001Okay, it is now 5:49. We're going to reconvene back into open session. Next item on our agenda will be our report section, superintendent report. So we'll catch you. Okay. >> My clicker broke, so we're not able to control. >> I'm sorry. What? Oh, [snorts] >> okay. I'm going to go ahead and start. um want to say um school board members want to thank you for your dedication to to Walki ISD. January is um school board appreciation month and so um we have a little presentation for you but also at your table you do have at your seat you have a a small gift and the um Crayola is actually a USB that does have a video um that we were able to put together from all of our students telling you all thank you and
002so we're going to share that with you shortly but um the Crayola was there and so um interestingly enough when we put this video together in talking to the students and visiting with um they didn't all really know what a school board member does and um at the end of the video they just rest assured they all did know um they couldn't believe that you dedicate your time and your efforts for free and so um they were very grateful and and very appreciative. Um so this year's theme is our future is public and if you if you watch this video we're going to take a few minutes and do that. I think uh our future is right there and um someone earlier said keep the main thing the main thing and and this I think
003will remind us what our main thing is. So I don't know how to start this. I don't have access >> like a board for for pictures and school [music] work >> where staff people uh go somewhere um and talk about something >> where you [music] see other stores. >> A school board is kind of like where like you take a test and then [music] the scores show on the computer for the teacher and it's where it's where you put um um school stuff on it. I think a school board is where you uh there's a bunch of pictures of people that uh been here for six for [music] six years. >> So, a school board is something where you like keep track of your miles [laughter] and and uh whenever like a student or even
004a teacher gets a mile, they put it on the school board. And if you're in first place, well, good luck with that. It's probably where like school boards are like huh maybe like where like good [music] kids go like kind of like where they take pictures and stuff. >> Um school boards mean [music] you're learning stuff on something fun. It's at school, but it's a board >> like where it has like upcoming events and stuff like that. >> Um, a boat is like a pink bow at school. >> I think it's a phone. >> A school boy is what you learn with it. >> Kind of like a tell like a TV things that are hanged up to the wall. Um like it's a like so it's where people work and they like do stuff
005for felt teeth. Probably it's like a sign or like a poster. Something that goes in a school that everyone does every grade. Thank you WSD school boarder for our staff and teachers the decisions you make to bring the best people here. The creativity the school board gives us. I just want to say thank you. Thank you for the school board giving us activities and giving us some stuff to learn. I love how they let us learn differently in Wakahhatchee. Thank you, school board. >> Thank you for supporting all of our activities. >> Thank you for making the decisions for athletics programs. [music] >> I love being in theater so much. Thanks for supporting the fine arts. >> I dance, I do band, and I'm very involved in my school. I just wanted to say thank
006you to everybody at the school board for making it possible [music] for every student to have fun and learn new things. >> Everything you do is just so amazing to make [music] possible here. Thank you so much. I really love doing partner fee and I want to be a sped teacher someday. [music] Thank you all for the opportunities like letting us be in partner fe. >> Hi, my name is Brooks and um I'm I'm in agg and golf and I'd like to thank the school board for letting us have these opportunities. >> My name is Sebastian and I want to [music] thank the Walki School Board for us having places like this to go and graduate so we can be [music] successful where we going after school. I want to say thank you to the
007WISD school board for pushing me and [music] giving me this opportunity to be able to save money for college. My favorite thing about global is how it really prepares us for our futures and the specific [music] fields that we want to go into. For me personally, I like going to Wildman and being a student aid. I think [music] I get a lot of information from my teacher and she'll really help me prepare for my future career. So, I want to thank the WISD school board [music] for making that possible. Uh what I love about Global is how much hands-on experience we get. Uh whether it be going to the hospital or going to around the field sites or even having the equipment here to work on. Uh gives us a lot of preparation for the
008fields that we're going into. Um I love that my teachers not only care about what I learn, but how I learn and they care about us as well. Um I want to say thank you to the Wachi School Board for providing all these opportunities that I might not have been able to get if I went to another school. Thank you WD school board for [music] really just enhancing all of our traditions that I love so much. Thank you for preserving all of these Indian and Wachi traditions. [music] Thank y'all so much for everything you do. >> I want to give a huge thank you to the school board of WISD for just allowing the diversity and how much like opportunities we have. You know, everyone has like a chance to do something they really want
009to do and it wouldn't be possible without them. So, thank you. >> Thank you to make turnup prek awesome. Thank you all to Hatchi ISD school board. >> Thank you so much. >> I think I thank the school for all the time and the work that they put in for it. >> Thank you school board for making wedge room awesome. >> Thank you school board. >> Jimmy Ray loves watch school boys. Cliff Elementary thanks you. >> Thank you, school board. >> Marvin, thanks you. >> There's a blooper. >> All that stuff. It's like tracks your miles or something. Uh yeah, that's all I know about it. >> Okay. What do you think they do? >> So whenever uh >> [laughter] >> Okay, now we're done. >> Okay, we hope you all enjoyed that. Um, again,
010just want to say thank you so much for all you do. Uh, also on your crayon, you do have that video to preserve for as long as you would like. So, it it's just kind of a play on on the USB. It's cute. Okay. Um, moving forward, just want to talk a little bit about our enrollment. This is as of end of semester, December 19th. Um you'll see our current enrollment was 11,159 and our AD uh average daily attendance was uh 10,416 for a attendance percentage of 95.24. Um also just a reminder we do have our next upcoming districtwide recognitions night. That'll be February 2nd at 6 p.m. we will meet at the uh fine arts center and those are some pictures from our last um recognition meeting and I think that was very well
011appreciated. So, we're happy to do that again. And then just wanted to let everyone know one of the things that I'm working on with our PR team is our first Friday focus. And so, every first Friday of the month, um we will be having some sort of of uh event with for our community. It'll either be in person or it'll be video. So, in December, we met here boardroom, had a couple of folks come in and have coffee with us, and that was great. Um January's was a video that we sent out last Friday. And so our next first Friday focus is February 6th, 8:00 in the morning. We'll meet here and you're all invited if possible if you want to stop by. We will here. And I think that's all I have. Does anyone
012have any questions for me? >> Anyone? >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. Moving on to our next report, which will be our bond 2023 construction update. Mr. board. Miss McCutchen, I'm here to give you the May 2023 bond construction date update for January 2026. >> So, we're planning to pour the track surface on the week of January 19th for at the Coleman uh track and field there. It should take about a week between the pouring and the painting and all that. Then they'll put up the final fencing pieces that they've left open so they can get trucks in and out. Then we'll be able to use that as well. That will be fully functional there. We're move to Walachi Creek. Walked Creek starting to really take shape. You'll see some pictures [clears throat]
013here. You're going to see a lot of the same thing going on through it, but they're just the trades are following each other through this. So, A1 and A2, which are the first sections that we've been working on. We're looking to start closing those in, roofing those, and then like I said, you're just going to start seeing a lot of the the same things, electrical going in there, plumbing, HVAC. We're going to start hanging duck work and stuff in there. The one thing I will say is all second floor um outside of the gym area, all the rest of the building and and the second floors have been poured um all those slabs have been poured through the main part of the building there. So, it's kind of a big accomp accomplishment there. We're looking
014to pour some locker rooms around the main gym and the football fieldhouse the next couple of weeks. Those are some large pores, probably about 25,000 square foot per pore. That's about three pores we'll be doing there on those. Um the next big one is the roofing is supposed to start the second week in February, which that'll help start drying the building in and we can really get to going on the internals of the building. The um a barn uh we're should have the drawings anytime this week. I talked to them today. They're actually waiting for the architects seal on the drawings. They're all completed. They just got to seal them so they can send them to us and then we'll send them out for bid um through a RFP process to bid those. Here's you
015some pictures. Um, you can see here in the uh bottom left of that picture on the on the left there, that is the actual uh fine arts area. So, that's your fly tower. That's the that's pretty much that is the tallest area in the building. Your gym's going to be really close to it, but that's still the tallest area in the building there. Um, you can see that just above that there in that crane. Um, we can probably go to this one here. You can see there in the bottom right. You can see there, that's that big educational space as you saw. calling in some of that when I'm calling A1, A2, A3, B, and C. That's those ed areas all right through there. And that's where we have the two floors of educational spaces
016there, the general education spaces, science, math, all those kind of things in those big areas there. And that's where we're starting to work to close in there. Um, it's it's going very well. We've had some great weather compared to most time when they say if you want good if you want rain and stuff, build a school. Luckily, we haven't, but I know some of the farmers would wish we had. I'd have given up some days to get us some rain, but um I'm happy that we are where we are. [snorts] We're going to Prop C. So, Prop C, we're going to be bringing um you quite a few quotes um for jobs to be done in February, March board meetings. You can kind of see a list there of some of them. Some of them
017be removing some lockers, installing cubbies in a couple of schools that still have lockers in them. There's three elementary schools that still have that. Um, we're looking at updating LED lighting, some playground covers, just a whole bunch of different items there. Um, you can kind of go through that list. Those are all the big items that we're looking at. And that'll kind of start to wrap up the big big items that are left on the main bond. We'll still have some items that are open. They're very small stuff. A lot of like rubber gaskets in the concrete, walkways, stuff like that that we'll look at, but this will be wrapping up a lot of the main big items off of priority one, priority two. These are touching some of priority three, but it's a lot
018of the big stuff left in priority one and priority two, which was the main thing the bond was passed for. Couple of things I want you to remind you of. You've already approved the geothermal units for um this summer, the final two. We did uh do finished felty over the Christmas break. They should be starting [clears throat] up those makeup air units this week. Um we we replaced those out over Christmas break, the two makeup air units there. And then we'll go and we'll start to remove um change out the geothermal units in both Clif and uh Howard this summer. Um those will be the big ones there. But you can kind of see some of that and it gives you there on the right you can kind of see as of at the end
019of end of summer we're going to look at about 78% of the original bond will be completed and about 60% if we say all priorities one through four which mean the original bond was only priorities one and two. So, we've done a really good job in picking up a lot of those uh three and four items um through this and everything so far. Proposition C is under budget and everything we've done so far there. >> Mr. M, I had one quick question. When you say remove locker and install cubbies in three schools, are you talking about lockers in the hallways or lockers in the classrooms? And cubbies to me sound like the little places that you for individuals in a classroom. I mean >> Yes, ma'am. So these three are all in elementary schools. We
020still have in at three elementary schools we have lockers in the classrooms. Okay. >> That are not being used. They don't >> right. >> They use them for storage versus for using the kids every day. And they've asked if part of it asked if they could change them out to cubbies like you see in some of the newer schools. >> Right. Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify that. Any more questions? >> Anything for Mr. Mont? >> Thank you very much, sir. Okay. Our report C, which will our policy update 126, Mr. K. >> Good evening, school board. Miss McCutchen, uh, in honor of schoolboard appreciation, I'm bringing you one of my favorite things, which is a lot of policy. Hopefully, you'll agree. Um, so as we periodically have updates from Texas Association of
021School Boards, in light of the recent legislative session, there have been many changes, as you can see, to legal and local policies. Um, just a reminder there that the legal policies are just for your review. Uh, I will be touching on one of those towards the end of the presentation. However, um [snorts] we're really going to be focusing on the local policies which y'all do uh approve and we will get right into it. Remember also as is our practice this is just anformational session. We will be coming to you at the next board meeting February to seek approval on these. So let's get into it. uh be local. Although we have made already some of these changes, this one is in regard to the board meetings having to put the notification out for meetings 72
022hours as opposed to three business days. Notice there is this addition here about submitting the agenda 10 calendar days. That is because of some other legislation and and legal requirements. Mr. >> Mr. Hey, so you're saying that if we want something on the agenda, we have to get it to Mr. Altry by uh the Friday before the week before >> 10 calendar days before the meeting. >> So that would be Yes. Yes. Okay. Just be sure. >> Very good question. >> Notice it also does uh require roll call voting. Now >> uh beed talking about public participation. Really this one uh just says that the presiding officer which is the president or whoever at the at the particular meeting has the ability to adjust the time that public speakers may have but notice they shall
023not be given less than one minute. CJ I'm sorry questions. Oh, yes. Contracted services. Um, notice there's a couple of places you'll see uh we'll go over this evening that talks about here. It's talking about our contractors may not engage in or assign instructional activities that's prohibited by law. Noting diversity, equity, and inclusion and notice violations of this could result in a termination of contracted uh with that contractor. [snorts] Um, this CJA was really a change in title. It had said criminal uh background and now it just says background. It it had said criminal history. Now it says background checks. CLLE building and grounds. Again, this was a a small title change where it was referring only to flags. And here it says required displays more generally. technology resources. There's a few here and it
024is referenced as you can see, but this has to do with some moving of language related to AI and uh alludes to one I'll talk about here shortly. [snorts] CQB has to do primarily with the renaming of the Department of Information Resources to the Texas Cyber Command. And it also talks about our responsibility to make notifications for cyber security incidents including security breaches to anyone that may have been affected by that. So the CQD local is a new one as you can see where those artificial intelligence training information both for staff and students and how the artificial intelligence may be used in the district. That's where this policy comes from. CSA faculty standards. [cough and clears throat] [snorts] So here it pardon me board. Um oh this one has to do with the designation and
025use of private spaces according to uh new laws. Uh those have to do with obviously locker rooms, bathrooms, those types of things. Facilities construction. This one, as you can see in CV local, I'm referencing referencing CH legal, uh, where it talks about the threshold for competitive purchasing has increased to 100,000 from 50,000. They removed that and just said legal requirement because that is the new legal requirement. So there's not an actual number now in this policy. And then it also removes or designate because in the referenced policy that has already been addressed that the superintendent may uh delegate someone employment requirements DB local talking about we're required to create administrative regulations to guide administrators to seek board approval for performing certain personal services. So, there's been some law and the board has already looked at
026some of these uh requests by some of our administrators notice or remember these are administrators below the assistant superintendent and superintendent level which are now prohibited from doing those compensation and benefits and DEEC local leaves and absences. It sets up a process for calculating the daily rate of pay for contract employees including teachers, school counselors, and librarians. And then it also has a section talking about how staff can designate uh paid leave in relation to FMLA concerns. DF BB local again talking about staffing non-renewal of contracts. uh staff is may not engage in assigning DEI duties as well as instructional activities that are prohibited by law. Um notice that if that does occur, the contract employee may uh face non-renewal. There is a clarity point in there about disability and ability to perform tasks. There's
027a list of non-renewal criteria DGBA grievances board. Uh there's several so there's DGBA I'll get to the this is related to staff. There's one related to students and the public. There were significant changes to timelines and the processes that the district has to go through in hearing grievances and complaints. Um I could go into it in much more detail if you would like, but basically that is that is it. employee standards of conduct. Uh there's a couple of times in here where it talks about prohibited weapons. In in both of these situations, basically what they did is they removed the word Texas. So it has to do with reciprocal laws between our state and other states if someone has uh the license to carry a handgun. But notice really it talks about again prohibiting DEI
028duties, also prohibiting staff from uh allowing students with social tr transitioning. And then that it requires us to amend our notification if there is misconduct by an educator. And this has to do with that change from 48 hours to 24 hours. E local instructional arrangements. We are required now to provide uh syllabi and instructional plans which I know that TLI has has done all that. EFA instructional resources. This one sets forth a the requirement to create regulations such that parents may review any instructional materials including petitions if that is necessary. Ehbaf rolls right off the tongue talking about video monitoring of special ed uh areas and a time frame for reporting again um child abuse. EIA. The main thing in this one, it talks about the timeline in which we have to provide progress reports
029of students uh academic progress as well as the requirement of having at least two in-person conferences, the opportunity to have two in-person conferences with teachers. FA, so parents rights and responsibilities. Uh this was a big thing with SB12 in this last legislative session and this policy establishes a parent portal portal uh on the website which parents may submit comments to administrators or the board. So we are in the process of creating that um with the uh PR department and technology feocal attendance release time. So, this has to do with released time courses, which is a specific term about courses that may be allowed for students to still have attendance count as attendance even though they are attending this course outside of school. Wellness and health services. This policy has to do with now allowing school
030employees, including nurses, to administer non-prescription medication in accordance with the law. It also changes some terminology about epinephrine delivery systems as there are now a variety of those as opposed to just an injector. FFB. Uh, this is the one where we are required to notify staff if there has been a threat against a campus. So, the staff on that campus. FF again this is policy talking about if an employee or service pro provider is alleged to have engaged in misconduct. the timelines and the responsibility of notifying parents. Child abuse and neglect. Again, this is referencing the change from 48 hours to 24 hours that we have to report that within 24 hours. FNG, which is our our students complaints and grievances. Again, it's really all about the process of how records are taken, how level
031one, level two, level three are heard, and and some changes in those timelines for staff. Student discipline minor edits in the language talking about signage when we have video and audio being recorded. GF public complaints, timelines related to receiving and responding to complaints from the public. And then lastly on the local side, community relations. So again, this one was that removal of the word Texas. So it's like this reciprocal uh gun law situation. Any questions on the local ones? All right. All right. Very briefly, uh, board, I've put the actual language and I, and if you don't mind, I'm going to go ahead and read through it briefly. So, this is DG legal. The board of trustees may adopt a policy requiring every campus of the district or school to provide students and employees with
032an opportunity participate in a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious texts on each school day. In accordance with this section, I've also referenced FNA in the next slide. Notice it says may adopt In any case, regardless of whether the board adopts a policy under the education code, this section does not prohibit a student or employee of the district or school from participating in prayer or reading the Bible or other religious text during a period of the school day. That is not designated as a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text. FNA says basically the same thing again. May record. Okay. There is some responsibility on y'all's part. Not tonight, but prior to March 1st, uh there will need to be a vote on whether or
033not there is a rel a resolution related to the these policies to be adopted. >> Mr. Kaggel. >> Yes, ma'am. >> How is this different from the moment the minute or two of silence that they currently have? >> You know, that's a very good question. It does seem like this is a more established and longer period. Um, but we're still kind of seeking some future or some guidance, some legal guidance on this. Um, I'm not sure how many boards have approved such a regulation or have not, but obviously they all will be here in the next month or so. So you you will be coming back to us with how many minutes is required. Now >> there is no minutes requirement that I am aware of. It's just a set aside daily time for prayer
034or reading of religious texts and it is not required that we adopt that but there must be a vote one way or the other. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes ma'am. And lastly, I know that this just looks like a big DNA uh strand, but this is a reference just for y'all and for anyone else who's interested of all the legal policy changes in uh update 126 from the recent legislature. And finally, again, board, this is just anformational presentation. There were several things in your board book. Please don't hesitate if you have questions about uh any of these policies to reach out to me or Miss McCutchen and certainly we'll do our best to answer those questions and give you any sort of clarity that you might need. Any other questions? >> Anyone? Thank you
035very much. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Our last report will be our midyear financial update. Mr. >> Thanks, sir. Good evening, board, and thank you for your service. Good evening, Miss McCutchen. Um, gonna walk through a midyear financial update for you. Um, agenda just because it seemed like a cool little slide with the stethoscope. Um, okay, disclaimer. Um, I I usually hate presentations that come with disclaimers, but the purpose of this is to give you a topical update of where we are as of December 31st. It is not a guarantee of how we're going to end the fiscal year. do my best to give you where I think we're going to be for the fiscal year, but um full year results could uh vary wildly. We could end up with a whole
036trove of of additional students enrolling tomorrow. Pretty please. Um or we could end up uh you know with bad weather that that may lead us to some additional expenditures we weren't planning on. So just from the general outset so we're all on the same page, couple of ways that we can improve financial results. One is we can increase revenues or the realization of revenues. Uh and and uh the way we're funded in the state of Texas, that would be through average daily attendance. Uh generally beating our budgeted expectations. A day is calculated by multiplying student enrollment by a weighted attendance funding. So for the vast majority of our students, there is no additional weight that would go with it. And so that would be every day you're here is a one, take total number of
037school days uh to come up with your average daily attendance. uh some students do come with additional weighted funding and so you might see an ADA that would exceed we call it weighted average WADA weighted average daily attendance will exceed our average daily attendance because there are some weights built in built in for certain students. Another way to improve financial results would be decrease expenditures. Uh we've talked about this numerous times as we go through the budget. Staff payroll and benefits are our most significant expenditure making up about 85% of the budget. Uh so any significant changes that are going to be made on the expenditure side are going to have to start uh with staff and staffing levels. To give you a general idea of where we are right now, our significant revenue sources
038locally uh those are property taxes. And so right now we have a budget of 63.6 million for property tax revenue this year. Through December, we've collected about 27.5 million, which is about 43% of our budget of property tax revenue for the year. 43% doesn't sound great. Um except when you start comparing it to previous years. Last year we were about uh 39.8% of our budget through December 31st and then the five prior years to that had a collective average of just under 35%. Uh so property taxes again, they're not late until uh January 32nd, if you will. So by the 31st, they're still on time. There's no penalty, no interest. Uh so for the most part at this point you're going to get uh some corporate uh payers as that would be an expenditure if
039they're that operating fiscal year uh or calendar year if you will and then a lot of them are going to be uh mortgage escros at this point. Uh you have people who are going to wait to pay it uh in when I was in public accounting that would be a recommendation to to people if you want to uh itemize your deductions pay your property taxes twice in the same year. That's one way to help you get there. So one year you would pay it by January 31st, the next by December 31st. All uh individuals are on that that calendar year. So that would be one tax strategy that may be at play here. I don't know that for sure, but uh 43% we are beating our historic average over the last 5 years through December
04031st. Uh the other big significant source is state revenues. Uh we anticipated ADA of 10,581. Our fall semester ADA is 10,415. We're about 166 behind our budgeted expectations. Uh to put that into uh financial terms, that's about a million dollars. Uh so the the funding level of 6,1 6,215 pera at 166 is going to be about a million34,000. This is the one that gives me a little bit more concern than property taxes because I joked originally saying, you know, pretty please. hope we have a a huge influx in enrollment. Traditionally, that's not how this works. Uh traditionally, our influx of enrollment happens from the start of school through about uh Labor Day. And then from here, we see steady, we might see a little bit of trickle as we have students who complete their uh
041requirements for graduation through school of choice. We actually will see enrollment decrease over the remainder of that spring semester. So, I don't anticipate a large movement in our favor uh as it relates to pupil funding. The other side of this coin is it is average daily attendance and we just started into cold and flu season. So, I anticipate that as Miss McCutchen told you, our attendance rate was about 95% uh through December. I do anticipate that to be lower. It's traditionally held uh that that attendance rate is not 95 in January and it definitely is not in February. Uh but we start picking back up in March, April, and May. And so we will hope that um our lows are not extremely low and that we can get back to 95 or better uh in
042March, April, and May to help increase our ADA for the year. So want to look at student enrollment. So uh this is an area that as a district realistically we've struggled. Um we have not budgeted full demographic projected ADA um from student enrollment, but that doesn't mean that we haven't still experienced some struggle. Also, uh demographic projection for this year was 11,617. Um actual student enrollment is 11,182. We did not budget 11,617 for student enrollment. Uh we felt that that was a little too ambitious of a of a target. Uh we didn't fully budget it. So, uh that variance is 413 students. I told you on the last slide, our variance right now from budget is 166. So, uh, you can see there was some conservatism built in when we were building the revenue budget.
043Uh, we did not go to the full 11617. Want to give you just a general snapshot of Ellis County as a whole. If you take snapshot day, which is the last Friday in October from last year for all of the public schools in Ellis County, uh, we generally had about 39,300 students. This year, 39,370 students. That's not a very significant gain in a population that's growing or in a county that's population is growing as fast as Ellis County. Uh 61 students is not much of growth in public ed and Ellis County in one year. Uh also to kind of put that into perspective, region 10, uh our region goes pretty much all the way up to Witchaw Falls. Um there's about 130 districts in region 10 as a whole of the region. the region's student
044enrollment from 23 24 to 24 24 25 grew less than 1%. It grew 085%. Um so when you are hearing other districts we're talking Frisco, we're talking Fort Worth is not in region 10. Um but there are other districts around us. So you would expect the DFW Metroplex is growing significantly. We would expect enrollments to be growing. That's not the common held trend throughout all of region 10 and all of our DFW area. Uh so our uh enrollment struggles are not unique there. We're not the only ones that are facing this. Um but it is it is something that we are continuing to monitor. Uh the next slide has a has a clever little title on it that I'll get to in just a second, but I wanted to give you kind of a chart
045of where our projections and where our snapshot have been. As you can see in in 2021, we were kind of coming out of of the pandemic. So, our delta was a little uh significant, but then we started getting pretty good in 22 23. I honestly can't tell you uh what changed in 20 uh 2024 and 2025, but I know that our delta from expected enrollment to snapshot enrollment is getting bigger. Um, and so that means we're going to have to be more conservative as we are budgeting for uh revenues going forward until we can start uh more uh in line matching that enrollment trend. We need to make sure that our uh projections are not exceeding or are not causing us significant financial hardships going forward. So, is this a one-year hiccup or a larger
046trend? I thought it was pretty clever. Um, so on the left you have a chart that shows you the live birth rates per 10,00 people in the United States. Bad news, you see a negative or a regression in birth rate in the US. Um, right now that the first low blip would be the 2020. Those students, those children would be roughly 5 years old. Um, that kind of shows, you know, where we are right now. We're seeing a decrease in the birth rate. Um there's a minimal minimal increase in that birth rate in 2021 and 2022 holds steady, but I would point you out to 2023, the current two-year-olds that we'll be seeing in roughly 3 years. That's even lower than what we experienced this year. So it looks like there's a little bit of
047a enrollment stagnation on the front lines for us for the next couple years. Um, the bit of good news, and I made this joke earlier, uh, when I did this for the district leaders, the only good news that I have in this entire presentation is the birth rate in 2024 and 2025. We're starting to see that birth rate go back up. Um, which is fantastic news. That means that um, newborns to one-year-olds, there might be a few more of them than than we were anticipating. Um, and so coming off of the the really low birth rates for uh current two-year-olds, looks like there might be a little bit of silver lining going forward. Again, this might be a couple of year uh hiccup or it might be a trend. We're going to have to monitor
048that. But we know that birth rates have been declining since World War II. Um we did not anticipate that it would be such a steep decline between 19 and 20. Uh but that's kind of where we are and that might be uh some of the explanation of our uh enrollment. Did want to show you this other chart though. Um as much as I just told you that could explain our enrollment, it may also not explain our enrollment because uh it's an overlaid chart. The line shows you birth rates in the state of Texas. The uh bar is Ellis County specific over these couple of years. The purpose in showing you this is Ellis County does not correlate to the state of Texas. So, uh, any vast conclusions that I could draw for you and tell
049you, hey, the lights at the end of the tunnel, we know where we're going. I really don't. Uh, because Ellis County has has seen increases in that birth rate, uh, and in that population over this 5year span, uh, which is the most recent data I could find from the Bureau of Vital Statistics. uh but the state you'll see a market decrease and then um some increases and then a flatlining and so uh I don't know that those are necessarily correlated but this is the data that we are looking at uh and also our demographers are looking at to try to help with those projections of enrollment going forward okay gone are the charts now it's a lot of words so kind of to put it in perspective of where we are today right now elementary
050wise I have 5,940 function seats. When I say functional, I mean it's roughly 85% of my maximum capacity at all of my elementaryaries combined. So functionally 5,940 kind of that sweet spot of where um we're going to have pretty good pretty full-size classrooms, but we're not going to be overcrowding on our campuses. Total ele elementary enrollments right at about 5,173 students. So you see I've got almost 800 open seats right now to functional capacity. Typical elementary class size. Um this is a prepoundonderance of our elementarymentaries. Our new standard would be 800 with a uh a functional size of about 750. Um but our our majority of our elementaryaries right now are about 550 uh class sizes. So to put that in a different in a different light, I really don't have a need to build
051Frankie Lujet Elementary right now. I have almost the entire capacity of Frankie Lugette as open seats to functional capacity, not even maximum capacity right now within our district. So board, my strategic advice to you going forward, we hold off on building Frankie Luette. That will make our problems worse as a district as we try to staff and maintain an elementary that will just add additional open seats within our district. So we're going to continue to monitor uh look for potential reszones as needed. We don't want to overwhelm one elementary campus at the for the uh expense of another. But right now, there's no need to rush out and build Frankie Lugette Elementary given where we are total capacity and total elementary enrollment wise. Now, the next one is going to dive into it a little
052bit different. So, I'm going to try really hard not to confuse anyone. Total elementary seats right now. So, I have a teacher in place, but I do not have the maximum 22 students in that classroom or 25 at a fifth grade level. Right now, I have 587 open elementary seats. Again, that typical elementary size is about 550. Just hypothetically speaking, if I were to go out and look at a typical elementary, I'd be looking at about 26 teachers, 10 other professionals, five pair of professionals, 12 auxiliary. Overall, I get to a staffing cost of these 587 open seats of roughly $2.95 million, almost $3 million. To put that into a different perspective, to take that 2,945,000 and divide it by 1,700 staff members, that's roughly a 1,700 per person increase that we are uh tying
053up in additional open seats, staffing for additional open seats at our elementary level. I'm not here to tell you that we can ever get zoning perfect and that we could reduce that. What I'm telling you is that with our expectations of enrollment, we have hired some staff that right now we have some open seats in our district. If you look at the chart, uh Mr. East has prepared a chart that shows these seats at every campus. Um there's generally nines and tens as you go throughout the chart. They just add up to a lot of open seats when you add uh six grade levels at every at all 10 of our elementarymentaries. Also, this year we've experienced some difficulty hiring qualified personnel in some areas, specifically special education. Uh you may remember that we brought
054you a good number of contracts right there at the beginning of the year where we we were unable to hire uh qualified candidates on our own. So, we had to go through a staffing agency. Um to date, those cost we anticipate that to cost us about $800,000 uh over and above hiring those individuals on staff. So going through that contract uh is going to be more expensive for the district in the long term. Uh that 800,000 will come back here in just a minute as we reconcile this at the very end. Elementary is not the only place we could also look at recovering some FTEEs and some costs through secondary campuses. Uh the district had a legislative budget board audit I believe back in 2011. Um and the recommendation at the time was uh through
055the elimination of block scheduling we could recover in excess of 24 FTEEs. Uh that 24 FTEES if we assumed they were all teachers I really don't know uh what that makeup of FTE was but if we assumed that was all teaching positions then that would yield about 1.7 million in cost savings. How do I get to that general idea? I have not seen the the audit report from the LBB, but generally if I have 3,200 students needing eight classes and my teachers are teaching six sections with an average class size of 25, I would need about 170 and a half teachers on the year. So it it's just a a mathematic equation. If I change one input and say now my teachers are teaching seven of eight instead of six of of eight 32008 sections
056needed per student divided by seven still a class size of 25 I yield a need of about 146 teachers that's a delta of 24 teachers which would yield that $1.7 million in savings um if I did not reduce my staff at all and I have 3200 students needing eight sections um and I have teachers teaching seven and I know that I have 170.67 teachers, so I'm not going to eliminate any of those positions. Um, your class size average would drop from 25 to roughly 21.43 students on average. So about three less students per class with the existing staff that we already have. all the considerations that as we go through budget time, uh this is what district leadership is going to be looking at as we start um repurposing existing FTEEs and look for whether
057we really need to add additional FTEEs uh based on our enrollment. So the next big rock on the horizon is the opening of Wachete Creek High School uh board this past year you told us priorities going into 25 26 uh tier one. Uh so the most important priorities were propose a balanced budget, increase uh pay for all staff, but we also had a lumpkins practice field improvement that we were unable to put funds to uh after we did priorities one and priority two or A and B within that tier one. So my question to you is um how do you want us to address these preferred items that we were unable to address within the budgeting process? Would you like the recommendation to go into fund balance? Would you like for it to continue to
058be a budgeted item uh going forward? Um would you like for us to seek alternative funding options? Um so that's that's kind of our our big rock as we look at that one project. But also to remind you that as Wachi Creek opens, we're going to need to do some work uh within our district. We're going to need to make sure that we have some representation of bison, that we have some um inclusivity in the endzones, that that Wachi Creek is not scoring in the Indians in zone or the Indians in zone with the WHS athletic logo in the middle of the field. We will need to do some uh renovations to the actual field, which it is uh getting close to its end of life. Uh so it'll be about time for us to
059replace it anyway. But there's also some repair and some resurfacing work that needs to happen to the track over at Lumpkins. Uh and then uh we need to talk about locker spaces and what we're doing for both schools. And then we also need to talk about the mudroom that may not be gerine at this point. That might be a a further down the road. Uh in all we also need to address facilities for WHS so that they are comparable to Wachete Creek upon the opening of Wachete Creek. As you may remember, uh, back in May of 23, Proposition D of the bond was to, uh, provide fieldhouse facilities and additional spaces at Wsachi High School. Uh, that proposition was unsuccessful, but the need does not change uh, for us to get students um, out of
060the need to travel back and forth to Lumpin Stadium every day for practice, whether they're football or whether they are cheer. Uh, I can see that I've got some comments or questions at this point, so I'm going to pause. I have one. So, what year will we have varsity athletics for the bison's at what year will we have varsity? >> So, the the school will open 2728 and they will open in the second year of a realignment. So, 2728 uh would be a junior varsity schedule for them. 2829 would be that first year of full realignment. So, that would be their first varsity year. So 2829 to answer your question, Mr. Grigle. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Yes sir. >> Uh and we are we are definitely going to continue to pursue that.
061Uh this question uh while it is kind of addressed in that situation specific is really more general uh for the board. If we do have those priority items that we can't uh fit within the budget, would you like for us to um work on uh creative solutions like that, continue it in the budget or is it would it be a priority of the board to uh to look at deficit spending? >> I'm always for creative solutions as long as they're not to the detriment of the community or the people and we're doing things above board. But if we can save that money there, then it whatever money is not spent there, the district still has for projects that may not even be on this list. I mean, just the general financial health of the district.
062>> Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. >> Do we know the uh total cost of all this over here on the right, the with the bison and the repair and all that? >> No, ma'am. I do not at this point. Uh it's not a something that would have to happen for uh the remainder of 256. Uh, but we can start getting with our athletics uh, teams to start getting those quotes for us. >> That sounds like a lot of money. >> I believe it will be. I believe it will be. Uh, the last time we replaced the entire playing surface, the turf playing surface. I want to tell you it's about 460,000 uh, over at Lumpkins. So, I would anticipate it's at least probably a half million for uh, the turf if we replace the whole
063thing. Uh, as far as replacing logos and replacing endzone, that I really don't know. Uh, the track, I don't I don't have a good guess for that one either. >> So, I think you have to continue to look for creative solutions. Fund balance should probably be your last option. However, when you talk about replacing turf or plane surface, that's a safety issue. >> Yes, sir. >> So, safety issue should probably take precedent over anything else. So, I would use that as my realm of thinking as you move forward with this. >> I appreciate the input because uh uh we share that line of thinking uh in terms of safety first. Uh just wanted to make sure that we were kind of in a line and in agreement there before running forward with with proposals and
064bringing that to your attention. >> I think that a good solution may be a combination of the of two. and be trying to um keep keep doing the work until the budget is complete in addition to looking at additional funding for the project. >> Thank you. >> U Mr. Cton, is there any way uh that we could work on the dressing rooms and the unfinished mudroom? Is could any of that work be done inhouse? >> Yes, ma'am. to the extent possible, we can definitely look at doing that in house. Uh we'll also need to look at kind of timeline of when that's going to be um a mandatory thing. Some of that really relates back to the to the bullet right above it. Uh once we address what that locker space is going to look
065like for both varsity teams, that'll really tell us what that timeline is for that mud space. Uh if there's not a workable solution to share uh one locker room as the mud uh mud room is being renovated, then that may necessitate an outside contract. Uh if we can do more of it inhouse, there may be a little bit more of a share between uh two varsity teams. uh as that work's getting done, >> we look at two varsity of the teams sharing it, but we also have the challenge of all of WHS being there at the freshman um junior voicing and varsity. So, you know, that's something else to look at as well getting them like you say um keep from having to commute back and forth. We're looking at two voices sharing it. I
066think the first uh um hurdle again is to get WHS from from from over there so that two voices can share it. We definitely have some opportunities to address. So, all right. Um rolling on. So, we talked about our lower ADA from budget of about 166 and that yielded about a million dollars in lower revenue for the year. Um, we also talked about our increased expenditures about 800,000 from uh contracts right now. Uh, at December 31st, I would tell you I think we're on on budget on par to to run about a 2 million to $2.5 million deficit for the year. Uh, I know that a million plus 800,000 is not 2 million. Uh, but like I told you a minute ago, I do anticipate our ADA to slow down in January and February, primarily
067as we get through more students being out for cold and flu. Traditionally, it picks up as we get closer to the end of the school year. Uh, but I would rather be wrong and and us look at more of a million half dollar deficit for the year. Uh, instead of um telling you a million and a half and it ends up at two and a half million, that's a different conversation. So right now I do think ADA is going to slow down a little bit in the spring semester just with uh illnesses. Um so I am trying to be a little bit more conservative telling you that I think we'll be about a $2 million to $2.5 million uh deficit for the year. Any questions? >> Excuse me. What is our deadline for starting construction
068of Frankul Jed? >> Oo, really good question. So, in May of 23, taxpayers approved the referendum for Proposition A uh which gave us a 10-year authorization to issue the debt for Frankie Lujette. So, we have until uh May of 2033 to issue the debt. From there, the arbitrage uh rules would start coming into play. Uh so I got about three more years after that. So we're really looking at about May of uh before we would start having some adverse uh components of not having that debt in place and that or not having the debt issued in that building in place. Um realistically uh that's a 10-year authorization. So, if we delay the original build from 2024 to 2028 because of growth, uh that's still well within the the uh operational or the authorization approved by
069voters. Not to say that we would need necessarily that building in 2028. Just throwing that as an example. So, it is a 10-year authorization from the time that it was voted on to have that debt issued uh if we're going to issue it. Otherwise, it would be authorized but unissued debt. All right. >> Thank you. Yes, sir. >> Mr. Tman, did you have a question? >> Okay. Anyone else? >> I oversold it earlier. Um, when I said the only good news I had was the increase in birth rate. The other good news I have is the thank you slide. It means I'm done. Thank you, board. >> Next item on our agenda areformational items. There's four individual things that are included in your in your uh packet there for you to look over at your
070own time. Moving on to our next agenda item will be our consent agenda. We have items A through L up for consideration. It has been asked to have a little bit of clarification on items G and H before I call for a vote. I think Mr. Zalter could answer those. Hello, Miss McCutchen. Thank you and board of trustees and also thank you board of trustees speaking for HR department. Thank you for your time and and dedication to for our district. So, and also happy birthday, Mr. Puchini. All right. So, um, in an ideal world, we would love, as principles, uh, and me being a former principal, we would love to be able to, uh, get applicants that are fully certified and hire hire them. But I can tell you right now, even 20 years ago
071when I was hired by Miss Sutton and uh, Coach Ring, I was a non-certified, non uh, highly qualified uh, teacher. They took a chance on me. uh got into the education uh certification program and became certified. So uh with House Bill 2, some of the components uh or one of the components is that every teacher has to be certified next year. Okay? And I can tell you right now that's that's a hard task for all districts. And and so um what this plan does allow and TA is allowing us to do is to apply for a delay of teacher certifi uh teacher certification requirements. And so um by uh we will have hopefully all teachers that are certified. That's what the purpose of this plan is for. Okay. [clears throat] So for the current outlook
072for this uh current outlook right now is elementary. We have 360 total teachers and 47 are uncertified right now. So that's about 13% uncertified. Uh the good news is I just sent an email out to our uncertified teachers. We're going to be meeting with them uh the next couple of weeks. Uh we've already met with them a few times in the first semester and many of them have passed their certification test. Uh that's the biggest hurdle when it becomes uh being certified and so that's some good news. Uh the middle school has 172 total teachers, 27 are uncertified, that's about 16%. And then at the high school level, uh 243 total teachers and that's uh 31 have are uncertified and that's about 13%. Uh part of this plan is there's four strategies. Okay, first strategy
073being that there's going to be targeted support for uncertified teacher. Okay, we are we are really doing that already. Uh but it's just providing a plan and paper. Okay. And so what that means is every teacher that we hire moving forward, they have to be a part of an education preparation program. That's a need. That's a must. Okay. uh we would like for them to um already have their statement of elig eligibility, meaning that that program is is telling them that they can teach in that classroom. Okay, that's whether they've passed their certification test um or they're just they've taken enough college uh classes that have allowed them to be get their statement of eligibility. All right, so uh we're going to establish some deadlines. We've already kind of started doing that. Uh we've tell
074we're telling teachers, hey, we need you to have that certification test uh scheduled and passed. Okay. Now, it's just going to be a must when we start the next school year. Uh we're going to have monthly update meetings where our certification HR certification specialist are meeting with these teachers. We're already doing that. It's just going to apply is going to have a little bit more meetings to involved with that. uh mentoring and coaching hopefully uh uh partnering with TLI uh making having our instructional coaches, anybody from TLI along with us to be able to meet with uh teachers supporting them in the classroom and just uh being that mentor for them. Second, uh also there's uh going to be time and district resources to this. Uh one of the things that Miss Burke did was
075during our la our previous what day was that? Monday, Tuesday, we had I Nation and we had all of our non-certified teachers u meet up at the high school library and they had a full day of working on their their uh certification whether it be modules uh all the courses that they have to do and we got a lot of great feedback that that was very helpful and so we would like to implement that a little bit more uh when it becomes PD days allowing these non fully certified teachers to be able to do that. Uh strategy two uh is partnerships with our educator preparation programs. Uh as you can see that we're we're work we're trying to work with Texas Tech University. Uh you're going to start seeing probably moreus because the more partnerships
076we have the better we're going to be able to have a pipeline of teachers hopefully that come to Wakatchi ISD. And so that's very important. Um let's see what else. Uh we're going to be going to job fairs uh career fairs, college fairs. That's where um assistant superintendents of secondary uh Mr. Perry and Mr. East and some of our principles will be going to these uh job fairs and hopefully just recruiting and advertising and showing that Wakatche ISD is a great district and we want you to come here. Okay. The third part is our recruitment. That's it kind of goes along with that. But one of the things that we really need to uh we're looking at we've already done this in the past is your grow your own teacher program. Uh we hire let
077me tell you something it's easy to it's not easy but it's we get a lot of applicants that can be pair professionals. Okay. And one of the things that we're doing uh I know when we're doing these subtrains and uh is I'm asking how many of y'all do have your bachelor degree? How many of y'all want to get your teacher certification? You want to be a teacher? write that name down and then I'm providing that to our um our our partners that we already have. And so we're looking at doing that. We're already doing that. Uh getting our pairs that are already here, okay, they want to be teachers, then we we need to we need to hook them up with a a partner and have them hopefully get ready to become a teacher. And
078so, uh obviously the job fairs, we have a district job fair at least once a year. We've had uh open interviews job fair. We're we're are we we're trying to gain sped teachers. We've done that [clears throat] at the first semester. We'll have another one at least the uh this uh this semester. And and the last thing is our uh strategy four, which is our monitoring accountability. Uh it's just having those meetings uh in cabinet. Uh letting Miss McCutchen know like this is where we are with with our certificate uh with our teachers that are non-certified. just having those meetings, holding each other accountable, and um hopefully in 2029 we can say we are hopefully fully certified and um and we don't have to worry about this. So pretty [clears throat] much in a nutshell
079any questions? >> No, thank you for doing that. >> Yeah, sure. Of course. I have one question on the certification portion. Does the district of innovation go away. >> So, it's it's it's it's not as big of a deal as it was in previous years. Yes. >> And your approval this evening will allow us to apply for the waiver from the state. >> Any other explanation needed? >> All right. in for H um the teachers of tomorrowou. This is anouou that goes with the plan that Eric just talked about and uh we'll have moreus coming in the next few months uh to work with other educator prep programs just like um this evening we'll talk about Texas Tech University as well. But this sets up a formalized partnership with the organization to um take their
080students and help us place them in our schools so they can become our teachers. >> Thank you. Any questions? Okay. >> Thank you, Go. >> Okay. I will entertain a motion to approve consent agenda items A through L. >> So moved. >> Motion by Mrs. Timberman. Is there a second? Second >> by Mr. Cooper. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Post say nay. Motion carries 70. All right. Moving on to our action items. Action item A is being removed for consideration tonight. So we will move to action item B which is consideration with possible action to approve a memorandum of understanding with Texas Tech University. >> So moved. >> We have to have a presentation first. I'm sorry. I read my board book. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, good evening
081board, Miss McCutchen. This evening, we're requesting authority from the board to enter into a final version of theou with Texas Tech University regarding our partnership to participate in the tech teach across Texas program. It's a tongue twister. Um with this partnership, we'll strengthen our internal teacher pipeline by offering um additional programs and tracks for our teachers, students, and pair pair professionals to become certified. Um there are three pathways. The first is tech teach 2 plus two, which is a traditional four-year program, and then tech 2 plus one, which is a fasttrack program for those who already have an associates degree. And then uh the third program is the Raider Teach alternative certification program for candidates who already hold that bachelor's degree. So um part [clears throat] of this applica application also goes with the um
082extended teacher certification plan that Derek just talked about. >> Any questions for Balter? Okay. At this time, I entertain a motion to approve action item B as presented. >> Mr. Audrey, I apologize. I was so excited about this program. That's >> okay. I just >> So, I make the motion that we approve this. >> Okay. Have a motion by Miss Creel. >> Second by Mr. Schoolfield. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. Post say nay. Motion carries 70. And our last action item will be consideration with possible action to approve the stipens for Clif Elementary. >> Okay. To continue our improvement plan for Clif Elementary, we're requesting additional stipens for the campus instructional coach and counselor as well as an increase for the receptionist. Do you do you have any questions? >>
083Okay. I'll entertain a motion to approve action item C as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Scullfield, second by Mr. from McCutchen. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. >> Post say nay. Motion carries seven 70. And before we adjourn, I'm going to take this time to be the last person tonight to wish you happy birthday, Mr. McCuten. Also, this is our first official meeting with our new two assistant superintendents at the helm. We have uh Mr. Rusty East and Mr. Jacob Perry. I want to welcome you guys u to uh to the administrative team. >> Thank you. All right, with that said, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So move by Miss Creel. >> Second, Mr. Pittz. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carry 70. Thank you.