001inordance with Texas Open Meetings Act, Government Code Chapter 551. Board will now convene into executive session pursuant to Texas government code section 551.074 through 551.084. to join us at the podium to introduce your students for the pledge tonight. >> Hello. I'd like to introduce my uh senior student Zachary Mitchell who will be participating with the TMEA large school allstate mix choir um this week to say the pledge of allegiance. Good evening. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. That's a brief introductory remarks will be given by Mr. Nick Moss. >> Uh thanks. Uh if you would please join
002me in prayer. >> Heavenly Father, thank you for today. Thank you for the opportunity to be here to serve the community. Lord, I pray that the decisions made here tonight are in the best interest of the community. Be with each and every one of us as we go our separate ways tonight. Watch over us, protect us, and keep us safe. In your name I pray. Uh, one of our favorite parts of each of the board meetings throughout the year is uh, student recognitions. So, tonight we're joined by Mr. Spates, who is going to start that part of our program for the evening. Long list here, which is a great thing. Dr. Whittle, board of trustees. Tonight, I have the pleasure of introducing several White House High School students. First, we're going to recognize our academic
003all-state recipients. Earning a spot on the academic all-state team shows that the student has demonstrated outstanding academic achievement, strong moral character, and a commitment to their sport. This recognition aligns with our board goal of fostering developing a strong sense of community, and ethical values in our students. To receive this award, students must maintain an overall GPA of 92 or higher, all while balancing the demands of athletics, academics, and leadership responsibilities. The Texas High School Coaches Association evaluates nominees based on GPA, class rank, and standardized test scores, ensuring only the most dedicated student athletes earn this distinction. Following each recognition, students will take a photo with the board of trustees. Parents, you're welcome to join behind the podium to take photos. First, we're going to start with our student athletic trainers. First off, we have Genevie
004Han. Next, we have Trinity Stevenson, Kate Parker, and joining these students tonight is our athletic trainer, Mr. Lord, >> you have to get taller. >> Ready? >> Perfect. Thank you. >> All right, moving on to our volleyball players. Starting off, we have Ellie Culie. Next up, Genevie Han. Trinity Stevenson, Caroline Hooper. Enjoying these players tonight is Coach Meion. >> You want to come on in? We got We got to get Schneider in there. There we go. Perfect. Are y'all ready? >> Perfect. Thank you. >> All right. Next up, we're going to recognize our tennis players. Starting off, Claire Leon. Caitlyn Cook, Kyle Willis, Nathan Prince, and tonight joining these players is Coach McMullen. parents, y'all can come up here behind us. >> Yes, I think I got I think I got Schneider in there. Okay,
005ready? >> Thank you. Now we will recognize our cross country runners. Starting off, Zachary Mitchell, Slay Mayo, Riley Ralph, and Austin Colby. Joining these students tonight is Coach Freeman. Hey guys, look. All right. At this time, we're going to recognize one of our state level competitors. Please join us in congratulating Salica Careshi for representing White House ISD at the state congressional meet in Austin. Joining Solica are coaches Miss Dyer and Mr. Nichols. Thank you. And last, but certainly not least, would like to recognize Zachary Mitchell, Andrew Cook for earning a place on the All State Choir team. Joining these students are their directors, Miss Brooks, Just right here beside Dr. Wood will be great. >> All right, Zach, you want to get kind of in the middle there? Go ahead. >> Perfect. Thank you. Yeah,
006we've got so we have a backdrop in the PLC right next door if parents want to take your students over there. Uh there's a white wildcat backdrop in the Thank you. Yes, ma'am. We did not have anybody sign up to speak at open forum. So, we're going to move on to information items. Tonight, we have Dr. Jacobs joining us for a presentation about the AIM Center. Good evening and thank you very much. I appreciate you honoring the AIM Center tonight and in particular one of my teachers. I have Mr. Josh Dickerson here tonight. Josh is a favorite of mine. He and I have a history. He is a graduate of White House High School and he's had the pleasure of having me as a teacher and as a coach and as a boss. So, I
007think he deserves a round of applause for that in itself. But Josh is such a joy to be around. I've known him for so long, known his whole family. And Josh brings such a caring, servant attitude to the building up there. There's nothing that he won't do to help anybody at any time in any place. He comes by the office before school. He comes by the office at lunch. He comes by during his conference period. comes by after school to check to see if there's anything that he can help with throughout the day. And I know he's always doing the same thing for any kid and any teacher in the classrooms that needs to help. Josh is a teacher of mine at the building and that's the type of person that I really like having
008at the game center working with those kids up there. So, I give you Josh Dickerson. Um, thank you board. I am Josh Dickerson. This is my seventh year with White House ISTD. As Dr. Jacob said, I'm a 2002 graduate and it's an honor to be here. Thank you. >> All right. Now, I get to quiz you, Josh. What we want to do tonight is kind of give you an idea of the culture of the AIM Center and as it's expressed through Josh and how he sees things. I can stand up here and tell you anything you might want to hear, but I think if you hear it from people that are actually in the classrooms working with those kids handinand day by day, I think you get a real good idea of what it is
009to be up there. So, John, start out. What's the most re rewarding part of working with students at the AIM Center? Um, seeing students who may struggle in the traditional classroom um come to us where have a little more structure. Um, it's quiet and they do well behaviorally and academically. um they're able to work at a steady pace, ask questions, get that one-on-one time that sometime is difficult to get uh in a traditional classroom. Seeing them be successful with us and excited to go back to campus where they are ready to carry over that success and it's very rewarding. All right, Josh. What does success look like for students at the AIM Center and how do you help them reach it? And we tell them right from the beginning that we do not know why
010they came to the AI as center or why they got placed there that we were going to get to know them. They're going to get to know us over a course of that time. We tell them that we're going to show them respect and demonstrate that to them daily and and we expect them to do that um with us as well and helps them to be successful. Um oops, sorry Clint, I hit the button. Um we're here tell them that we're there to help them. If they choose not to do what's been asked of them, their stay may be a little longer um than they're assigned. But if they use that time wisely, they can use that time to turn over a new leaf and make a fresh start. It takes only a few days
011for them to realize that being a place there is not as bad as they thought it was going to be. the quiet environment with them with being readily available and our help they're surprised to themselves how much work they can get done and how successful they can be. Um that change in mindset also helps to build quick relationships whereby they trust us and start to believe in themselves with a different environment and a quick adjustment in their mindset. It is usually the student who takes the new profound pride in themselves. Is there a moment or maybe a particular student over your years at the AIM Center that sticks out with you? And what would you think would be the most impressive that you've seen from a student coming out of the AIM Center? >> We
012had a student that had visit us several times over the years. He was a constant issue on his campus or their campus and our campus. It got to the point where I was um honored to work with him one-on-one every day. We got to know each other very well. Um during his last visit at the AIM Center there saw a big change um not only in behavior but desire to do well. That student we ended up um working together very hard. We got him graduated and we've seen him out and about in the in the real world and he's he's doing very well. Thank you. >> Do y'all have any questions or anything of us? >> Was there something specific in that specific student's story that you feel like why why did he change mindset?
013Why did he change direction? >> I I think um just by spending so much time with him, he saw that we wanted him to be successful. Um, and he finally bought into the fact that, hey, I can do this. I can be successful both in the classroom and out of the classroom. And he buckled down and we worked really, really hard. And now he's out. He's being successful in the real world. >> Um, they're usually placed with us uh 30 to 45 days. Um, And then as teachers we rotate through. Some of them we see two periods a day. Some we see one period a day. So anywhere between an hour and a half to two hours a day we'll see these students. >> No sir. No sir. Not unless it was in in that
014case or oneonone. >> There a high percentage of recidivism where they're cycling back through. The biggest recidivism we see is from vaping and that has drastically gone down over the last two years as well. I think we're over the hump of the vaping epidemic. Uh all the other reasons Kim kids come to the AIM Center, very few of them come back. So that's a good thing. >> Appreciate you guys. It's a challenging challenging role day in and day out >> and uh it's a tough one tough one to fill, but we're glad y'all are there doing it. >> Thank you. I tell people it's a calling and if you come up there and you see people like Mr. Dickerson, you know that they're called to come up there because of the environment and the people
015that we deal with, but it's a blessing. >> Thank you all very much. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Up next, I believe we have Mr. Pratt with the transportation report. >> Good evening. Thank you. All right. So, um just want to take some time to give you guys an update on uh this project that we've been working on in transportation. All right. I wanted to share with you the current routes. Um we and I put a map up there just to show you like our district and all the roads we cover. Um we have uh about 28 general education routes uh and some sped routes and and some special mckin mento routes that operate outside uh headcount comparison. I just wanted to show you some numbers. Um in in October we had
016a so let me explain our headcount first. So we give our drivers a headcount sheet u about during the week of one of these months and they got about a week to to complete it, fill it out. A lot of them like to pick their heaviest days. Um, and this is this this was those counts in October uh compared to January. And but it's important to know that over 1,900 students are signed up for transportation. Like they've ridden a bus or we've gotten a bus card from them. They don't ride all the time, but um that's that's a big number of students. All right. Um so student transportation experience. So currently um Our earliest pickup is 6:08 in the morning and our latest drop off is 4:47. Uh most of that time uh on the
017bus is spent in picking up from campus to campus. So imagine we've got students that go to uh pick get picked up at Brown and then the bus comes to junior high and then hallway and then high school and then it starts out on its route. So most of that time is is is uh is just picking up students before we're actually out there dropping them off. And some routes are crowded and not overcrowded but crowded where we have small kids uh prek, kinder, first grade that sit three to a seat. Um considerations for improvement. Um you know we we definitely uh you know into this project we realized we do need to update uh some of our our routing software. So uh that that's in progress. Uh the goal there is to utilize our
018GPS data uh to help us to refine our route times, the times that we uh send out uh to parents, also with the uh the ability to to to track our buses and give some live location updates on those and to communicate route information with parents via Skyward. Right now, uh, at the beginning of the year, we post like a big PDF document that has all the route times and all the all the stop information in there, and parents just hit controlf and they find their information and they go and they go from there. Uh, being able to report that out to Skyward will make that a lot easier for parents and campuses to see the route information. Um, and then two, uh, this spring, uh, we're looking to do an opt-in, opt out parent
019survey just to get some better data on who's riding the bus, who's not riding the bus, so that can help us inform us on on building our routes. Um, so, you know, we, uh, we've got a big big project here and we wanted to make sure that, you know, we did it right. So, um, with SPL, school bus logistics, which, you know, I'm going to introduce our consultant uh, from from there from there with you in just a minute. But it's important to know that we have we're having them look at our current routing. We're having them look at our bill and uh and analyze the proposed bell schedule that we brought to you last time. And also we're asking them to keep into consideration a lot of things. Um so what's the best way?
020How do we get there? What do the experts say? And that's where we found uh school bus logistics. Uh and I want to introduce to you. Um, Don is our consultant with with SPL. Uh, she is an East Texan. She lives in Marshall. All right. I met Don um and learned about SPL through the East Texas Association of People Transportation. Uh, Don has 28 years of student transportation experience and she's served in many roles including transportation director. Uh Don's been with SBO for four years and they've helped districts across the United States solve their routing puzzles. So this is Don. >> Hello. Good evening. Thank you Dr. Whittle and thank you to the board for allowing me to uh present to you this evening. Um what we're going to discuss this evening is a little
021bit about the bell time analysis. I do want to start off with stating that all of the data we used for our study is a snapshot of January's current routing because we've not rolled up the students for next year. We're not showing uh seniors who have graduated, new kindergarten, preschoolers, any of those changes. So, everything you're going to see tonight for me is just a snapshot of the data we pulled in January. I want to start off with talking a little bit about what our current bell structure is. Um it's currently what we would call a single tier or a family styled route. Uh what that means is most of the buses are going out into the community and picking up every student at a home from age prek up to 12 and they're all
022getting on one bus and riding back into town to then drop off at the four different school buildings based on their grade levels. Um because of that, obviously part of what we're looking at in the change would be to move to a two-tier to try and break up some of that age group. Um I do want to put sorry, excuse me. Um I do want to preface talking a little bit more um about our goal in this and that was to not only create two-tier system for you, but increase your student experience and help try to alleviate some of your traffic in that downtown area. Um, our project objective was to analyze and evaluate your current routes. Uh, we wanted to look at how they're scheduled, how you're utilizing your vehicles, determine what we think
023that best bell time schedule looks like, what is that window, how much time do we need in order to get to your furthest south areas like the troop area and the Flint area where it's a lot of travel time to get back to where all the school buildings are. Uh, we also did an analysis of the bell times themselves and what the wrership looks like. We worked really closely with Matt to make sure we had some really good solid numbers based on what you're currently doing for transportation. Um, and then obviously one goal for every school district is to identify any cost savings that we can. Obviously our goal is to always make sure that's in the back of our mind when we're looking at that big picture, the bells to see if there's any
024opportunity that we can save the district some money. Um so part of our combining and creating what we will call a two-tier system and in that we're looking at having one group of students coming in at one particular bell time and then having a gap going out getting another group of students bringing them in at a secondary bell time. We are planning to maintain the high school and junior high routes together. So those students would still ride together ages or grades seven through 12. Um the ele elementary buses in our uh our plan that we came up with would be dedicated. Each bus for elementary would have only one particular group of elementary students riding it. That includes hallway. So instead of your buses being prek through six, they would be prek through five for
025the elementary buildings and then separate dedicated sixth grade buses for the hallway center. On the next slide, you'll see where that's going to benefit. Um there are no routes in our uh presentation where they're doing what we would call a double back or an AB route. Uh for example, I kn do know there's a couple of brown routes currently that get that local area drop off and run back out over the next 15 20 minutes and get another group and bring them back. Um so all of ours are dedicated single runs. So it would be one circle out, grab students, bring them back to the school. Um, our goal is to decrease ride time from what is currently a maximum of three to three and a half hours. Now, mind you, that's from the first
026stop to the last school drop off. And that's adding both AM and PM routes together. Our goal would be to have an average of two hours or less for those students to help with that experience. So, they'll have a shorter ride time. One thing I do want to point out on this slide is that we do have a 50 mi minute minimum required between tiers. So whatever those bells look like once we get to the point where they're nailed down and we're saying a start time um and an end time, we do need to make sure we have the 50 minutes. And the biggest reason for that is those further out students because we're looking at about 15 minutes just to get back to another building. making sure that we allow for that in the
027time and still being able to have 30 to 40 minutes picking students up. So, some of the advantages of the two-tier routing I did mention a little bit already. Uh the first and biggest one is probably going to be shortening that day, the amount of time that the students are adding to their school day by being on the bus. Uh by breaking the routes into two tiers, their student experience will be much better because they'll have a shorter bus time. Um, so they'll have their school day, shorter ride in the morning, shorter ride in the afternoon. Uh, we're hoping that average daily ride time will be one and a half to two hours at the end of everything being put back together. Um the other thing is that with uh eliminating the groups and going
028to only two schools for high school and middle school combined and then this the dedicated elementary routes uh we won't have all that combination of multiple age levels. And if you take a look at this table, I do want to point out, so you'll see a listing of each school, the current number of buses we're using now, what our proposed number of buses is. Now, this is a run. So, we want to think about that in an aspect that we want to take all the hallway and elementaryaries, add those together, and then obviously the junior and high school, same number, 26. What you'll see here is that at Brown, by making dedicated, we can save a bus. At Kane, we can save a bus. At Higgins, we could save a bus. And at Smith, we
029could save a bus because we would be consolidating the area the buses are traveling by only picking up for that one building. At Holloway, however, because currently almost every bus is bringing kids to the sixth grade center, um we would see a savings of 19 vehicles that won't need to be in there both morning and afternoon. Because if we dedicate to just the sixth graders, we can do that with seven vehicles. I did want to have you take a look here just briefly at what a fleet schedule looks like in the routing software so you can have an idea of the difference in what the existing route is which is on the left the 25 26 you see the length especially if you look at like route 141 how long that tan bar is that's
030how long the bus is out running that's from leaving the garage to getting back to the garage so that's driving out picking up the students dropping at all four buildings and then getting back to the garage and If you take a look on the right side, that's our proposed where you could see that those tan bars are much shorter with a small gap in the middle to allow for travel time to get to the first stop on that next route. So, that's where we're hoping to get the uh better experience there for the children because they would have shorter ride times. There any questions for me at all? >> So, it is is going to >> correct. It's eliminating a run to that school, we will still need to utilize that bus because those kids
031still have to get to school, right? And and so ultimately, instead of taking every elementary bus that we're running and sending them to Holloway with two students or one student or four students, we would just dedicate buses to go pick up 30 or 40 students for Holloway and then just bring them to sixth grade center. >> Is there a So at this point what we're looking at is we are going to break even in the number of vehicles. However, uh we do need to keep in mind that's a snapshot of today. We are not looking at actual numbers for next fall yet. Um however, we did find that we may have two or we would have two elementary only routes. So you would have two buses that would be freed up during that second tier
032based on how it's currently coming together for us. So we would need 28 elementary buses and only 26 high school middle school buses. So two of those buses would be free in earlier in the afternoon and then obviously later in the morning. >> What was the on the previous slide? What was the FB the one on the top? >> Oh, that's a special needs route. It just happens to fall right there. That's a Tyler. Is that the one that goes to Tyler? Yeah, we we have four students that attend special. >> And then is overall as a cultural aspect, is bus ridership increasing, decreasing, staying the same? >> I I would say it's increasing. >> Increasing. >> Yes, sir. And and it's also seasonal, too. Like those numbers in October, that was during football season,
033marching band season, >> right? >> Lots of after school activities going on whereas January, there's not as many% >> higher. and is three and a half hours on the bus. Is that one exception route or is that >> the majority of our routes are getting close to that length? >> That'll be exceptional outliers there. Um many of our special special needs routes are are pretty long. They they cover a vast expanse area. Um I would say that right now, you know, on average students are on the bus 35 to 45 minutes. We have some kids that get on the bus and They're off in like 15 minutes. We have some that that are on there longer. But uh that and that's that's really just a you know a good guess because you know we're it's
034kind of hard to to quantify that. >> Mr. Pratt, thank you all for your time. >> Thank you. >> It's a moving target. >> Thank you. It is >> Thank you, >> Dr. Helm dropout presentation. Dropout prevention presentation. It's a key word I left out. >> Hello Mr. Flanigan, Dr. Whittle, board of trustees. Tonight I'd like to present some information on our alternative high school. This is aligned with our board board goal to provide relevant learning experiences to ensure students will be college and career ready. So I'd like to welcome White House Academy. This is uh aimed to be open in the fall. This fall we are hoping to open the doors at our AIM center. We're going to renovate um or adjust the right side of the building to be open to about 40
035students, which would take up about two classrooms. The overall vision for this is to gear it towards students who are currently overage, credit deficient, and at risk of not graduating with their cohort. These are usually students who have fallen behind due to attendance gaps or failures, maybe mobility or just other circumstances um that have come up in life. So um legislation and policy since the 1980s has been working on this, but uh there was a big push in 2003. They've become more aggressive and really researching different dropout prevention programs. These are three strategies that they highly recommend to be part of any dropout prevention program. And hopefully, as you hear in the next few slides, these are areas that we have certainly built into our program, including personalized academic and social emotional support, flexible learning
036environments, and an alternative education program. Also, strong partnerships with families, communities, and the workforce. You might be wondering why we would need a different model, but as you know, not every student thrives in a typical high school environment. Um, each year we lose some students uh from White House that have become disengaged. Not necessarily because they aren't able to do the work, but for various reasons, the current model no longer works for them. So what we are hoping to achieve is to be able to retain more students also have some flexible options for some of our families and of course to remain competitive. The what what this model would look like is students will still be required to earn uh 26 credits. They would have the option to go half day or full day. They
037would take their courses in egeneuity but have access to certified teachers. They would also have access to an LPC counselor three days a week as well as our community and school support. These are some of the qualifications for students. It would be some of the things we've already talked about credit deficient over age. Of course, many of these students have multiple at risk markers. We would want them to be EOCC ready. Sometimes we have an occasional teen parent. Um significant medical needs. We have students also who have experienced some social and emotional strain or perhaps they are returning from a treatment facility. So starting this spring we are going to begin the entry process looking starting with a counselor application. Then they will go through a screening interview and of course at that point we
038will be able to make a placement decision. So, I'd like to be the first to invite you to graduation of 2027 for the new academy high school. What questions do you have for me? >> It's treated like a separate campus altogether. >> Yes, it'll have its own individual campus. So, it'll have its own accountability system. Um, its own school ID. It will um be required the students will be required to meet all the graduation requirements just like any other campus. >> This something where we we guiding the kids to this. They're seeking this out. >> I would say probably a little bit of both. We have kids who have already come to counselors um maybe needing something a little bit different, struggling at school. Um maybe some family issues or mental health issues. some things
039like that have come up this year. We also have students who they just have un um gone off path with their cohort. So, they're much older um or because they have failed a course or two or because they've had a lot of absences, they've gotten off track and so they need something that is going to accelerate them a little bit faster in order to graduate their cohort. >> Do you have a rough number of students that be attending next year? Currently we have targeted and found about 12 that could make a good uh would be a good match um with up to the potential of 37. These are not uh this is not available for like a a freshman who fails at algebra one their their freshman year and so we we're going to uh
040ask them to go to a different campus. This is someone who is um not earning credits with their cohort who retain and maybe um should be a junior in high school, but they're currently still a freshman. Summer school is not an option for them or they're not showing up and accessing that curriculum and trying to recover. This is like a last um ditch hope to try to give them hope, if that makes sense, to say, "Hey, don't don't drop out. Don't uh withdraw and go homeschool. Stay with us. We have a flexible learning environment with the right people as we as we saw this this evening. They're going to champion them and pull them across the stage and allow them um to work and to um to to go to high school, but they are
041giving up the traditional high school experience, right? In terms of athletics and band and clubs and organizations and some CTE classes. We we have attempted that. They have not been successful in that environment. So we are trying to accelerate their pathway so they can get a a diploma and enter the workforce, college, military, whatever their whatever their dream is. But we want to make sure that um our high school, our traditional high school is not a barrier for their ultimate success uh as they as they launch into the real world. Yeah, we talked a lot about having a partnership with our our career counselor. Um maybe not exactly the CTE courses at that are available at the high school, but definitely some partnerships with the community. Really trying to individualize what spec what are going
042to help specific students be successful. So there's so many possib just like that. And it's hard to even say what what we could do. I think once we get in there and see what the students need, we'll be able to build the program for them. >> What you said potential dropout risks. Is this would this also apply to somebody who just wants to graduate early or does that not really qualify as at risk enough? you know, um we all know that the standard high school experience is important for lots of reasons and that was that's really what we would encourage students to go through is to experience all the things that call that high school has available for you. If it's just a student that's looking to accelerate, this wouldn't be the right path for
043them. You know, we would encourage them to do some things maybe a different way. there's other ways that they could still accelerate theirs with different college experience or their um different dual credit courses, things like that. This would be this is more of a student who is looking for almost like an alternative path. Maybe they need to work or maybe they only need to go half day because they have a child at home. Those kinds of things. you mentioned um to stay competitive uh there are other folks around us that that will be offering onlinemies and and some other version of that. So instead of letting our kids go somewhere else to earn their diploma, it's us retaining our own kids in a different environment to make sure that we keep them and retain them.
044They're still a part of White House. remodeling this off of other local setups that are already in place or state. >> We've uh we've had an opportunity to visit a couple of programs in place. Um as well as there's some guidance from the state on what a dropout recovery school needs to include. And so um we're designing it now based on the best of what we've pulled from all those programs. It'll be on the right side of the AIM center. their graduation would be they won't participate in the standard graduation. They'll have their own, >> right? They'd have their own graduation. Um, probably not all graduations are the same for every kid, right? >> For sure. We'll play the music >> and it'll be like traditional like all the different We don't want them to
045cheat them on their experience. It's the same graduation. The feel is much different. The excitement is uh at least equal, maybe even higher uh than the traditional high school because because of the obstacles and barriers these folks have had to run through, jump over, bulldoze through, whatever uh the analogy metaphor you want. It's it's it's we think it's a great opportunity for kids who um might be sitting in a class and not picking up a pen. Uh to put them in an environment where they've got teachers and a small environment where we're they're going to be encouraged and uh pushed and pulled and loved throughout the program to get across the stage. >> Should be neat. >> Thank you, Dr. Hill. appreciate your work on this. >> Dr. Jennings, noticed intent to apply for the
0462026 through 2028 innovative services for students with autism grant. >> So, my typical I don't need a PowerPoint. Please don't do mine because I'll mess because I'll mess up the presentation. Um so with this um particular grant um it meets the board goals of fiscal fiscal uh efficiency and transparency and then it also goes towards the goal of providing relevant learning experiences for all students. Um this particular grant is a competitive grant and so it's a little different than the ones that we sometimes apply for which are entitlements which if we put the application in we get the money. This one's competitive and it's highly competitive. So, um we're going to put in for the grant. It is up for um each grant u can get up to a million dollars. Um but they only
047give out 10 across the state. So, again, highly competitive. Um and when they're like that, the rubrics are really hard for that. But I think that um our kids deserve a chance at that if we can get it. So, um that's what we're applying for. We have a hund currently have 160 plus because we keep identifying every day students with autism and um also planning to partner with a couple of our uh surrounding districts um for this grant >> hunting. That concludes the information items for the evening. We're going to move on to action items. First up is a consent agenda. Everybody's had a chance to review that. Anybody have any questions or discussion on the items listed? Do I have a motion to accept the financial reports and approve the remaining consent items as
048presented? Motion by Mr. Moss. Second, Mr. Trimble. Any questions or further discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. Uh Dr. Helm, you want to join us once again for Senate Bill 11 discussion? >> Yes. It's okay. This is for Senate Bill 11 resolution. This is specifically the opportunity for prayer and religious expression. It aligns with our board goal to ensure a safe and simple environment that is responsive to the needs of our students and our community. It includes these current policies and I'm going to read to you the the resolution at this time. A new law established by Senate Bill 11 requires school boards to take record vote on whether to adopt a policy requiring a daily prayer daily period of prayer and the reading of religious text on every campus. We recommend adopting adopting
049this resolution to allow us to continue with our current policies rather than adding a new daily requirement. Texas law and our board policies already protect voluntary prayer, religious expression, and student led religious groups. Since these rights are already well established and in effect in our schools, we don't feel an additional mandate is necessary at this time. So, we are making the recommendation to adopt the Senate Bill 11 resolution as presented. >> Anybody have any questions on the resolution? Any comments they would like to make? Motion to approve the resolution regarding Senate Bill 11 opportunity for prayer religious expression is presented. Motion made by Dr. Completi seconded by Mr. Moss. All those in favor motion passes. Mrs. Saul, will you now join us? Thank you, Dr. Hel. Appreciate your presentation on that. Paul will now join
050us uh for the slack recommendation for library materials >> along with Mr. Dillingham. >> Right. Mr. Dillingham, this is his first time in this meeting. It's actually our first year having a Slack committee. So, he is representing our Slack committee. So, I'm going to start. >> Thank you very much. Uh yeah, just thank you for excellent acronym. Um so, uh yeah, hey, I'm Scott. Um so I'm I'm serving uh as the chair of the slack committee this year. So the uh slack committee like I should just say it. Um so it's it's sorry thank you. The purpose is to foster develop a strong sense of community and ethical values in our students. The goal is to ensure greater greater parental and community involvement and transparency in the school library uh collection development. So, communicating accurate
051information in a timely manner to students, families, and the community. Uh the the group is the committee has provided uh seven voting members, six non- voting members. You approved these members uh earlier this year. Um oversee acquisition, removal of challenged library books. Um so, the requests for procurement are on uh each school's website uh 30 days before asking for board approval. So, we're here asking for approval. All of those uh requests for acquisition are have been on each school's website. Um and so at this point, believe I went backwards. Here we go. Uh we do ask that so our recommendation, we'd like to recommend that books reviewed and approved by the Slack committee be approved for purchase by the board. >> We have a motion to approve the Slack recommendation of library materials as presented.
052I have a second motion made by Dr. Completi, second made by Mr. Trimble. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor? >> Passes unanimously. >> Thank you very much. I really am. >> One of the neat things about White House since uh we moved here is the willingness for parents and community members to volunteer and be involved in the school process. And uh sometimes the state throws interesting stuff our way, but we never lack for good people showing up and doing the work that's asked. So, thank you. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate you and your team help. All right. Uh last action item is consider the removal of approval of emergency closing wage payment resolution. Mr. Ray, >> thank you. Uh Mr. Flanigan, Dr. Whittle, board of trustees, tonight we ask that you approve the resolution
053uh regarding the January bad weather event closing. Uh this measure authorizes uh continued wage payments for all scheduled employees who were instructed not to report to work uh during the emergency shutdown uh between the dates of January 26th and 28th of 2026. Additionally, it establishes that essential non-exempt staff who were were required to work during these dates will be compensated at their normal rate in accordance with district policy. And approval of this resolution uh ensures that no employee loses pay or leave due to the weather. And then um and also helps us to maintain morale and stability across the district. So >> it's pretty standard for us to moments like this. We as a board appreciate every single one of the employees in the district. So make sure they're made whole whether rain, sleep or
054snow, right? Have a motion to approve this uh decision. Second. Any questions or discussion? All those in favor? Thank you, Mr. Ray. Dr. Okay. Um Tara Matthews, our chief uh human resource officer, uh is u with her family at St. Angelo uh showing I believe pigs. I think that's right. So obviously uh family first and we're we're grateful for her and her dedication to her family. And so I'm stepping in uh in her absence to ask you guys to approve uh our administrator contracts that come up every February uh that we discussed in executive session. I'm asking you tonight for to approve those contracts. >> We have a recommendation to extend the issued contracts. Administrators have presented executive session approved the president vice president to execute contracts. Anybody have any questions or concern on the
055concerns on administrative contracts this morning? Do I have a motion to accept the superintendent's recommendation to extend and issue the contracts administrators presented executive session and approve the president vice president to execute the contracts? Second. All those in favor? >> Thank you. >> That's going to conclude our agenda for this evening. Thank you everyone for coming and presenting. Coach, appreciate you girls being here and doing a great job this season. Thank you all for joining us tonight. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion made by Mr. Moss, second by Dr. Completi. All those in favor