001to the Texas Open Meetings Act Government Code Chapter 551. The board will now convene into executive session pursuant to Texas government code section 551.074 through 551.084. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisibley justice for all >> tonight's brief introductory remarks will be given by Mr. I'd like to say a prayer. Dearly father, we want to thank you for this day that you've given us. Lord, thank you for this meeting and this board and superintendent and our parents and students which make this a great organization. We just want to thank you for the blessings that you've given us. We ask that you keep coverd in your son's name. You want to introduce our new football coach to our family and along with
002his wife Lexi and his two boys Graham and Trace. uh his wife is also a coach and going to be employed by the district. Uh we're super excited to have him. Uh when this process first started, uh we sent out a bunch of feelers and felt like we had a good grasp on what our community wanted and what we were looking for. And [clears throat] as we went through the process filled with over 70 plus applicants, uh, a lot of which were very qualified, very talented, we kept coming back to coach. Uh, and I know you see a 29year-old sitting over there, but it's a coach from a coaching family. His dad has a long tenure of steady success throughout the state. Uh, thought of very highly. Uh, and I know you know all the
003things. He's offensive coordinator at Lonear, which competed for a state title. He signed over 20 plus division one athletes and he's got more miles and yardage the last four years than uh most people in the state of Texas and we're super proud of that. But above that I would say with his experience and just his uh growing up around the game, himself being a competitor, a high level athlete, uh not too many head football coaches being introduced that can throw over 100 miles an hour and played professionally and playedh for DBU for a little bits. a high level quarterback and does a lot of great things offensively. That was what we were looking for. But just the man that we're talking about and what we needed as far as a a shot in the arm
004of success and a shot in the arm of excitement and a love for kids. If I had one word to describe him, I think he came off as very authentic. Uh, and that's what we need. And I'm super excited about it. I'm ready to go to work with him. Uh, one thing that stuck out He's coached for a guy that's had a lot of success at Lonear, Coach Raymer. And he and he told us he's had six maybe head coaches in the last 10 years. All of them with over to moderate success at at a high level. And he told us that this kid, regardless of his age, was more ready to do a great job than anybody he had. So, that resonated with me. Uh, I can't say enough good things about this young
005man. I'm super excited. If you've got any ties to the program, you know within a week he's already uh started a little bit of a fire and it's only going to improve. And tonight he wanted to say a few words. So I would like to introduce him to come on up. [applause] >> I'm Brett Gorris. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here. When when I met my wife, she was a born and raised Frisco uh gal and the thing that we always talked about was finding the best place to raise our kids. And she said, "I'm going to have to trust you with that because you've lived everywhere." And so, we knew that wasn't it for us. And and I mean it. When I drove into town, it felt like home.
006And I was just so hopeful that Coach Newton and everybody would give me a chance. And I know it now. I've been here six days and it's a testament to you guys sitting up there. This is a special place and and I'm so proud to be a part of it and I know that my boys when they get here and my wife when she's here full time, they're going to feel the same way. We've got awesome kids. Like I said, I've been here six days. We've got awesome kids. Uh and I think they just needed someone to pull the best out of them. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make sure that they're their best all the time. And our coaches are going to be their best all the time. And
007it starts with me. Um and it starts with the same person every day and loving the kids and growing them 1% better. And that's going to be my goal. Uh is to have them be at their best when it matters the most. And then when they leave, I hope I taught them a little bit about how to be a better man and a good husband and a good father. And I think that's what's important. And I'm going love him. That's for sure. I'm going to coach him hard, but I'm going to love him hard. And I I'm I'm just thankful for the opportunity. And I know this is a great place. And I hope I'm here for a really really long time. My kids get to White House Wildats and I'm just I'm just super
008thankful and I'm gonna make you proud and put a product on the field that everybody can be proud of. >> Good. Welcome. We're gonna come down and take a picture. >> Okay. >> And welcome you. >> Want you to walk off and then be kind. Are you ready? Thank you. Uh we did uh not have anyone sign up for open forum this evening. So uh we'll move on to our public hearing and uh Dr. Taylor going to give us a Texas academic performance report. >> Hang on one second. Dr. Taylor, uh as you guys leave, thanks for being here tonight. Um, thanks guys. Um, January every year is uh an opportunity for uh districts across the state of Texas to recognize their their school board members and uh I just wanted to say on behalf
009of myself uh our district but our senior leadership. Um just thank you for your service. U to say that we've got the best school board in the state of Texas would be would be an understatement. I think uh your hearts are in the right place that you love kids. you want to make sure kids are successful and you want to make sure our teachers have what they need to make them successful and your your unified and cohesiveness allows us to do our job. And so from the bottom of my heart uh just thank you for your leadership individually, your willingness to serve individually, but then also uh your collective leadership and and and asking the tough questions and and pushing us to to make decisions best for our kids. So wanted to say thank you.
010Uh we've got a few uh notes and cards from from our of our students across our district. And then uh Clint put together uh what I think is the best gift, which is kids saying thank you. Uh and then uh just wanted to reiterate one more time just thanks for your your leadership and service. >> Thank you for helping our community. Thank you for caring. >> Thank you for doing your job even though it's hard. [music] >> Thank you for keeping us safe. >> Thank you for caring. >> Thank you for helping [music] our schools. >> Thank you for letting us have gifts. >> Thank you for everything you do. >> Thank you for helping our community. Thank you for helping our community. >> Thank you for keeping me safe. >> Thank you for hiring
011the best teachers. >> Thank you for all the great bus drivers. Thank you for the cafeteria workers. Thank you for the janitors. Thank you for helping our community. Thank you for helping our school. Thank you for helping our community. Thank you for hiring the best teacher [music] for help. Thank you for making me feel safe. >> Thank you for all the playground equipment. It's so much fun at Thank you for >> Thank you for letting us explore [music] our dreams. >> Happy schoolboard appreciation month. >> Happy school board appreciation month. Happy school board appreciation month. >> Happy school board appreciation month. >> Thank you for everything you do. >> Happy school board appreciation month. >> Happy schoolboard appreciation month. >> Can we have shorter days and longer summers? >> Can we have more holidays? >>
012Can we start serving Little Caesars at lunch? [music] Can we get out of school early? Can we bring baseball to the elementaryaries? >> Can we get more recess time? Can we [music] get soccer balls? >> Man, I wish we had a soccer goal. >> That was it. >> Yeah, >> that was it. You need anything else? [music] >> So, just one more time to remind >> I don't remember what they said. [laughter] And just one more time, thank you for uh serving and thanks for helping kids reach their fullest potential and their dreams come true. And Clint, thanks for putting that together. Uh we appreciate it. >> Yeah, thanks a lot for putting that together. [laughter] >> That is what it's all about though. That's so much fun to see that. It's fun to read
013these every year. It's really So thank y'all for doing that. It's a privilege for us to do. >> Well, that's a tough act to [laughter] up that our Texas academic performance. >> Well, good evening, Dr. Robbie, Dr. Whittle, and trustees. Uh, tonight is our annual public hearing on the Texas Academic Performance Report, also known as the taper. I will refer to it as the taper sometimes throughout our presentation this evening. U, we've talked a lot about accountability really since this summer, uh, before we even received our district accountability ratings. And so, the information that we highlight tonight, none of this will be new to you. Um, but this is a format that allows us to publicly share this information with our community. You'll see throughout there'll be some things that are hyperl in this presentation.
014That's because tomorrow in boardnotes we're going to send out a copy of this presentation to our stakeholders who receive that communication so they can explore some of this information on their own if they would care to do so. Uh so primarily this presentation hones in on two of our board goals. first of course providing um our students with college and career readiness um but also our students involvement in all kinds of activities um from their extracurricular co-curricular and also those campus-based activities because we know in White House that there's a lot of reasons that kids come to school may not always be to learn math. Um but the more that we can excite students about being a part of what we're trying to achieve, the better they'll perform academically as well. Uh so this is
015a required presentation. These are all the things that we'll cover this evening. Texas Education Code Chapter 39306C requires us to cover all of these topics in a public hearing of the taper. Um as I mentioned, there's some resources that are linked here for our community in case they want to dig a little bit deeper into some of this information. Our presentation tonight will be structured into three primary sections. First we'll talk about some student level performance data. Then we'll talk about campus level performance and then finally district level performance data. Uh so from this slide you can see that from the 2023 to 2024 school years um our enrollment per our October snapshot day did decline although our population remained fairly stable as far as how it's broken across our different demographic areas. Um, but
016I will share with you that by the end of the 2425 school year, we had well over 4,700 students in the district. Um, and we're continuing to see that trend of growth in White House ISD. This is a breakdown of special populations in our district over the past three years. Just so you can see, most of these numbers have remained fairly stable. Um, I think the one that stands out to me where we've had an increase or the most fluctuation is both in our special education and dyslexia numbers. Um, a couple of things attribute to that factor. Number one, it's students coming into our district that have been evaluated other places. And so, it's not that we're identifying all of these students in our district. Um but when a student comes into our district with
017um a special population label, of course we re-evaluate and serve that student based on what their needs are. Um also specifically as it pertains to dyslexia, we've talked about over the past couple of years how that used to be served only under section 504 and we've been through that transition of pulling it out and actually now putting it in with special education. So that's why we see a little bit of some fluctuation there. Um, and finally, this points to the investments that we've been making in early literacy, um, training, in materials, in learning for our teachers. Um, and as we've shared with trustees, uh, through some of our communication through our lasso grant, we're actually in the process of developing our preK through 12 literacy framework for the district. So, I think this is an
018area where you will continue to see us grow and be more successful with our students. Uh this right here is a sideby-side comparison of White House ISD compared with the state of Texas. So you can see um how the population that we serve in our district is both similar to and different from the averages across the state. Um and this year I'm proud to say that you don't see any yellow on this slide. Last year we had one area where our district did not perform better than the state andor region. Um it was actually from 24 actually was in 23 so it fell off this year. Um there's a lot of numbers up here. The point isn't necessarily to read all of them but to highlight the strong academic performance of our students and teachers.
019notably that across all tests, across all performance levels, our students in White House ISD outperformed both the region and the state. Um, so within the STAR test, there's three levels of performance. The approaches, meets, and masters. When a student approaches on the STAR test, it means that they passed the test. Um but when they get meets grade level that's really our kind of minimum goal for all of our students because that means they are well prepared to go on to the next grade level. So this slide highlights meat per meet's performance across all assessments combined ELA reading, math, science, and social studies. And you can see the maroon bar on the right. That's White House ISD's performance compared to our districts, our peer districts in region 7 and also our districts in the state of
020Texas. Um, another thing that's really important uh to us in White House ISD is student growth. And so when we look at school progress, this is measuring how to ensure that our students are growing at least one academic year every school year. Um so when we look at our grades four through eight reading and math assessments, you'll see that across all subject areas in all grade levels, students in White House ISD were growing at a higher rate than some other districts within our region. Um and that growth continues into our EOCC areas as well. So from eighth grade English to English one and then those subsequent EOCC exams. Uh the thing that I really want to highlight for you is the last three bars uh to the right here. If we look at the combination
021of all grades, all subjects and all grades for reading and all grades for math, there you see that there's strong growth for our students across all of those areas. All right. So, this is some of the lagging data. You know, we um graduate the majority of our students in May. Um but the state actually looks at students graduating through August. Um and so that's why we always see a year lag on some of our taper data. Uh the thing I want to highlight here for you, the thing that I'm the most proud of is um we started in our district giving our the SAT to all of our students their junior year probably about I want to say about three years ago. Um and last year we expanded those efforts to include our ninth graders
022in the PSAT. So what we're doing now is we're testing all ninth and tth graders with the PSAT. Our 11th graders are taking the PSAT for the National Merit qualifying and then they have the opportunity our juniors their the spring semester to take the SAT which gives them another opportunity to take SAT school day their senior year if they wish to do that. So the thought was and our our uh kind of fear fear was that when we started giving the SAT to more students what do you think would happen to the average score? it would drop. But our average SAT score actually went up from um an average of 985 last year to an average of 1013 this year. So we saw a pretty sign sizable increase there in our average SAT score. Um
023and the average SAT the ACT score um rose to a 24.4 from a 21.3. So, I think that um that shows that number one, exposure matters, right? Um putting our students in front of these opportunities shows them that they can do it. It shows them what they need to work on. Um and it also helps our staff kind of better cater some of those courses to ensure that we're preparing students for the type of material that they're going to see on those exams. >> And sorry to interrupt, but I also think another key component of this is access matters. When we provide testing to all kids. We open doors for kids that may have never sat for a test prior to taking the test and may believe may help them develop some I can do
024this and I you know I can persevere and I can go be more than I ever thought I could be. So I'm really proud of the efforts of our of our of our district and our campus for making this happen. >> Absolutely. No, thank you for highlighting that. Uh we also had an increase in our CCMR, our college career and military readiness. Uh last year um I stood and reported to you that we did meet our HB3 goal of at least 68% of students at 69.7% last year. Uh but we had a a big sizable increase up to 87% of our students this year. College readiness grads were up by 18.8 percentage points over the prior year. and our career and military ready grads were up 17.4 percentage points over the prior year. Um so
025I think the important takeaway here is that some fluctuation in these numbers is going to be inevitable. Right? We have different classes of students with different interests and different strengths. But I think the important takeaway is that what we're building is a culture of success um and a certain pathway for our students once they graduate from high school. um more of our students are leaving prepared with choices and with some ideas of what their future could look like. So, we'll move on to a little bit about our campus level data. Um our campus level data is shared through trustees not only through our accountability presentations but also through our campus performance objectives that are part of the campus improvement plans. Uh so those were reviewed and approved by trustees at the November board meeting. Um
026and finally just some highlights of district level data. White House ISD remains an accredited district. Um our PE's financial standards report was um shared by Mr. Ray at the October board meeting. Um but we remain an a an A rating um in great financial standing as a district. We met requirements for special education determination status. What that means is that we met all timelines related to compliance and things like childf find early childhood outcomes and students goals associated with their individual education plans or IEPs. Um and then finally we also have to share our psent our PE's reportable um offenses disciplinary offenses by campus. And so that information is available on our white house ISD website under our required posting section. Um finally this is student performance in postsecary institutions. This is data that is
027collected by the higher education coordinating board. Um what this does is the most recent data is for our class of 2023 graduates. So, of those 344 graduates, 185 of our students enrolled in a trackable postsecondary institution. Um, and so you what this communicates to you is how many students went to four-year, two-year, or independent colleges and universities. And for those four-year and two-year public schools within the state, we get some outcome data about looking at how are they doing after that first full year in college. Um, in the past, this has been a a particular interest uh to trustees. And so we'd like to come back in the future and do a presentation specifically focused on some of these post-secary outcomes. Um, we've recently started subscribing to a service called Student Tracker. Um, and what
028that does is allows us to look at national data. So, it allows us to look at where are our students going. Not only where are they going and how are they doing, but what kinds of things are they um studying and what degrees are they getting? uh which we feel like will better help us in the long term be able to make sure that the different programs that we are offering are meeting the needs of what our students are actually choosing to do after high school. >> We did. That's correct. Yeah, that's exactly right. All right. So, with that, that concludes the public hearing of the taper. And at this time, we'll take any questions. Yeah, that's a great question. It is all lumped together, but it's there's different um thresholds. So if a student
029was at did not meets but went to approaches that would count as growth for that student. Uh actually that would count as exceeding growth because um if they were meats and they went to meets and they've they've met the expectation. If they've gone from meats to masters then they've exceeded the expectation. So it's nuanced in that we look at all of the different ways that a student would perform at least as well as they did the prior year. as long as it's at the meets level. So if a student went from there there's a caveat to that. If a student was at the low approaches level and went to high approaches for accountability, we get like a half point for those students. So they it recognizes that they grew a little bit. Um, but if
030a student went from either low approaches or high approaches to to meats, then that would count as a full point of growth in the accountability system. But our students who go from meets to meets or masters to masters, they count as a full point for growth um as well as our students who go from the meats level up to the mast's level >> because the material is changing as they're aging. So, uh, TEA tries really hard to make sure that the test level of difficulty is equal across grade levels and subject areas. So, the theory is that if you scored at the master's level on fifth grade reading, um, that if you get a year's worth of instruction that you are prepared to perform at the master's level again in sixth grade on that test
031because they are equally difficult to each other. It does. Yes. Yes. >> Couple things. One is I mean that growth is huge. Some of the colleges. >> So some of it is ensuring that our systems for tracking are well established and in place. That's that's part of it. number one. Um, number two, we have put people in positions and empowered our CTE teachers to really own this their students earning their IBC's or their industry based certifications. Uh, so that is definitely a point of pride within the CTE program. Uh, we also have more students that are meeting standards on the college readiness side as well, which impacts that overall number. Part of that comes through the access piece, right? When more kids are taking the SAT, the ACT, the TSI, the Texas Success Initiative Assessment,
032when more students are taking those, that shows them their potential. Um, it unlocks additional dual credit courses or maybe empowers a student to say, "Hey, I'm going to try that AP course." Um, this year we actually have a a pretty healthy number of sophomores who have already met CCMR because they took AP Human Geography as freshman and scored a three or higher on that AP exam. Um, so it's really just about um never settling and continuing to look for opportunities and and different ways to innovate student success. And I I would uh echo sorry >> no >> so our CT director Kyle Holton uh really kind of understands sequencing and courses and making sure that we're offering courses that our region needs and that our kids are prepared to go into the workforce. But they
033go to every yard to make sure seniors have uh met their CCMR point are on track to re I mean so it's more of an intentional focus from our curriculum team, our principles, our directors and it's it's a really just kind of an effort to make sure that kids are walking out the door to be able to articulate some version of a plan that they can go do when they walk across the state. So really proud of of of their work and their dedication and then and to see kind of the the fruits of the labor kind of start to pay off. >> The other piece to to echo that point is there are some ways where we've learned to provide some flexibility between pathways so that if a student you know starts a course,
034you know, a series of courses as a freshman and they end up hey that's not what I like. we have some flexibility to maybe kind of scoot them over to an area of their interest which really encourages our our students to complete that those that sequence of courses and then actually earn that certification. >> One other question would be about tracking. We've talked about this a number of times. I'm excited about being able to expand that >> to a national level. But still, even in doing that, you're only tracking kids that are in trackable universities, whether they're in state, which you got to think of people outside. Do we have any opportunity to capture anything else? Any other data about what? >> Yeah. So, through this national clearing house, it actually captures data from most
035trade schools as well. Um, so it's just a much more robust data mining system where we really will be able to kind of hone in on what are the different um, pathways that our students are taking and even being able to capture and look at some of those students who maybe don't start off going to college immediately outside of graduation, but maybe do go to a junior college and then on to a four-year university in a less traditional path. uh we'll be able to kind of capture and report on share some of that information as well. >> U raining on any parades the >> the SAT score I'm still >> processing that in my head that it went up by almost 3%. Is it that it almost unrealistic that we had that many students that
036would outperform the average not taking the test because that's what it would have required. >> I think that >> the majority of the new students taking it exceeded the majority of the people that were taking it already. >> Yes. It's still I will We probably know all the nuances. >> That's not small. >> I mean, if if you'd have said, >> if you said the score was [laughter] if you' said the score was the same, that would have been success and surprising, >> right? >> But when you >> blew it out of the water by >> when the AC >> up by about three points, >> it also could some of those classes that we're trying to slowly begin testing aligns in the classroom to what standardized test is going to eventually take that could
037be small contest, right? I don't know. But >> and I was trying to set our future selves up for success as well by saying, you know, there's going to be some fluctuations, I think, in those numbers. >> I thought you professionally that was well done. >> But but again, the takeaway is we're trying to provide multiple opportunities for success. We're trying to show students that success looks different, you know, in different there's not one way to be successful in life. Um, and also just the fact that, um, you know, when you put something, you know, I think about like, um, so my daughter's 15, my oldest, and, um, she's not the greatest driver, so you know, watch out. But the more times we put her behind the wheel, right, she just gets better. So the
038more times that when we give you the PSAT 89 as a ninth grader and then we give you the 1011 as a 10th grader and then you know monthly we're sending out our call our high school counselors do a great job of sending out um a newsletter to to parents and to students. They're getting like little tidbits of hey here's a tutorial you can go on you can learn about your AP potential um through the results of your PSAT score. We have teachers. Something I've seen is a big uptick of teachers knowing that all their students are going to take the test. They see that as a measure of success of instruction in their classroom. So I see teachers assigning um you know tutorials and things of that nature that students are given a long
039runway to do. I know for example in algebra 2 um they were assigned at the beginning of the school year you have to do this uh PSAT prep and it wasn't due till right before Christmas. um but it was a lot of work that students have to do. So I think that through these opportunities, yes, there's a more focused and concerted effort um to kind of I don't want to say just to prepare students, right? But it's about making that transition of what we're teaching in the curriculum to how it's going to be measured on that assessment. Um I think speaks to why they're able to be more successful. >> [laughter] >> I'm good with it. >> And and um to Dr. Whittle's point, the taper is pretty hot off the press. It came out
040just before the winter break. And so um but that was the that was a figure that really jumped out to us and and something that we wanted to call out and celebrate. Okay. >> You're welcome. Absolutely. Those numbers are great. So, well, and while you're there, I know you want to talk about school start times. >> I'm so excited to. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Well, as we as we talked this evening about school start times, I want to set the context that everything we're going to talk about in this presentation really challenged us to live this phrase above all students first because the things that we're going to talk about tonight really touch on almost every single board goal. Um, first, this all started because we asked a question in our academic priorities survey. We asked
041our community, "How would you feel about possibly staggering elementary and secondary start times?" And we were kind of blown away by the answer. The vast majority of the respondents to our survey said, "That is absolutely something that we want you to take a look at." Uh, so then we were kind of stuck taking a look at it because we asked a question and they and they said, "Yeah, look at that." Oops, wrong way. All right. Also, the learning experiences that we provide for our students. We're going to talk a little bit tonight about how looking at a restructuring of our day could actually help improve offerings across our secondary campuses. Um, it also helps us to better make sure that we're being fiscally responsible, maximizing our resources, not only in terms of staff, but also
042within our facilities. Um, and we're getting a jump on this now. It's January. We're not asking trustees to take any action on this tonight. Um, but we want to get this information out to our community. Um, because if we are going to look at making a change, it's important that people have a lot of lead time and some time to not only digest that but for us to think through what are the challenge. We know that this is going to create some new opportunities. Whenever we create new opportunities, it also creates some challenges as well. So, we need to make sure that we're thinking through all of that. Um, but ultimately we think that this plan stands to really improve access to extracurricular activities and also gives our students more options as it relates to
043their high school, specifically education. So with that in mind, uh, kind of here's where we are right now as a district. So we have what we call district-wide bus routes, right? So you've probably seen this in your neighborhoods. Um, a bus comes probably very early, uh, sometimes around 6:50 in the morning and start if you live in town. If you live further out, it's going to be earlier than that, but picks up every kid in that neighborhood. So, if you're a preker, if you're a sophomore, everybody gets picked up and then we start to deliver students to those campuses, starting with the elementary campuses, working our way up, um, dropping students off. Uh we also currently have some competition for facilities. We have a lot of students that are really active in a lot of
044things. Um and everybody can't have their own private space uh to do all of those activities. So that is a real pain point at this point in time. Um good problem to have but definitely something that we need to take a look at. um traffic congestion. You know, uh 7:30 looks really different than 8:15 on the streets, doesn't it? You know, if I ever have to go um to if I need to come here before I go to a campus or whatever, I definitely wait until about 8:30 if I can to leave again because you'll get you can get to Higgins in two minutes if you leave at 8:30. Um but if it's earlier than that, you're going to be fighting that traffic. And then also the way that our we have a little bit
045of staggering between our campus schedules, but it makes it a real challenge for our shared staff to be where they're supposed to be in a timely fashion because our secondary periods are not starting and ending in at the same intervals. Um it creates some kind of loss time even there where we could be utilizing those staff more effectively um if we aligned those schedules. All right. So, we asked the question, so it's like out there now, right? So, we started talking to different groups in the district and outside of the district about that. So, these are some of the different um groups, advisories, committees that have had input into this planning process or given feedback. Um I want to highlight that we even asked our seventh through 11th grade students. Um, now you might kind
046of chuckle like, yeah, if you ask a 16, 17 year old, do you want to start school later or earlier? You know, they're probably going to say yes. Um, but we'll talk about that in a minute on the benefits. That really is a benefit to kind of their development, their brain chemistry, and how they work, right? That's why the teenagers sleep as late as we will let them sometimes, right, on the weekends. Um so the point being that there was um a wide opportunity for a lot of people to kind of give input before we brought this to you tonight. So our proposal is to explore keeping our elementarymentaries basically where they are. There might be need to be a little bit of fluctuation here just a few minutes here and there um when we
047as we continue to explore the transportation routes um but Holloway would be on the same schedule as our elementary campuses. So again, largely unchanged, 7:45 to 3:10. What that would do is delay the start time of our junior high and high school to somewhere between an 8:15 to 8:30 start and finishing the day around 3:50. Again, the reason that we kind of don't want to speak in absolutes at this point is because if this is a plan that we move forward with as we finalize transportation routes and things of that nature, we might need to wiggle those times just ever so slightly to make all those puzzle pieces fit together. Um what this would allow us to Well, first some of the benefits are are somewhat um kind of obvious at first, right? Um, one
048of the biggest congestion areas right now is between Holloway and the high school. So, if we back up Holloway to where they're at the same time as the elementary right there, we alleviate a lot of that concern right there. All right. So, some of the opportunities that this creates, um, if we move forward with this, we will be able to improve offerings for students at our secondary campuses. So specifically, uh, one of the things that we're looking at is providing our high school students with what we call a zero hour. That would allow them to come to school basically the same time they come now around 7:30 in the morning, actually be able to take a class and what class was offered at that time would be driven by student interest, what students select and
049um, you know, teacher availability and things of that nature. But um, if they want to come early to take a course, they'd have the flexibility to do that. Uh what that would do is really begin to change what a junior or a senior's day might even look like. Um because we are all as a part of that we're looking at adding in for our juniors who have either met or are on track to meet CCMR the opportunity to have an early release period and then maintaining what we've done with our seniors being able to have up to two early release periods. So, if I'm a senior and it's really important for me to get out of school early because I work or because I'm taking college classes at TJC, whatever the reason, would actually allow
050me to structure my schedule to where I could leave after fifth period. So, it really is kind of reimagining what the high school experience could look like um for some of our students that really want to either just get through school or have a compelling reason that their day needs to look different than some of our traditional students. Um it also allows us to add look at adding a pre-athletics period at Holloway. So, think about what that would do for our kids who have not had access to community or club sports prior to being in junior high. You know, uh, volleyball triyouts, for example, for girls, right? Those start the first day of school. Um, this would allow us to expose more of our students to sports earlier on and kind of start to learn
051maybe what their niche is and areas where they want to develop. Um, also band scheduling. Um, band scheduling tends to be a little bit of a challenge specifically starting in sixth grade because if you've had a student in band, you know that in sixth grade they're in instrument specific classes. So that is great. Um, it really prepares our students to learn to read music and to learn their unique instruments, but as you can imagine, it puts a lot of constraints on your schedule. So, by doing this, we'll actually be able to start band periods earlier in the day at hallway, which allows us to spread out our academic classes a little bit more evenly throughout the course of the day. Uh, student productivity, you know, I already mentioned there's numerous studies that talk about the
052benefits of sleep for teenagers. Um, and starting school later kind of um allows for that opportunity. It helps us to maximize our facilities because we can stagger times throughout the day where people might be coming to school ear instead of everybody coming to school early or everybody staying after school. It allows us to spread that out over the course of the day allowing more practice time, athletics, band, drill team, cheer, theater, choir, all the things. All the things. Um it also allows us to have two tier bus routes. So, meaning that now if I'm a high school student, I don't have to get on the bus at the same time as elementary students. We'll go and pick up all of elementary students, hallway students, drop them off, and then that bus driver would run a
053second route that would pick up secondary students. Um, and that that doesn't necessarily mean that that driver is going to repeat the same route. They may do an out of town route for elementary and then need to do an in town route for secondary because it would be a lot faster. And then we really feel like this would ease some of the traffic congestion which is really just a bonus. Um this is really about looking at what we can do to maximize opportunities for our students but it doesn't hurt um as well that that we would have this benefit. Some of the challenges we see um a potential increase for the need of afterchool care um because we know that we do have some families that rely on older siblings taking care of younger siblings
054after school. Um some solutions to this, you know, that for a junior and a senior, their day could potentially look really different than what they're accustomed to. Um, we've also started the process of reaching out to daycarees in our community so that they're aware that this is something that we're looking at uh just to make sure that they're also prepared to meet that need for families if it should arise. Uh we also know that most of the time we have uh dual working families in um in our community and so we will provide opportunities for early drop off. So, we're looking at opening our elementary schools at 710 for to receive students so that students can be inside a cool or a warm safe space um as they start their day. Um and we're looking
055at opening the junior high and high school at 7:30 uh for the same reasons. That would allow a parent who needs to drop off kids at two campuses to potentially still be able to do that before they go into work. Um, and then there's just the challenge of adjusting to a new schedule. Uh, change is change can be hard for people. And so, again, that's why we're wanting to get in front of this. Um, the benefits, what it, um, could potentially do for our students, that speaks for itself. Um, but we know that people need time to get used to this. They need time to make plans. Um, so that's why we're talking about it now. All right. So, what questions do you have? Is there a pretty low percentage of students that like an
056older sibling and a younger sibling were at the bus together? >> I don't have data specifically on that at this time, but what I can tell you is we did ask our 7th through 11th grade students how they got to school and most of our students are car riders. So, I want to say it's around 20% of students who utilize a bus, 20 to 25%. But that also fluctuates throughout the year. Like I I know um Mr. Pratt and I have talked before about how like when football season ends, we'll see an uptick in ridership in the afternoon. So it is seasonal um in that sense. >> Think it'll impact the people who use a bus if you don't have your kindergarters getting on the bus? >> So um we see that as a benefit.
057um it does create some challenges for our youngest and our oldest students to sometimes be together on a bus. Um so I think that it it helps um kind of that student exposure um on the bus, but we also recognize at the same time that that is something that some families rely on because they are expecting all students to get on the bus at the same time and all students to get off the bus at the same time. Uh we're we're currently uh Matt and his team are are working through that. We think it maybe reduce the number of buses but increase the length of drivers if that makes sense. >> Their time >> which allows them to make more money which may be uh you know enticing them to to drive a bus. opposed
058to, you know, just taking one route, drop the kids off and being done. It's going to add a little bit, but uh to your do I think a a first grade parent a parent of a first grader might put his or her student on a bus because there's not high school kids on there. I do think we might see an increase in elementary riders for certain. Um I I I'm thankful for for Abby and Matt and the whole crew. This has been We started this conversation maybe September or October and try to think through all the challenges because the last thing we want to do is is make a decision that's not best for the majority of our of our families. We want to make sure that we're service minded and that that we are
059serving our our kids and our families um and make sure this is the best thing for them. We do uh you know just from a fine arts and athletics standpoint when you start school that early it's hard to do anything prior to school starting and then you end up putting athletics and fine arts and choir and all the in the middle of the day for a 42 minute or 47 minute period. The time kids change, get their instrument out, change, get dressed out, get to the weight room, the bells ringing, and you're getting about 30 30 minutes of work, whether that be instrument wise, that be in the theater, that be whatever it is. It's just really hard to compete with folks that are getting triple the amount of time before school or after school
060because we're trying to shove it in the middle of the day. And so, uh, it allows us to use our facilities a little bit different. I hope it exposes our kids to more opportunities, but I can't wait to see kind of the feedback after this presentation. So, >> right at this time, we're thinking that that would not be possible because those routes may not be duplicated. >> Yeah. >> And I think and Matt could stand up and shout uh if he if he disagrees with this, but um but we had talked about that works really well with our in town routes, but there are some cases that we think we might if it's out of town, you might kids. Uh, and so there may be some opportunities to to do that, but um, we we
061we're still kind of working through the logistics right now. Um, and kind of auditing ourselves, >> Right. >> That's right. That make good sense. >> Yes, sir. >> Yes. >> Yeah. We didn't, you know, you ask a question, then you start like peeling one layer back and it's like, what happens to >> Should we have asked that? open up the [laughter] cafeteria to make sure kids have a warm place and where moms can drop off their kids regardless of start time and still get to Tyler or wherever they work, Jacksonville. Um, and we think the principles all agreed to opening the campus up a little bit earlier so mom is not or parent is not u late or can't have to adjust too much. So, but thanks to Abby and that I mean it's been
062it's way more complicated than I even thought when we just said, "Yeah, let's do it." It's been, "Oh, I didn't think about that." we didn't think about this and we didn't think about that. So, I'm grateful for them and their uh their time and energy. >> Thank you all for the work on that. >> Yes, of course. >> I know that's a big job and we don't want to get you to let you get away but without telling us about our drivers. >> Yes, absolutely. So, yes, we are applying again for the traffic safety program driver education and initiative grant. That's the same grant that we've received last year. uh we were able to take two cycles of students through driver's ed which was inclusive of their classroom time and also their initial drive time
063with an instructor. Um we already have some plans to improve that experience this year. Um should we get the grant, we want to be able to um we're going to have a parent meeting when we kick things off. That was one of the lessons learned last year. You know, it's crazy. 15 through 17 year olds don't always communicate all the needs of a program to their parents. I know, who would have thought? Um so we had a great um outcome from that initiative last year and we think we can really um improve it based on some of the lessons that we learned. Any questions about that? >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you. >> That takes us to our action on close [snorts] session and the first Consider approval of the superintendent evaluation. Obviously, we
064just went through that. So, questions or comments have a motion to approve. Motion made by Miss Conway, second by Dr. to approve the superintendent evaluation as presented. All in favor? Motion carries. The second is to consider approval of the superintendent goals and we have those last year. Any questions or comments about Mr. Trimble to approve the board for this coming year? That is stupid. I try. All in favor? Motion carries. >> Was good. >> [snorts] >> Okay. Uh the next action item is the consent agenda. You have those items in your packet as well and had the opportunity to review those. Any questions or comments about the consent agenda? No. the consent agenda. All in favor, >> we don't want to let you get away again. >> You are the agenda today. >> Absolutely. [laughter]
065So, you want to give us some information on our proposed school calendar? >> I would love to. Oops, wrong button. All right. So, tonight we're going to talk a little bit about our 20 proposed 2627 academic calendar. Uh, this this really relates to our BOR goal of ensuring that the products that we're putting out are still responsive to the needs of our community. So, we took a little bit of a different tact this year. Um we actually started with a survey to ask our community and this was open to anyone. Um we asked what is important to you about the structure of our calendar. What we wanted to know was is our calendar still working for you? Do you like it? Um what about the calendar is important to you and what would you like
066to potentially see different? Um, we asked about adding some early release days in order to allow additional time for teacher planning and preparation. Um, that's where we asked that silly question about staggering start times and um received an overwhelmingly positive response to yes, take a look at this. Um, and so we actually um created three draft versions of our calendar based on the community's priorities, which I'll review those with you in just a moment. Um, but these are the different groups that actually weighed in on that process. Um, our entire community had the opportunity to take the academic calendar priority survey. Um we one of the first groups we started with was our superintendent student advisory committee. Um we talked to them about start times. We talked to them about the calendar and what they
067would like to see. Um our teacher advisory committee as well. And then when we ultimately had two versions of the calendar. We put it out to our parents through Skyward. So, everyone who has a student enrolled in the district had the opportunity to vote on the two drafts to let us know what their preferred version was. So, that went to both our parents and also to our staff members. So, the calendar, the feedback that we got, um I don't think most of this will surprise you. Our community overwhelmingly uh likes to start school in early August and finish before Memorial Day. Um, fall break. We had some mixed feedback on fall break. Um, I appreciate that people recognized that if we give you a longer fall break, we have to take that time from somewhere
068else. Um, what was clear was the week of Thanksgiving is highly important. Um, a lengthy winter break, which um, is typically 10 school days and but falls over three weekends. That's what people like to see. Um, and we also asked that question about early release. So, we have historically had two early release days on our calendar. One in December at the end of the fall semester and one in May at the end of the spring semester. We actually asked, would you be open to early release as frequently as once a month? And people overwhelmingly said yes that they would support that. Um, so we actually landed on four additional to bring it to a total of six. Um, so all that feedback's great, but there are some constraints within the calendar, right? Um, most of
069our teachers work 187 days, so it's 187 plus um that teachers are working. Um, we're fitting in 175 instructional days. Um, we now have a new legislative requirement to offer two parent conference days. So, we needed to fit that into our calendar. and the star EOC schedule, also AP exam schedule. Those are things that are set. Um, with star EOC, there are some windows, but we certainly have to consider those windows that the state has set in the development of our calendar. Um, so what we did is, um, we actually, like I said, we started with three. Um, and when we took the three to our teacher advisory committee, the question was, which two do you like the best? And what actually ended up happening was we took elements of what was draft 1 and
070what was draft three and combined them into a new draft one um and kept draft two the same. So it really was a very authentic process. Um we didn't just change a couple dates around and say, "Hey, which one do you like better?" um we really went through a thoughtful process of looking at um the community's feedback, balancing that with the constraints that we have in place. Um and those are the two calendars that we put out to our community. Uh really the primary difference that people are going to feel over this year's calendar um with next year's proposed calendar is those additional four early dismissal days. Um, so in those conversations with our those the daycarees in our community, we are sharing that this is up for approval tonight with our calendar. Um, and
071we're just trying to get in front of people making plans so that those days don't sneak up on anyone and you know there's not plans for child care. Um, so with that, um, our request this evening is that trustees approve draft one of the calendar as our 2627 academic calendar. Um, but of course I'm happy to take any questions about the process that we went through or any details of the calendar itself. >> Those additional early release days are on Wednesdays. >> Yes, those are on Wednesdays and we've really str um what we're going to try to kind of market to our community is yes, those are days for teacher planning, preparation, calling parents. They're not days for us to hold meetings to put constraints on teachers time. Um, but our parents have the opportunity
072to plan ahead and use those days to their advantage as well. Um, now I know everybody can't get their checkup on one of those early release days. Um, but we're hopeful that that will actually improve student attendance as well uh during the year because maybe maybe people can take advantage of some of those times for appointments and things of that nature. Have a motion to approve the school calendar as presented for 2026 2027. want to do our financial audit report while you're there. >> I I would I would be happy to, but I'm going to turn it over to to >> Clint. I don't want you to escape introducing our auditors. >> Thank you, Dr. Robbie. Um, I just want to take a minute to introduce uh a couple of representatives from our financial audit
073firm, Squires & Company. We have Mr. Wayne Barton. is the uh partner in charge of our audit. And then we have uh Mr. Aaron Carver. He is the audit manager uh that oversees the day-to-day of our audit. And at this time, I would like to hand it over to Mr. Carver and let him uh walk through some of the highlights of our 2024 25 fiscal year financial audit report. I want to thank thank the board for allowing us to come out and present the financial audit. And I definitely want to thank Mr. Clint and his accounting staff. They put in a lot of time. And Miss Alicia put a lot of time on these numbers and coming coming up with all these calculations. There's a lot of work involved. Um so everyone should have this
074blue report in front of them. So there should be a loose sheet of paper in front and a letter. Um so that that single sheet of paper is kind of the summary of some of the things I'll be going over tonight. And then looking at the letter, so on the second page of the letter, so this letter is mainly generic language. It's a letter from the accounting firm to the board. So I'm trying cut some things out, make it a little bit shorter this year um than I usually go over. So on the second page in the middle, it kind of mentions some estimates that's used with the financial numbers. And so one of the new numbers, new estimates that's here relates to compensated absences. So I'm going to talk more about that later. At
075the very bottom of that page, that last sentence, I'm just going to mention it says, "We encountered no significant difficulties in dealing with management performing complaint audit." So that you always you always want to see that sentence in a letter. So comp aside and looking at the report, you want to turn to page three. So this has our has our opinion on page three of the financial report. Um so in that second paragraph it says in our opinion the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects. So that's the exact language that you want to see. Um this is the best opinion that any district can receive. So I'm not going to go over it, but on page seven starts the management's discussion analysis. So if you want to see any comparatives
076to the previous year is going to be in this section. So if you want to turn to page 19. So page 19, this is um the start of the governmentwide financials. This includes this kind of like the balance sheet like a business would have. Includes all the liabilities, all the assets, anything that's long-term. So, I'm I'm just going to mention about 26.6 million of the liabilities um relates just to the the pension and oped which is paid by the state. It's not paid by the district. So, I'm just pointing that out. And then if you want to turn to page 25 and 26. So page 25 and 26. This is the statement of revenues and expenditures and changes in fund balances. So this is the the fund financials. Now um so this lists out all
077the funds um the general fund, the debt fund, the capital projects fund and then all the other funds. Then it has the total on that page 26. So the total revenues for the district is about 64.1 million and then the total expenditures are about 67.1 million. And if you want to turn to page 34. So on page 34 starts the the notes to the financial statements and um there at the last paragraph there it says there's a change in accounting principle. So there is a new accounting standard that came out called Gazsby 101 and this relates to compate absences and so this is something that all government governmental entities had to implement for this year and um this includes a uh was called a prime period adjustment of about $2.7 million for um li liabilities.
078So basically uh this only pops up on the governmentwide financials. This doesn't affect anything that White House does. Um as employees use their days off, their accumulated leave. It just gets expensed as part of the salaries. It doesn't actually change anything. It's just a new standard that came up and this liability is calculated and placed on the governmentwide financials. So I'll show you this more in a table later on. So if you want to turn to page 47. So page 47 is the capital assets footnote. I usually mention this every year just because it has some big numbers. Um so the first column there is the beginning balance for the fixed assets of about 91.6 6 million and then you got additions which is a negative number because it includes the current depreciation. Um and
079then the ending balance is 87.5 million. And you want to turn to page 62. So on page 62 in the middle There's a footnote called changes in long-term liabilities. So you can see on the left side it mentions different um debt such as the the bonds and then the discount on insurance of debt that's related to the bonds and then the new one this year is compensated absences. So that beginning number right there two 2.9 million um only 219,000 showed up off last year's financial audit because of this new standard about 2.7 is is considered to be a proper adjustment where they add it to the beginning balance. And so we have the additions there. Um and then any it shows the reductions of the different types of debt and it gives you the ending
080balances. And then the last column there just shows you how much is due in this upcoming year. So that was really the only big change this year is was that new standard. So I just wanted to point out where it pops up in the report. If you want to turn to page 87. So on page 87, this is a schedule of findings and questioned costs. So I just want to point out there at the very bottom there in section two it says that there are no findings to report. So that's that's good news that you always want to see that. So that basically concludes the presentation. White House has a good set of financials and if you have any questions I will try to answer them and the board can vote to approve the audit.
081Peter doesn't >> Peter doesn't. That's right. [laughter] >> Okay. Thank you for all the work on that. I appreciate you guys. >> Thank you for all our accounting staff. I know it was a lot of work for you to get that together as well. All in favor we we entered into an interlocal agreement with Smith County for holding our elections. And so our next our next item of business is to consider take action with respect to local agreement between the district and Smith County for the May 2nd 2026 trustee election and authorize the superintendent to execute the local agreement for conducting the elections language. for this. It has to be included subdivision of the state of Texas. favor. All right. And then Matthew resolution regarding your intent to apply for a delay. >> Perfect. All
082right. Dr. Robbie, uh, Dr. Whittle, board of trustees. Uh, tonight we want to talk about our intent to apply for a delay in implementing the new requirements through the Texas Education Code. It's 21.0032A, which talks about educator certification. Uh, this uh aligns with our board goal of attracting, retaining, and growing high quality staff. So, a little bit about the mandate. So the Texas education code it proh it is going to prohibit the employing of teachers in the foundational curriculum uh courses which means your English, math, science and social studies. Um you think why would we want to do that? Um think back to when we started to apply as a district of innovation. Originally district of innovation was specific to um getting CTE teachers to come out of industry and come in and be teachers.
083Then you were able to that up a little bit. We had a bit of a teacher shortage and so they gave us the opportunity to apply for people in other certification areas. So this extension uh we would still have to meet the requirements but it would allow us to push those out to 2930 school year uh which would just give us a little bit more flexibility. um even if you do uh allow us to apply for it, we would have to come up with a compliance plan that would then be uh approved or denied by uh TEA. So just a little bit of data. Um if you look at how teachers are becoming certified, there's two different pathways. They go through the traditional pathway through uh the universities or they go through an alternative certification
084program. And you can see those numbers. More people are going through alternative certification. So what that means is someone decides, hey, I want to be a teacher. So they enroll in alternative certification program, but they may not have all of those things that are required, all the tests to be um taken prior to the first day of school. So we put them on a plan uh and they get certified within the year or 18 months. So uh but just so you know, uh the altert leader of Texas plus teachers and you can see that there's 3,130 teachers turned out last year from them as to where the university that is take that is uh creating more teachers that there's only 511 coming from a Texas state university which they had the highest number so you
085can see how many people are going alternative certification route so that can sometimes be problematic for them to be certified day one so what we're asking you to do is to allow us to um apply for this extension. Uh HR will come in and put everybody on a uh come up with a plan uh to make sure that we are compliant before that 2930 deadline and that you're allowing the superintendent to authorize uh for us to prepare any of the necessary materials or anything to be able to get that approved. Any questions or comments? So right now we are our principles are doing a great job on getting the best fit and the most qualified teachers in the classroom. Uh just over Christmas break uh we had eight teachers uh finish out their certification. So
086HR is already working on plans to get everybody certified. This is just going to give us a little bit more leeway just in case we have a last minute resignation uh that comes up where we're able to get somebody in pretty quickly. >> If it if this extension wasn't granted, excuse me, or uh we weren't allowed to move forward with the extension, >> uh hiring alert teachers that have not completed their program and have hold a certificate to teach >> fourth grade English, we would not be able to hire them in our district. And so it's challenging because teachers come to us uh they have a degree >> it's a second career or first career they made whatever and they jump in and instead of delaying and waiting making them substitute teach for a year
087while they finish their their testing and classes and observations they allow us to put them into a classroom to begin to earn a paycheck while they take their test. Now problematically is we get some of these folks that say they're going to be certified by December and the reality is is Tara and her team I don't know, weekly or maybe every other week, >> what's your progress? And we have some individuals that make zero progress. And our practice is to tell them, you're not going to be here because you got to have the credentials to teach our kids. And so, it's just a it's an expectation. Um hopefully that the the the whole teaching profession is an increase and there's there's uh you know, applicants um's plentiful. Yeah. under 20. Yeah, sure. For sure. >>
088Absolutely. >> Um and and I think probably we start a little bit higher because they just entered a program and and uh and it just slowly, no pun intended, whittleles down throughout the year and then you're left with a handful of teachers that did not make progress. Um and then we've got to come in and have a difficult conversation. We've gone as far as to buy them testing seats, I mean practice seats and different programs to help them get certified and pass their tests. Inevitably, we'll have a couple fs that pass one test but can't pass a second test and then they get kind of in this like stuck position of what do we do? Tara and her crew have been great trying to make sure that they're successful and get them through the process.
089>> And it's important to remember that the the um this new rule only takes it out for the core curriculum. So any of those teachers that we get that come out of industry for CTE, like say a health science teacher, if a registered nurse comes in and needs to get her health science certification, our district of innovation plan will still allow for that. So it's just >> those are still >> Absolutely. Yes. We put we put everybody on a plan to get their certificate. It's just those those individuals will have a little bit more time. So Any other questions? >> Thank you. >> We'll need to order. Thank you. We'll need to order an election for three places that come vacant in May. That's for place one which is my seat which is Flanigan and
090place which is section. motion by >> and that'll take us to the report to the superintendent. >> Great. Uh yes, sir. Um just to remind everybody, uh early February, so we're we're beginning the kind of preparation time right now where course requests and uh pathways are being developed and beginning to get rolled out to kids. So, wanted to remind everybody that on uh February 5th at the high school auditorium, we'll have our passport to my future night, which again is help driving some of those CCMR points and helping kids align with the high school major, if you will, uh and pick their pathway and line up their courses. So, we're excited about that. It's one of my favorite nights because we bring the high school kids and teachers out. All the clubs and organizations and
091electives are showing off what they have. All the eighth grade parents come over with their kids. They hear a message from Mr. Spates and they get to go kind of explore some of that and look around and then the high school counselors. It kind of kicks off the counselors begin to show up in the classrooms and start oneonone individually scheduling kids and helping them make those decisions. And so uh that's that's in the we're in the middle of that right now getting ready for uh February. And then uh second thing is uh the first day to file for a place on the ballot will be January 14th. Places one, two, and three as Dr. mentioned will expire and be on the election ballot in May. We'll have packets in our office for candidates to pick
092up. They need to be returned by February 13, 20126 at 5:00 p.m. And that's all I have. And again, just thanks for your service and hope you feel uh celebrated and uh the kids made you smile. >> They definitely did. Looking forward to reading the notes, too. >> All right. All right. Does anybody have anything else? Motion to all carries.