favor? Motion carries. >> Thank you. Item 16, consider approval approval of the VISD 2526 good cause exemption. Chief Wood, >> good evening. Sorry, I'm losing my voice a little bit. Um the only thing different from what we've done in the past is if you see paragraph 6 under um house bill 121 it adds said effective September 1st 2025 um we have to do if we have a good cause exemption or cause exception we have to renew that each year on the

110date and everything else. So that's a new thing. Um, and it really just covers basically if we have somebody out or somebody has train or something like that that we know that we're short one since we don't have a fifth person to actually cover that campus and everything else at that time. Anybody have any questions? No. Do we have a motion? >> Motion by Joe. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Amber. All in favor? Motion carries. Thank you. Go to item number 17. Consider approval of budget amendment number two. Miss Paige. Good evening again. Um, budget amendment number two has the reflection of House Bill Two changes um, both in the revenue and the expenditure for the teacher pay raises that House Bill 2 required because those came after we approved the

111budget in June. Um, also the increase of salary in function 41 and the increase in expenditures on function 11 for the band instrument damages. So, this is taking $85,000 out of fund balance. So, our fund balance um our deficit um proposed as 443 448. Remember the 358448 is what we did for the one-time retention that we're going to put into fund balance this year and took it back out for put it in for last year and taking it out this year. >> Anybody have any questions? Madam President, I don't know if this may be offline a little bit, but have have we taken any steps to uh one of those line items was the replacement of all the band instruments that may or may not have been damaged through the room temperature. Have we taken

112any steps to ensure that uh accountability is placed on someone to make sure that doesn't happen again? >> Uh yes, sir. Actually, I have sat down with the middle school band directors. uh they have they've developed a checklist for at the end of the year how those instruments are cleaned, how those instruments are stored. Uh in fact, that portion of the middle school as you know it gathers moisture for some odd reason over the summer those instruments will actually be moved to the high school. We won't leave them in that particular room. >> Thank you. >> Do we have a motion? I'll make that motion to approve budget amendment two. >> Motion by Amber. Do we have a second? Second by Greg. All in favor. >> Thank you. >> Motion carries. Thank you. >> Go

113to item 18. Consider approval of matters related to personnel resignations, employment, position, or contract amendments. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion to approve the matters related to personnel, resignations, employment, and positions. Motion by Amber. Do we have a second? >> Second by Randall. >> Second. >> Sorry. >> All in favor? Motion carries. So, we would like to welcome Dr. Rebecca Vega. [Applause] >> Hobble on up. Oh, nice shoes. and we'll go to item 19 reports. Mr. G. >> Okay, there's a lot going on here. I'm going to go ahead and start with uh student achievement instruction. Uh all campuses have started uh intervention periods. Uh they started that October 13th during the school day. Just something new that we're doing this year year. Uh special programs and compliance. Uh we had our

114first shack meeting last week. Happy to say we had several parents attend. So that's that's been amazing. Uh just the parents willing to join that. Again, the construction bond uh phase one of the high school. Uh we have department level user input sessions scheduled uh for Wednesday and I'm getting external feedback gathered from the five construction companies. We're making a recommendation by the end of the week to the school board. >> Mr. Greywood. >> Yes, sir. >> Your first thing was uh the the tutorial period. >> Yes, sir. >> Just in that tuto tutorial period, we were doing uh a program that we paid a lot of money for. Is there any possibility of getting a partial refund from that program? >> No, it is not sir. That is the when that house SB12 passed

115where we had to seek permission uh that was the first thing I stopped into uh the CFO's office and then to inquire can we get a refund and we cannot sir. So uh I was thinking the same thing. Uh athletics uh we have a good problem going. We have u enough ninth graders to where next year we probably have to run a freshman team. Uh this year we're just running JV. uh and varsity, but next year we're probably looking at having to run freshman teams on some sports, which is a good problem because we haven't had a freshman team in a long time. Uh some upcoming district events, we have the Haunted Hay ride on the 23rd of October, the trunk or treat on the 28th of October. Uh first time since in a long

116time we doing parent teacher conferences, which is on November 7th all day. There will be a virtual option for the parents. We have a Veterans Day programs going uh November 11th and also November 24th through 28 is Thanksgiving break. And that's all I have for the superintendence report. >> No sir, they're doing that separate. I prefer to do separate. I started that last year. Reason being I like to have a AM1 and a PM1 uh because parents and community members uh their schedules vary. Um item 20, board request for additional items. Anybody have any requests for additional items? November 17th. Anybody? No. Okay. We'll go to item number 21. Adjourn at 9:10 p.m.