All right. Good afternoon. We'll call this regular meeting of the Carroll ISD Board of Trustees to order on 07/21/2025, at 5PM. Our first agenda item is executive session. Therefore, we will adjourn to executive accordance with Texas Government Code five hundred and fifty one point zero seven one, five hundred and fifty one point zero seven two, 551.074, 551.076 and 551-0821 at 5PM. Alright. Good evening. We'll call this meeting back to order at 6PM. Our first agenda item is the opening prayer pledges of allegiance and moment of silence.
Will you all please rise? Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to serve our students, families, staff, and the many blessings you have given to our community and for the trust placed in each of us to make decisions for the benefit of our district. As we gather to discuss and decide on matters of importance to our district, we ask that you lift up the families and victims of the recent floods in Central Texas, surround them with hope, strength, and support, and guide those who are offering help.
Lord, may our actions tonight reflect integrity, compassion, and a commitment to excellence in education. We ask for your blessing over this meeting, over our district, and over the year ahead. It's in Jesus Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Will you please join me in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, a nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. And now for the Texas flag. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee,
Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Please join us for a moment of silence. Thank you. You may be seated. Okay. Our next agenda item is public comments. There are three speakers signed up tonight, so we'll give each speaker three minutes. Okay. All right. Ms. Yelton, will you please call our first speaker? The first speaker this evening is Tim Schutz. Good evening, president, trustees, superintendent. Welcome back. After a month since I was here last time, I was pleased to see that we're gonna talk about what the policy will be,
this evening. Now my concern is we aren't being tough enough. I showed them to my daughter. Bad. $15. I'll take my chance. First time, don't even tell my parents. The next time, oh, mom. I had to do it. Not tough enough. They'll be test testing it all the time if it's only $15. So I'm a little concerned there. I'm sure we'll have more discussion perhaps on that. Second, communicating it, communicating it, communicating it. I know we've had the first shot. I've seen it in the e blast. Now we have some things that's a little bit more stable or more,
but we also have to educate. Educate them, tell them where they can go, and understand why this policy is now law. This is the law. Thank you. Thank you, mister president. The way, it'll work when my daughter comes home and says, what the heck did you do to my phone in school? The next speaker is Colleen Golestan. Good evening, council members and oh, yeah. Doctor. Glenn. I'm gonna start at the end so you'll understand because the the end says, which is why you can see see. It should be see, but it's this hate institutionalized through policy choices
at Carroll ISD. They start with I'm a a scroller and a screen shotter. That's how I get my news nowadays because I don't like to. So when anything's about Southlake, I take interest, I verify, I screenshot, I share as appropriate, and I I thought this was, I don't know why you're not as upset about this as I am. And it's not going away. And I just can't believe every one of you don't know about it. So this is old. What I know, I remember because I was actually there.
I was sitting at a fundraiser call center prior to the city council and school board election with some PAC leadership, some people on the city council and local and powerful church leaders, and a former board trustee. During the conversation about school board candidates and city council seats they'd like to fill and with who, the topic changed to how much they hated people of different races, religions, and cultures. I have a copy for you because I can't say some of the things that
they're attributed to saying, but it's from a very credible source that you know. The hate was particularly evident for Indians, Southeast Asians. I'm skipping some of it. It it's just two. They despised how the growing new population in South and this was at Southlake Families PAC Fundrise Center. Call center, was gross and dirty and were most likely terrorist, and that's how they had enough money to live in Southlake. That these people were moving to Southlake, and we should alienate all the white real estate agents who sell to these people,
how those people were buying all the houses and how they stank and are disgusting pigs, and how there was no way they could have a city council or school board seat in their town, and they should all just move back to Irving. It was the most awkward and unanticipated situation I've ever been in. Other people realize Your time is up. Your time is up. Sorry. The timer up there is not working, so I'm keeping track right here. Well, I don't think it's up yet. It is. Well, I don't know that. And I don't trust you.
Just finish up, the social media. Realizing we were frozen. So, yes, without naming names are absolute people in the PAC leadership that hate and feel very comfortable talking about the hate of people from different religions, races, and cultures, and which is, you can see, institutionalized through policy choices at Carroll ISD. And everyone is on their website. Every you're endorsed by this pack. This is something that has to be talked about. It's out there. I'm bringing up all the time. I just wanted to talk to you. I just wanna understand how this can be my city.
How you're saying that 30% of the people in this city will never be allowed. We have a seat coming up. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Okay. I'll never stop. Okay. Thank you. The final speaker this evening is Marissa Mahon. Good evening, Doctor. Glenn and trustees. Thank you all for being here middle of summer. I'm here tonight to talk about a few items. First, House Bill fourteen eighty one. It had massive bipartisan support with the intent to limit distractions during the school day and yet allow local controls needed that provides appropriate support to districts in enforcing the intent of the bill.
In speaking with the author, Representative Farley's office today, they confirmed TEA is working on a model policy for districts to use. The author's office did confirm the term personal communication device was intended to include personal laptops. In discussion of the bill, districts noted that they had already required a number of devices on hand per student, so there was not gonna be an anticipated financial impact to the district. I believe this is not the case for our district. The proposed policy is written does not identify personal communication devices to include a laptop, and I believe this might be violating the intent of the bill.
I feel strongly we should not be giving additional burden to our educators to control personal laptops, and it certainly should not be campus based to communicate. So I asked that this could be reviewed further. And I also wanted to know based off prior, publiccom comments, who's going to monitor the devices, while a bus driver is driving. Moving on to stipends under schedule, the agenda item. Special Olympics coaches' stipends have not been increased in at least four years. Is there a chance that stipend could be considered as a program has significantly grown and, been wonderful? We can't see the details for the stipends. And then not on the agenda,
I wanted to inquiry on the lack of our check registries being published. In speaking with the comptroller's office today, it was advised there's a discussion about the legality, and it was deemed that it is okay for our district to not have those published. But I know you all desire increased transparency, and so I'm asking if we could look at that and kind of dig into what the cybersecurity issues are because everybody else has them around us. And the consent agenda, the renewal of camera language for special education classrooms, very grateful for as always. But I wanted to note it should be modified to not include just the class
name, and it should be qualifying special education classrooms because that could be a resource classroom as well that aligns with the law. And lastly, just noting on the acquisition of technology resources for 2,500,000.0, it does not include acquisitions of devices to cover the BYOD devices that may not be allowed by the state. So it would just be good to know what that number of devices, if that comes down the pipeline, with clarification of intent from TEA on their policy, that we are able to cover because my recollection is that there were a lot
of people who are bringing their own devices that were helping out with our finance financial situation. But if that is identified in the policy, I would love to know where we're at, because that office had never heard that a district did not have that and that parents were supporting that heavily, as far as dish devices go. So thank you for your time. Thank you, miss Mahon. Okay. We'll move on to item number five which is consideration and possible action on any matters addressed during executive session. I don't believe we have any. So we'll move on to item number six with a personnel report.
Okay. Then that being the case, I move to approve the personnel report as presented in Executive Session. I'll second. We have that motion and a second. All in favor? Motion carries six-zero. Thank you, Trustee Yeager and Doctor. Glenn for reminding us of that. So we'll move on now to item number six, which is President's Report. Do we have any Committee reports, Trustees. Okay. We'll move on to, my president's report. I have a few items, statements to read. So I'll just begin with as reported in my June 23 president's report and as
part of our continued effort to address the projected budget deficit for the twenty five, twenty six school year, the board is considering a recommendation from the Budget Reduction Action Committee or BRAC Tiger team. This team comprised of parents, teachers, administrators, and trustees was formed to prioritize which BRAC recommendation or recommendations to pursue this year to offset the deficit. The team has recommended this board pursue a school funding measure that would require voter approval and be included on the 11/04/2025 ballot.
This measure, officially known as a Voter Approval Tax Rate Election, or VADER, is the recommended primary immediate strategy to address our budget deficit. The team found that even with the implementation of cost reductions and efficiencies, additional local revenue will be necessary to balance the budget and preserve the exceptional educational programs, teacher and staff compensation levels, and student services our community expects and deserves. Here is a nine minute video featuring two of our very own BRAC members explaining
this funding measure further. Will you please run the video? Hello again, everyone, and welcome back to this Carroll ISD podcast. Once again, I'm Jeff Brady, your executive director of communications, and we're going to take just a few minutes today to review the results of our most recent legislative session here in Texas and its impact on our district, that is Carroll ISD, as well as what next steps the district is considering in order to address a looming $5,000,000 deficit. It's not as severe as what some of our surrounding districts are facing,
yet it does remain a concern. And so joining us today are two members of last year's budget reduction advisory committee, Christine Caine and Jackson Hildebrand, two informed parents, and we're glad you're here in Dragon Studios. Yeah. Happy to be here. Thanks for having us. Thank you for joining us. Well, first, as I mentioned, just a minute ago, we have discussed in previous podcasts, our deficit and the lobbying efforts we've made with our legislature down in Austin. And to be fair, the state legislature did address school funding in a substantial way in this last,
legislative session. They took action. Okay? But as we know here in Carroll, it wasn't exactly what the district had requested or expected or wanted. Yeah. So, Christine, you were there. You were part of that legislative action day in, in Austin. So how do you summarize, if there is a way to summarize, how can you describe house bill two and its, impact on us here in Carroll ISD? Okay. House bill two is a major education bill. I think we were really happy with the result. It was coauthored by our state representative,
and it provided $8,500,000,000 to state public education Mhmm. Which is really good. The problem for us is that CISD remains one of the most underfunded districts in the state. And what we were hoping for out of the session was an increase in our basic allotment. Our basic allotment is $6,160. It has not been increased since 2019, and our hope was that they would increase it by a thousand dollars. And we only received $55,
not nearly enough. So while it helps to shorten the deficit or bridge that gap, we still have a 3 and a half, $4,000,000 deficit that we're trying to figure out what to do with. And so both of you, again, both of you were on the BRAC committee last year. So, Jackson, tell us about the work of that, committee and the result was a five year plan, for the board to consider. Right? Right. I mean, it was a group of parents, teachers, community members, really with the edict of figuring out how to find efficiencies in the school district's
budget and just knowing what sort of deficit we were facing. It was a five year plan of what we need to do step by step over the next, over the next, over the next, five years and ultimately finding ways to create those efficiencies. And it's protecting the class size, the teachers, being able to attract and retain the talent that we have today, all the extracurricular activities, and ultimately, the the recommendations of the BRAC, the first out of the gate was the school funding vote. Mhmm. And that's kind of what we're looking at now. That's the most immediate or the next, step really for this board having made the vote.
But what is that? I mean, how do you explain that tax funding measure, school funding measure? It goes by many names. Officially, it's a VADRE, v a t r e. So it's a Voter Approval Tax Rate Election. VADER. But how do you describe it to people who aren't as familiar? Well, I I think what Christine and I have surmised over the months, with the BRAC is how overly complicated, the formula for school funding can be. Sure. And so one of the low hanging fruit items right in front of us was the ability to basically trade some of the tax rates to ultimately retain revenues in the school district.
And so what what this, school funding vote does, it's an election to, again, keep dollars with the school district to go towards, you know, what we were talking about, you know, the teachers, the programs, and everything that matters, to the community. Instead of sending all that money to Austin. Exactly. Instead of sending, all that all the monies to the state. And that's a really important point that you made regarding the tax rates. There are more than one internal rates, but the bottom line is, this measure, if it approved, would not affect the total tax rate. Correct? Correct. It'd be an unusual rate.
And so I I think from the perspective of those who love Southlake, whether they have kids in the district or not, but it shouldn't impact, their ultimate tax rate. Mhmm. And it would, perpetually generate revenue for the district. So what's that ballpark figure, Christine? So I mentioned it briefly earlier, but it's between 3 and a half and $4,000,000 a year. And that's to begin with initially, and then as things change and home values increase as we know they do, the the likelihood is it would even go up after that. Right. And it really is about keeping that money. Right now, we send in the neighborhood of $25,000,000
back a year, and this vote allows us to keep $4,000,000 around $4,000,000. Mhmm. And it sounds novel, interesting, or maybe unique for us in Carroll, but it's truly not. My understanding is most six a school districts have already done something like this, so it's, a measure that is pretty common in Texas. Right? Yes. And I think that we have been talking about in the BRAC committee how to sort of balance the budget, and we hadn't really needed to take this action before now. Now we need to. So Yep.
Here we are. Here we are. And what would this money pay for? People are probably asking also, well, where where would this be spent? Yeah. We can use it for anything that ranges from teacher salaries, staff salaries. You know, HB two did address staff raises, but that doesn't take care of any of our other staff. We have paraprofessionals. We have custodians. We have cafeteria staff. In order to keep all of that staff, we need to be able to re retain them and and incentivize them. It also pays for student programs, special education, like, the list goes on and on. And that's an important point. The the legislature did address teacher salaries.
And so a significant amount of that money goes toward teachers. But there's a lot of other people who are part of our school district. And they really weren't addressed by the legislature. So that's that's a very important point. And and Jackson, why is this I mean, living here in in Southlake, we're familiar with the traditions and the the standards here. So why is this important to to generate this fund? Well, I think if we don't generate these funds, right, it's back to the drawing board, you know. And so we, again, the BRAC committee really, ironed out certain solutions, you know, further down the road that, you know, we hope is more of a later,
later ask. But today, it's about retaining what we can and not impacting, everyone's wallet at the same time. And so, you know, I grew up in the district. My wife taught here, got three kids in the school district. And so, obviously, I'm biased, but I think very highly of of what we have in offering, you know, the best teachers, best programs. And if we don't bring these funds in and then we're gonna have to go back and assess what makes sense, you know, to to keep intact or certain things that you're gonna have to go and, and reduce the budget in some way somehow. That's true. So, another question is the impact on our property values.
A lot of people have, moved here specifically for the school district. We moved here for that. We moved here four years ago from California because of the schools. And if our schools are strong, our property values will remain high. Ensuring that our schools stay strong protects the investment in our homes. Mhmm. And what if the opposite were to happen and this measure were to fail in November? Yeah. We're we're leaving dollars on the table at that point. You know, the school district, again, has approved the budget, knowing that those funds are available for us.
And so hopefully we take advantage of that to retain those dollars in the school district. And if it doesn't, you know, it's going to have to be assessing, programs and other things that we really don't want to get to that point because I think for Carol ISD, it is an inflection point, right? Making the decision to figure out how that we can maintain our excellence by making the right financial decisions, for the long term. And it starts here, right? It's $4,000,000 year in, year out that we retain, not just a one time win. And so I really think it's important that people look at look into this and educate themselves on what opportunity we have right in front of us.
Mhmm. Good point. Okay. Well, Christine and Jackson, thank you both for being here and for helping us to, flesh out these points. We We appreciate your insight. Absolutely. Thank you again for having us. So remember, Election Day is Tuesday, November 4. We sincerely hope you will consider all of these matters as you make your decisions in the election booth. You can learn a lot more at southlakecarroll.edu. And once again, thank you for joining us. Good. Good job, mister Brady. Appreciate you. Thank you. That's good. Let's get that out on social media and get going on,
getting that out to the masses. So thank you. The board plans to discuss for informational purposes, at our August 4 meeting, this action and then, if we want to, we can put it on the agenda and take action and we plan on it at our August 18 regular meeting. So if the board approves this recommendation, the funding measure will be placed on the November ballot for voter approval. Speaking of the BRAC, we have formed our second BRAC Tiger team that will start meeting in the fall, this September, and will be charged with prioritizing next steps in the BRAC's five year
recommended plan. So thank you to all of the community members that have, participated on this BRAC team. You're so very important to making decisions, and recommendations to the district, to make recommendations to this board. Also, as you know, the board voted unanimously to hold a special election to fill the place three board seat vacated by trustee Dudley Jordan earlier this year. The window to apply opened on July 19 and extends until 5PM on August 18. If interested, please contact the district's point of contact for elections,
Karina Garcia. As a reminder, this election only serves to fulfill the remainder of the term, which is May 2026. Lastly, we want to provide a quick update on the sale of our designated surplus properties. First, the 18 acre property on the corner of North Carroll and East Highland is currently being remarketed for sale and we hope to have offers in the very near future. Second, the contract for the sale of the 25 acre property that this building and Old Dragon Stadium are located did not close on June 13 as expected.
So we are in discussions currently to potentially remarket a portion of this property. Our plans are to keep this building in CISD's ownership for administration and other purposes in the future. We will keep the community apprised on the status of these properties as we have updates. Thank you. Alright. We'll move to, item number seven, which is the superintendent's report. Doctor Glenn, take it away. Thank you, Mr. President, trustees. First and foremost, I'm incredibly proud to report that Carroll ISD continues to shine academically.
We maintained our A rating as a school district with our students outperforming state averages on STAAR assessments and exceeding national averages on the AP exams. These accomplishments reflect the hard work and commitment of our students, our teachers, our staff, and our families. It takes a team to achieve this level of success and I want to offer a heartfelt thank you to everyone who played a part in making this happen. On the staffing front, I'm pleased to share that our retention rates are stronger than those around us in
the neighboring Districts. That is not by accident. These are the results of intentional leadership from our amazing campus principals and the outstanding work of our HR department. Our HR team tells me that we're currently averaging more than 70 applicants per week for open positions, which speaks volumes to our reputation as a destination district. It's also worth taking a moment to remind everyone our staffing numbers and our enrollment have changed significantly in recent years. Back in 2019, we had close to 8,600
students. This year, we expect to start the year with fewer than 8,000. That drop in enrollment must be considered when evaluating staffing or retention. It's a bigger part of the staffing and retention picture. Next week, we kick off New Teacher Orientation. It's great, to be able to welcome new teachers to the Dragon Team. We're excited about what these new teachers and staff members bring to the table. I want to thank our principals for building such a positive and supportive culture on
their campuses. That's what enables us to attract these top tier educators. Finally, we also want to remind our community that there are a lot of legislative changes impacting public education this year. We want you to follow Carol ISD on social media to stay updated. We're also gonna discuss a few of those key updates during tonight's meeting. Trustees, I'm happy to say we're prepared to welcome our students back for what promises to be a fantastic year. Thank you again to our families, staff, and board for your continued support of Carroll ISD. Mr. President, that's your report for July. Thank you, Doctor.
Glenn. Great report. We'll move on to item number eight, which is the information portion of our meeting. Item 8.1 is consider replacement of building roofs, utilizing tax increment financing, TIF zone funds. Mr. Mooney, you're up. Thank you, Mr. Bryan. Board of Trustees, Doctor. Glenn, I'm here to present to you for your approval the repair, the reroofing of Dawson Middle School, Eubanks Intermediate. This all comes from TIF funds from the City of Southlake. The Anchor Roofing was the was a successful bidder for Dawson for $910,000
PMR was assessable bidder for Eubanks of $565,000 Next year, with the promise of another 1,500,000 from the city, we hope to do Old Union and some renovation to the Dragon Stadium. Thank you, Mr. Mooney. Doctor. Glenn, before I open it up to the trustees for questions, can you explain real quick just the basics of the TIF for the community? I know you've done this before, but it No, absolutely, Mr. President. So, so we're very fortunate that, that back in the early, well, we'll say late 1990s,
the school district and the city came together and put together a TIF zone, which allowed the school district to retain some recapture funds and it also allowed for the city to keep some of our recapture dollars to essentially provide infrastructure and maintain the area around our schools. So think about it like this. We're a fast growth community. A lot of people are moving here. There's a lot of infrastructure being put in place. Schools are being built in our community and that puts a lot of stress on the city. We have a lot of recapture dollars that are going back to the state.
And so, the city and the school district come together and say, how can we keep some of that money in place and help our city fund the infrastructure that it takes to surround the school district? Okay, now fast forward to today. That's still in place but the roles have kind of shifted a little bit. Now that the city has seen a lot of significant growth. The school district is stabilized. We're not putting near the pressure on the infrastructure that we used to because all those facilities are in place. But we're still yielding out those dollars. So those tax dollars still get funneled through the city.
So in 2018, the City Council and the School Board came together and looked at the plan again. And the plan allows for some of those dollars to be reinvested back into the school system. However, they have to remain in the TIF zone. So, the facilities that school has in the TIF zone right now are Eubanks, Dawson, Old Union and Dragon Stadium. So we're allowed to use those TIF dollars to benefit anything that the ISD has within those boundaries. So those four facilities.
So this board came together under the leadership of President Bryan back in the fall, started having conversations with city council. The city has allocated $1,500,000 of TIF funds that have to be used on facilities. So we can't divert them to pay or anything like that. And so we're trying to develop a plan on our most pressing issues. Right now, it's roofs. We have a lot of leaks. Dawson is the worst roof in the district when again, give me the numbers, Lanny. I know you provided this a few months back about 166 leaks the last time
we ran it. We run 66 leaks. We keep a spreadsheet that runs over 150. Last year alone, we spent more than $50,000 just repairing leaks at Dawson. Yeah. And so Dawson being our most pressing roof, we would like to replace it. That leaves Old Union as number two and Eubanks as number three. We would love to do Dawson And Old Union, but that gets us over the limit of $1,500,000 We don't have a lot of local dollars to spend on these massive roof repairs. So we're pivoting to Eubanks with the hope that when we get these funds next
fiscal year, we'll be able to take care of Old Union. So, we'll put together a three year plan, where we look to spend those TIF dollars on these facilities to make sure that we're taking good care of our buildings. And certainly, we're grateful to city leadership for supporting us as we go to pivot toward this. All right. Thank you, Doctor. Glenn. Great explanation. I'll open it up. Trustee Sexton? Mr. Mooney, thanks for the briefing. In terms of the certified inspector that will be required to inspect the project upon completion, is that going to be covered under a separate contract? Or what's our approach to having that certified inspector?
Certified inspector will be under these funds also. It will be under this contract. So will that certified inspector be inspecting on our behalf or Yes. On behalf of It'll be on our behalf. In essence, what it does is it gives us the warranty that we that we want. So if just to say the UBanks is is a five and twenty. It's five years of labor, 20 of material. Well, the person that's gonna warrant this is gonna inspect this because they're protecting themselves,
also protects ourselves. If I have to hire a third party, I would have to do that with my budget. So that may be something we want to consider as have a third party that represents 100 percent of our interest to make sure it's. So the other question is, I noticed that I don't know who's covered I don't know who covers the insurance under the anchor roofing system proposal, for example, liability or if you have somebody that gets injured while they're working on our facility. I believe it's covered in the PMR roofing proposal. So do we have an additional insurance obligation or was that included in the It's
included in the submittals. I have that information in my office. Okay. I just didn't see it. So I mean otherwise well done. And both of these projects are also bonded since they're over our limit, the state's limit. How many offers were received for each? I got three quotes on each project. Perfect. Thank you. Well done. I didn't think so until now. I was sort of surprised $150,000 was spent on those 166 leaks at Dawson. When we start getting over $100,000
we got to think about making sure are we budgeted if we can't get Old Union done with these TIF funds, are we budgeted for, you know, leaks for that campus? Yes, sir. I mean, in my in in our budget, we know what we spent last year. Oh, last year, we spent just under $500,000 across the district for roof leaks, and that's almost just under 25% of my total budget. So theoretically, if we get two of the worst ones this time, it should come down at least by 20%.
I think when I did I ran the numbers with the amount of roof leaks, the amount of money that we spent last year, this would drop what I should spend about 20% on roof leaks. But yes, it's we spent just under $500,000 on roof leaks. Knowing that expense and also anybody who's owned property knows what type of damage water can do, I'm going to propose well, I'm going to ask actually, Doctor. Glenn and President Bryant, is there any way possible that the City might look forward and say,
you know what, there's TIF monies that's owed back to the school district. We are going to pay it forward a little bit so that we can fix another roof because all we're going to do folks is just have another year and we've had a lot of rain this spring, but we're going to have more damages and we're going to have more expenses that if they could say, Yeah, we're going to parlay out this money to you every year, but we'll give this to you in advance, we could save our community well, it sounds like,
Mr. Mooney, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes, sir. I understand, that's a great idea, Trustee Yaeger. And I understand that the City has committed $1,500,000 a year starting this year for the next three years. They have the money sitting in a fund, so it's taxpayer money. We're a governing body, they're a governing body. I get it. Why in the world wouldn't we ask for the balance? And then starting in year four, they can start paying out of that TIF fund again.
But we have an immediate need as I understand it right now. I mean, every year that 1.5 is reduced by five, right, because we're having to spend 5 on leaks. So really only getting a million. I think it's a great idea. Doctor. Glenn, can you reach out to the city manager and ask if they would be willing to do that? Absolutely. We'll be happy to show them the bid list and let them know what the total price of the roofs would be. Certainly, it doesn't hurt to ask. The city has been super generous and easy to work with so far. So I think that is certainly something that would benefit all taxpayers. And again, these monies have to be spent in the TIF zone.
So even the city doesn't have the flexibility to go outside that zone with these dollars. We appreciate that, Doctor. Glenn, and good idea, Trustee Yeager. Mr. Mooney, just curious, are these the original roofs that were built? Yes, sir. So that we haven't replaced these roofs since the buildings were built, whatever they were built. No. These have not been replaced. And I get that roofs have a useful life. I mean, that every every roof leaks. Well, we're past the we're past we're past the useful life of them. Right. And, when Corrigan did their assessment with,
with their third party, we had two roofs in the district that were above poor. And so, yes, sir, they I just kind of wonder yeah. It's just it's interesting to me and we hear about this all the time with infrastructure is that we go out, we pass these bonds, we build all this infrastructure with absolutely no plan on how to maintain that infrastructure and no budget. And so this is a result Yes, sir. Of not having a plan to be able to maintain the infrastructure that we built its cost in the district and the taxpayer, hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of dollars, in maintenance fees, which, if we would've just would've planned for that in the beginning, we'd be we'd be fine. So okay I appreciate appreciate that Mr. Mooney. Any other questions? Okay thank you appreciate it. Alright moving on to our next item is 8.2 consider local board policy regarding students cell phone use. Mr. Nickel. Good evening. Doctor. Glenn, president Brian, board of trustees. I'm here to visit a little bit about policy, that we need to outline for, I guess, in response to house bill fourteen eighty one. I included that in the,
attachments for this evening. The fourteen eighty one basically outlines the districts have to come up with a local policy to, to get rid of, cell phones, smartwatches, tablets, and then it says other telecommunication devices during the school day. And then it says we also have to outline some consequences when, those policies are violated. And so I've been spending the last month or so talking to some other school districts and also visiting with our principals, trying to outline some language, and, that's how I come up with what you have before you. And so, effectively, we've had to,
I guess, read into what house bill fourteen eighty one says and then try to figure out how it works for for us. And so, again, that's the language I have for you. I know that there has been some question about, the the BYOD and our bringing our you know, our students bringing their laptops and how we interpret that. It's not explicitly spelled out in 1481. I know that, we as a district have, invested a lot of, time and energy. Our teachers have worked really hard to, use Canvas and things to as a learning management platform. And so, that is a valuable part of what we do. And, I think at this point,
we have we have looked at it as though we would continue with a a BYOD policy. And so, anyway, I I guess I'm open to to questions you guys may have and and, open to feedback. Thank you, mister Nickel. And, yes, we have determined that, BYOD for educational purposes is totally fine, so laptops. So we're still moving forward with our BYOD policy that we passed, a few months ago. So I appreciate you bringing that up because I know there's a lot of confusion. In fact, there's a lot of confusion because the bill's so ambiguous anyway, that we're just gonna have to really, see how it goes and then kind of make changes on the fly is my,
understanding. And doctor Glenn, maybe you can maybe mister Nicholl you can I mean, the biggest thing that that, we see in this in cell phone use, and enforcing is enforcement, of that? So, I I think the teachers seem to not feel like in the past that they had the backing of leadership in this district, you know, to really back them when they enforce not, you know, using a cell phone in the classroom and now it's in school period. So what are we doing? Are we doing anything to emphasize or training our teachers and our principals to make
sure that those enforcements are necessary? Yes, you're exactly right. Inconsistency creates problems and the most important thing with this policy will be consistency not only at the administrative level, but also from classroom to classroom across all grade levels in the district. So on Thursday, we'll have the first opportunity to really sit down with leadership from across Carroll ISD. We'll present the cell phone policy. And keep in mind, this is a living document. We've put in place kind of a rough idea with input from campus principals,
but we do know there's a model policy out there from And we do know that our policy, while it's being developed, it evolved even late today. And so, by the time that kids walk into the classroom, we'll make sure not only is our campus leadership trained on what we expect from a discipline standpoint, but also that our teachers are consistent across the board with applying those rules. Questions for Mr. Nickel? I do. Go ahead. I've got some questions. For Steve on? So the policy is stating that the cell phones have to remain turned off and
stored out of sight, so in a backpack, purse, or box. So if the student were to take the cell phone out, so that that would go against the policy. Correct? That's correct. Okay. Because I think that there's been some concern from parents. Right? Is is, you know, back in our day, if they were passing a note, right, and then the the, you know, teacher would take the note and, like, read the note out loud. And so I think that there was some concern from parents that, like, they don't wanna give teachers access to read everything on their child's phone,
like, I sent a text. No. I didn't, and have full access. So just by having it out is against the policy of the teacher. There should be no reason the teacher gets into the student's phone to read personal messages from their families or anything like that. Correct? That's correct. Just, again, there's a difference between having it out and that's violating a policy and we would address it, but we're not getting into it and doing a search or anything like that. I mean, my expectation would be that if if one is caught, they would then send them to the office to to address that issue and and, and go forward with that.
Is there any way that we can kind of put just clarify in the policy so that we don't put our teachers in a bad situation? And, again, you're talking about consistency from classroom to classroom. Like, there's a lot of teachers in a lot of classrooms. Abs absolutely. This is gonna be new. It's going to be new for teachers. It's going to be new for students. And so having like a clear set of expectations in every classroom for students to see. So as they move from classroom to classroom, also making sure that we have conversations with kids early on. Obviously, there's going to be a little bit of grace shown in the first couple of weeks of school, but the expectation will be to comply as soon as possible.
And I agree with Trustee Bottom that there's probably some privacy issues and so the policy should also address getting into student loans. Yes, that's simple. Yes. And I do think the policy allows for cell phones to be taken up by staff when it's violated and they'll be taken to the office and kids will have pick them up or their parents will pick them up from the office. But but there is there's certainly no no reasonable expectation to get in a a student's phone and look at information. And we've covered that in in previous years in in,
teaching our administr administrators about proper search and things like that and we would continue that so that they wouldn't violate any of those things. I did. Couple of questions. The property of the school extends to our buses. And, just reading the bullet point on here, and we talked about this before, and that is that parents were concerned, especially in our intermediate and middle schools, about use of phones on buses. But from what I'm reading, that is not gonna be allowed. Correct? House bill fourteen eighty one doesn't get into that,
but in our policy we've been, drafting, we've gone ahead and extended and said, the bus coming to school, the bus going home from school. The other thing other thing that we addressed, I know when I visited with a neighboring district, they talked about that they, specifically said during the instructional day, and they had students that would come in, to have breakfast before the first bell ring, and they would be on their devices. And then when somebody would go to address them, hey. You can't have that. They say, well, the bell hasn't hasn't rang yet, so it doesn't really matter. And, so we went ahead and said, when you're in the building before or after school as well. And so but, yes, we included,
the Excellent. In our, which of course is something that we work with the transportation team because they're gonna need to be our eyes and ears for that? That's correct. And we've already started having those conversations. And I know that, one of the biggest things is they they have to obviously keep their attention on the road. We wanna keep our kids safe. But, when when there is an obvious violation, then it's something that they would be able to address. They could do it at the end of the route, address the students who are coming off the bus, and and go from there. But, we certainly wanna make sure that we maintain the safety of the students on the bus first. Okay. What? I'm sorry. No.
No. We talked about that. I think it's an important point to bring up because we've talked about this, in-depth. The we don't we don't want a bus driver to stop and take up a phone. Right. That that's not That's not the job of the driver but certainly we have cameras with audio on every single school bus. And it's reasonable that, you know, if they see it when they're looking in the mirror or a kid has it, they're gonna be able to write that kid's name down or write it down at the end of their route and they'll take it into the transportation department and we have a director of transportation who will call to notify the parents and we'll deal with it that way.
So we're not trying to put extra burden on our campus principles. We don't want the bus driver to get into a disciplined situation while they're picking students up and dropping them off. This is something that will be handled at the administrative level from transportation. Okay. What I didn't see, and maybe I missed it, was our student activities that are off of school hours. So we've got some Dragon football games that are coming up, but frankly, it could be at a soccer game. What would the policy be, for students, at those activities? Currently, we have not outlined that in this. I know that, again, we have a lot of travel.
We have, you know, students that take buses that, you know, go an hour or more outside of the of the area, and so, it has not been currently outlined. Would be open to any feedback that you guys have. And again, I would say we got a big lift with what we're talking about during the school day. I know we're about to see send a team to Midland for a game. I don't think that that our coaches, you know, wanna wanna be having to monitor cell phones as they're traveling on a bus on a six, seven hour trip. So I don't know that we're ready to really go out. I just think it'd be great since we're creating a local policy that we put
that in to make it clear, because frankly we want our students to have those are really enjoyable times, you know, where they're recording their friends, who are dancing in the bells, or whatever it is. And I think the intent of the law is that to take the phones out of instructional time. So the way I look at it is that's not instructional time. That's enjoyment, that's entertainment. But I think it's important that we have it in there, that that's not an area where they would expect somebody to come down and say, You're taking your phone. Now sometimes there's an nefarious use. Kids are using phones for the wrong reasons,
but that's to me just something that we shouldn't be doing any policing. The other thing I just wanted to mention is we had a speaker who had a very good point and that was that, when the disciplinary action is not, specifically stringent, you might just see, you know, repeat of bad behavior with these phones. But one of the things that this, speaker didn't mention, which I like, and that is that we're talking about at that second offense, granted $15 doesn't seem like a lot, and the student can come pick up their phone at the end of the day,
but the next time the student can't pick up the phone. It has to be the parent or guardian that comes to pick up the phone. And I think one of the things that, is a secret to our success in this district is parent involvement. Right there we're playing into parents who are very involved with our students, and that is the only way that that phone is going to be retrieved from the campus, correct me if I'm wrong, is from that parent or guardian. Is that right? Yes, sir. Okay. While we're on that topic, can we talk about, you know, kind of obvious. Right? Like, how is a student,
if they do need to communicate with their parent, like, are you picking me up for a doctor's appointment? Like, how are we gonna flush that out? Do they go to their teacher and ask? Do they go to the office? Like, how how does that happen? They will be able to do that in in normal means of when we were, you know, in in school in the nineties or before, but they would they would go to the front office and they'd be able to use the the office phone. We've seen a couple of districts that have put out an FAQ to try to outline some of the questions like that, and and I've been working on wordsmithing some of that, and and we'll work with our communications department in trying to get that language out to our parents.
When would you expect we'd be able to get an FAQ out that would answer some of those questions? I think by beginning of next week. We're we're close, but I don't wanna rush it out there before we have our answers. And and just to trust you, bottom's point, so a student does need to communicate with with mom or dad during the school day. I get, like, in the nineties, like, you go to the office and ask to use the phone. Is that what most districts that have this policy already are doing? That's what we're seeing in the language that they have is that, you know, if they needed to, they would be able to go in that route. The other thing is, for our students that drive, and many do,
right, at the senior high is that that use of your phone in the parking lot in your vehicle, that's private property, right? So there's no restrictions on the use of phone in someone's private vehicle. If they were if they were, you know, leaving school or coming to school or sitting there, they were outside, but it wouldn't be something that we want them sitting in their vehicle, you know, on property going out to their vehicle to use their phone. I get it. But before class excuse me, after class, that's that's their property? Correct. Okay. So been run through legal? Or, like,
legal sufficiency? I mean, there's a a note in here about disposing of phones after ninety days? That's part of the thing that fourteen eighty one talks about is it says the district, can also outline, you know, policy around if a phone is not picked up, what is the what is the response, what is the district's liability to that. And and so, anyway, our intent after we finish is to take this to T and have them work this on drafting it through their language. So, Mr. Nickel, to the point that was made earlier about the intent of the law is to not allow the use
of the device during the instructional day, which goes from the morning bell to the afternoon bell and not allow students to use it anytime during the day, there's there's not really any latitude to make any changes to that intent of the law. Right? That is correct. That's the way I read it. And, I'm sure every other district that is in the area and actually in the State of Texas is probably having similar conversations and, I'm sure they're coming up with questions
about the things we're talking about before the bell and after the bell and on trips and penalties. Do you know, do we have any information at this early stage about what any other districts are doing with this policy? Yes. Yes, we I have a set of FAQs from another district that we met with last week, at a legislative update and then I've spoken to a couple of others and just said, hey, what is your response going to be and how are you guys implementing this? So on the penalty subject, since a speaker did come up with it, I'd be curious to know what, you know,
what are other districts doing as far as penalties go? Very similar. The $15 fine, that's been in that's been in that's been in legislation for many years, that they cap a $15 fine. And so, very normal to have that. Very typical to have a first offense picked up by a student at the end of the day, and then parents subsequent offenses have them pick up from there. As far as the escalation of additional discipline consequences, some have escalated a little bit quicker, but it's hard to go, second, third offense. We're looking at multiple days of suspension. We don't wanna take kids out of the instructional environment. But, you know,
very, very similar to what we have. I know I visited with a neighboring district, and, they talked about around the fifth to sixth offense, they started considering things like, DAEP. They said Closer, really around seventh or eighth is when they actually went that route and, but again, also very similar to what we have, looking at things like Friday night school, you know, looking at days of ISS and then eventually escalating to something like out of school suspension or DAP when we get into six, seven, eight offenses. One last question, relative to the end of the school day, when the last bell rings and I assume students can use their phones.
I know lots of parents will have questions about coordinating with their kid, where they pick them up and what time they pick them up and what after school activities that they have. So literally when the bell rings they can use it or they have to be outside the school property or what like what happens at the end of the school day? My thought would be is that we would want them to go ahead and exit the building, and then they could make those arrangements outside of the building. They're also similar to talking about extracurricular activities. You'd have to figure out what is considered, you know, directly before or after school.
If we're talking about a basketball game at 7PM, in, you know, Carroll High School or something, are we then going to come around and try to take up phones because they've pulled a phone out of the basketball game? Well, I think that that wouldn't make a lot of sense. But I think directly before, directly after school, in the building, like a a student sitting in the cafeteria, breakfast before first bell, those things I think we would police. But if the bell rings and I'm headed out to the, to the pickup line, I'm trying to figure out my mom and and dad are, I would think at that point we would consider them to be outside of the
building, use your phone, call mom, figure out, you know, if they're in the line yet or if sister's picking you up, all of those things. So on that note, dragging you, right, we now have an after school program where kids are there until 05:00, and they might have practices. So that's in the building. Right? It's after the bell rings so they can After instructional hours. Yeah. I mean, it's supposed to be for the instructional day. It says begins at the first instructional period and ends at the last instructional period. I think I mean, those are our guidelines, and I know we're gonna carry that onto the bus. But other than that,
I mean, yeah. I mean, kids are gonna have to tell talk to their parents, and school is over by the last bell. So And again, I think the lift at the elementary level is gonna be easier because a lot of kids don't have phones yet and and they're not conditioned to to using their phone all the time. At the secondary level, I mean, just think, all the adults in this room are watching online. How often do you pick up your phone during the day? Quite a bit. And our kids, especially at the high school level, they're conditioned to it too. So Well, the middle school runs such a tight ship. I mean, they do beginning to end and,
you know, they may have a few infractions, but then it gets shut down, so it just has to just keep hearing. On. Yes. So, it's I mean, again, it's going to take time to condition kids to this. And I think we're going to have to show a little grace and a little common sense as we apply it. So, fortunately, we're in a district where we have great kids, compliant kids. And so, we're going to get through it. All right. Anything else for Mr. Nickel? Lucky you Mr. Nickel this year. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Nickel. Appreciate it. All right. Moving on to Item 8.3, consider local board policy declining to grant non enrolled students the opportunity to participate in
UIL activities. I know coach Dodge isn't here. Is it you again, mister Mills? Yes, sir. Okay. This is, in response to senate bill four zero one, which talking about homeschool students that are within the boundaries and, whether they are allowed to participate in UIL activities or not. Coach Dodge wanted to be here. He was not able to be here. He's not coaching school. But I asked him if there were any things that he wanted to share. And so he, he kinda outlined something. He said, we're in process of determining whether this initiative would be advantageous for the school district. As part of our due diligence, I'll be reaching out to other school districts and athletic directors to gain insight into
the approaches that they are considering. At this time, our priority is to gather comprehensive information to inform our decision making. It's our understanding that under UIL guidance that if we choose not to opt in while a nearby district does, that a student may be permitted to transfer to the nearest ISD that allows homeschool participation. That was what he had that he wanted me to share with you guys. And I would just say this is, this is not something this board hasn't discussed or visited before. It came up last legislative session last time. It was an opt in. This time, it's an opt out.
So every district in the state of Texas, you don't have to take any action at all and homeschool students will be allowed to participate in athletic activities. The district receives a $1,500 per sport stipend, every time a kid jumps into an activity. So if you have a homeschool kid that plays three sports, you're going to get $1,500 three times over. And so from a monetary standpoint, there's an opportunity for a little bit of a financial gain. There's also the potential that if you feel like families may leave your district to go to homeschool, they're only here for athletics or an extracurricular activity,
then that comes into play as well. But keep in mind, this time it is not an opt in to the program. It is everybody in the state of Texas is in and you have to vote to opt out of the program. Doctor. Lynn, thank you, mister Nickel. Couple of questions. Obviously, we're not gonna take action on this, tonight. We may take action on it at one of our meetings, in August. But is there only one shot at opting out, or, right, opting out? So if we decide that, we we're gonna do nothing, so we're automatically in and it turns out to be a complete disaster,
next year, can we vote to opt out, of the program? Yes. My understanding is, year over year, the district can make the decision. Okay. So but you're committed to to a year every year. Year you're committed. Okay. What about, other districts? I know Keller opted in last year. I've reached out to the president of Grapevine Colleyville, board. I haven't received a response yet. I'm not sure exactly where they are on it. Do you know of any other Northwest, any other neighboring Coppell, schools that have already opted in or that are planning to, opt out or not opt out?
I don't have that information. I that's something we'll work on gathering. Okay. Is that what coach Dodge is going to? He is a coaching school now and I think he's planning on talking with great Bonnie. He's planning on talking with Keller, easy to speak, Northwest, those schools that surround us. I think kind of the, canary in the coal mine if you will for us has always been Weatherford ISD because they're a similar size district. Again, they're a little bit outside of the metroplex, but relatively the same size one high school town and they started two years ago. I think if you were to talk to their superintendent, he would tell you that it the needle really hasn't moved much.
You're not talking about a significant number of kids, probably less than 50 kids in all activities. So that's not 50 kids in football, that's 50 kids that maybe in the chess club, in band, in choir, in an athletic competition. And I talked to the Keller board president, and he said there's absolutely no impact, to to his district, and they opted in, last year. I I I I don't see any, honestly, I don't see any issue with it if we can opt out at the end
of each year. I mean, because, if we if we do nothing and we see how it goes, and there's absolutely no impact, What why would we choose to opt out? And here's the other question I have is that, it let's just say Grapevine Colleyville is an opt out, and we choose to continue and opt in. Our students in the Grapevine Colleyville school district, do we automatically have to accept any homeschool student in that area that wants to participate in one of our extracurricular activities?
I do not know that. No. That that's a good that's a good question. I mean, we Is it only Southlake, within CISD homeschoolers or So do we have an option to say no? Yeah. So I know criteria we don't I know the districts have the option. So homeschool students, if let's say for example, we'll stay with Grapevine. If Grapevine says that they're not going to let them participate, they can go to the district that is, closest that is, allowing homeschool students to to participate and and they're eligible. So so the UIL can't get involved and say But it's not automatic.
I mean, I put criteria I don't think it's automatic that we have to take it. Okay. Can we can we get that before we take action on this and whenever we put it on the And and and president Bryant, to your point, is it just homeschool? Because what what if a a student is at a private school It said home it specifically said homeschool, correct? Oh, so you're not not enrolled, and and so I think that that would be applying to homeschool. And and it's my understanding they have to be enrolled and homeschool at the start of the year. So they can't come to school and then decide,
oh, in October, I would like to be homeschooled and then participate in the UI. They have to they have to start. Correct? They have to be enrolled in homeschool at the start of the school year. That's a great point. And it goes both ways. So students can't be half way through the football season and realize, oh, my gosh. I'm not passing my classes. I'm gonna I'm gonna withdraw and become a homeschool student. So you're not allowed to do that. You have to be a homeschool student at the beginning of the school year, to be honest. And also, our kids that are homeschooled that want to try to participate, they have to try out just like everyone else.
Correct? It's not an automatic end. They have to try out and make the team. Pay the fees, all that. Right? I don't know. What's our what's the first day? August 14 is our first day? August 12. Twelfth. August 12. So, if we were to do this to be fair to any of the homeschool families, we would have to make a decision at our next board meeting on August 4. Right? Okay. I think my concern was more around, like, UIL guidelines and rules and making sure that we were, you know, staying within those lines because they can only participate in a sport for so many hours. So if you have Southlake's very competitive.
I mean, my own eight year old is doing three hours of sports tomorrow. So, you know, I can only imagine some of these homeschool kids are spending a lot of time with private trainers and residencies and all of these things. And I just wanna make sure that if they're allowed to focus that much on sports and do this, like, online school, that that's not they're not gonna put our programs at risk for being disqualified from UIL because we have kids doing that. So however, we're we need to monitor that, make sure that there's accountability on that piece. I don't that's that's my concern. Mr.
Nickel and or Doctor. Glenn, I'm concerned about funding and I think you just made a statement and I just want to clarify it. So if we had homeschoolers that were not enrolled in the district that decided to participate in UIL sports, you're saying that there would be some funding that comes along with that. And I think you said $1,500 Per sport the child decides to engage. So I know in the past when we've talked about this before, that wasn't available and I'm glad to hear that it is. So that solves part of the equation.
The other probably larger part of the equation and may be a possible reason answer to the President's question is, if we have students that are currently enrolled and they participate in UIL Sports and they decide to unenroll and let's say go online school, which is considered homeschool, do we lose their basic allotment if they unenroll? And that amount is in the neighborhood of 50 to 60, what's our basic allotment at now?
I mean, we're close to about average of about 8,000 students. So, yes, and it may be a small number and I'm glad to hear that we can decide each year depending on the impact. But it is possible that we could have some number of students who are currently enrolled and we currently get to keep the funding for that they unenroll, go online to school and we lose that funding. And we're losing students already. So it could have a funding impact on our district if we do this. That is a possibility. So you're saying if so they don't have to pay upfront the fee or we
don't get a reimburse we get reimbursement at the end of the year? Different group. No. He's saying he's saying if a a current CISD student let's say we have a student that that attends school and their sole purpose is like I am I am here to be in band and, and then this comes comes available and the parents say, well, if we can just focus on band all the time, we'll homeschool and just withdraw them. And so we'll lose that basic allotment fund. So I can't imagine that being that. That's the most fun thing. Each year whether that happened,
but it could happen in large numbers. And you just said that it's not happening, I guess, in Kelly. In Kelly. But again, they would have to make that decision by August 12. They couldn't just They couldn't get in September and say, hey, I want to pull out. I mean, so if they do that they're not going to be eligible. There's one other question that I'm curious about. I know all UIL rules that are currently required would have to be followed. And I noticed in the law something about if a homeschool family wanted to enroll
their kids, they would have to pass some kind of standardized test and I wasn't clear on what that standardized test was. Do you know Mr. Nickel? I do not. Okay. I I'd like to hear more about that in the future because I don't even know what that standardized test is. You're saying if they're wanting to just enroll in school in in general? For well, not enroll in school, but for You're just trying to evaluate in US. While staying at Gina can probably speak to this. I'm sure when a homeschool student comes in, we have some sort of grade level equivalency if they come in without the appropriate documentation of coursework.
So there's already a standardized test that's required? I don't know that it's a standardized test, but yes, we want to make sure that we'll bring that on grade level. So, Gina, you wanna speak to that? There are certain assessments that we that we provide for the student to make sure that they are at the grade level that they need to be. So if a ninth grader is coming in and they wanna take geometry, we just wanna make sure that they're when we stick them or probably be, like, advanced. If they wanna be, like, advanced algebra before we stick them in there, we're gonna wanna make sure that they're gonna be successful in there.
Correct? Right. That'd be the right way of saying it. And we look at them for the accredited schools, it's a little bit different. We have a little bit more flexibility. But when you come from other areas, we just wanna make sure that we're setting our students up for success. So, Ms. Petty, it's the same test whether a person a person is transferring from another district and moving here and living here as it is for a home school student. Either way, you have Yes. They have to take a a a what is it, a competency test or something? It it could depend on what it is. It could be a end of the year final exam.
It could be something along those lines. Again, depending upon the grade level. At the elementary level, it would be, you know, we could look at our, amplify we could look at our dibbles, we could look at our circles, we could look at that kind of stuff. As we look up in the secondary levels, we do tend to look either at CBEs or taking final exams or those kind of assessments. But if it is an accredited homeschool program, a lot of times that can be waived through an accredited program. That was that was what I was gonna comment to is you you said if they move in from somewhere else, that's dependent upon, you know,
again, if they were in another, accredited school or something, we would take the transcript and we would apply it or we would, you know, put them in the appropriate grade level. But when we have those, unaccredited situations or, there are times we have students come in from out of country and we have to do some sort of placement exam. So can we just because some of this came up during all the voucher conversations with the state legislator. And I don't think that if they participate in our band program that we're gonna be administering a standardized test. It's just saying whether they participate in a homeschool program that does some of that.
When it came to a lot of the voucher conversation, it was the homeschool students would get that money should they participate in a program that already had these tests. And if they didn't or didn't want to, then they didn't have to take the dollars or, you know, they couldn't they weren't eligible to take the dollars. So I think it'd be the same. Those same programs would be who would be eligible for our It's it's covered under two f, and it it lists the, two f of 33 dot o eight thirty two. Paragraph two f lists the specific requirements and the tests that are accepted.
So the important item for me is whether or not we can set criteria to accept those, that apply, to participate in a UIL program. Because, in my opinion, if you don't live within CISD and pay property taxes, you don't get to participate in our programs. If and if we can state that simple rule that if that can happen, then that would kinda clear the way for me to start thinking about, yeah, let's just try it out for a year and see how it see how it goes. But can you get that information for me to talk about?
I think I think president Brian I'm I'm just reading the law right here, and it says that, they have to they're required to establish minimum proof of residency acceptable to the district in the same manner as an applicant to attend the school in the district would. So to your point, right? So if we don't have an open enrollment policy, we don't accept transfers from a certain That's what it says. Then we don't have to accept someone that wants to attend the school. I got you. Okay. And we can have those criteria reviewed and bring you guys a model policy by
August 4, correct? Okay. And then just clarifying that we can opt in or out every year. I think we just need to be confident. I think we'll clarify that sooner. Yes. We'll make sure that that's in the policy where it's understood by the community. The Board will review it every August. One thing, just looking at my calendar, and I'm glad, President Bryan just looked at the first date of school to think about when we should take action on this. And I know it's not for an action item tonight. But ban does start the last week, if not next week or this week. I think it started this week.
I just think it's fair to the homeschool students in the district, if we do vote to give this a try, like you said, for this first year, is that when we're possibly looking to renew, we think about all of the programs, these UIL programs that start. And so we just don't handicap, right? So we might be saying, okay, right, in a couple of weeks we're good. We may be missing we're definitely missing band start a band and we may be missing the first week of football. Yes. So just let's I think make this decision maybe guys in June of every year
just to be fair to parents and to students. I agree. All right. Anything else for Mr. Nickel? Okay. Thank you, sir. All right. Moving on to 8.4, consider updates to the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six grading guidelines. Ms. Petty? Good evening, Doctor. Glenn, President Bryan, trustees. I am here tonight to bring to you the grading guidelines. It is board policy that we have a grading policy in place. This year, our grading guidelines have very few changes to them. Last year, we implemented a loosely structured homework policy for our elementary,
grades. Our teachers looked at it. Our principals, were part of the decision making in that. We went through the year. We decided that we needed to make some adjustments. So those adjustments are in the grading guidelines that you see before you. We also had some ESL updates that we needed to make to be in compliant with with the regulations as that were set for ESL kids. So those are our only two additions to the grading guidelines. This is for information only tonight. Do you have any questions? Thanks, miss Peggy. Alright.
That's quick. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Moving on to 8.5, consider draft twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven school year calendar. Miss Petty, you're up. Alright. We are bringing to you tonight the 2627 school year calendar. Every year, we have parents who are trying to plan ahead. And as they're looking to try to make vacation plans and when they're gonna do things like this, we have been asked to prepare a two year calendar. So we already have our clearly, we already have our school year calendar for this coming year, but we are proposing one for the following year as well.
This will give parents ample opportunity to know when school starts, when our holidays are, and that they can plan accordingly. So moving forward, are we going to so after or during the 2627, are we gonna make, a board decision to approve two years at once? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes. Alright. So and, again, this is this is only, this is only for information tonight. Yeah. The calendar that you look at is very similar to the calendar we have now. Yeah. The the only reason there could be a change is something happens in a legislative session. No. I think that's wise,
for us to be doing that in advance because it allows parents to to plan, obviously. Yes. Questions for us, Patty? No? Alright. Thank you. Alright. Moving on to our, item number nine, our discussion and action portion of the agenda. Item 9.1, consider approval of amendment to 25, 26 stipend schedule. Did we wanna move that? Or we're going to continue with this? We can hold that until August 4. Yes. What? Yes. I move to postpone any action on this item until further meetings. Second.
Motion and second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries six-zero. Thank you, Ms. Kivettoe for your excellent presentation. All right. Item 9.2, consider approval of the NWEA measures of academic progress MAP, growth and professional learning for CISD. Miss Petty. Thank you. I am here tonight to seek approval for our NWEA MAP, resource that we would like to to be able to adopt for this next coming school year. As you are aware, we are looking at entering into the teacher incentive allotment program.
As part of that program, we do need to have, there's there's two components to it. There's a teacher observation and there is a student growth measure. On on Wednesday of this week, all of our principals will be participating in a region all of our principals and assistant principals will be participating in a region 11 calibration for t test, day. So we will all be getting together. We will all go through the process. This is very important when you're entering into TIE because you wanna make sure that every district I mean, every campus is evaluating similarly.
The second component to that is the student growth measure. As I stated last, at our last meeting, at this point in time, we really do not have a a solid we do at the elementary level a solid student growth measure, but as we move into the secondary grades, we do not. One really great thing about MAP is that as we move into this, it will help our students. We will be able to have targeted specific instruction for our students. It is a beginning, middle, and end of the year evaluation. As I'm sure you are aware,
this is one of the things that is going to be discussed in this in the special session at doing away with STAR and going to something similar to this. So we would like to bring this because we would like to get our training set up so that we can implement this this year. As we go into TIA, we're gonna have our data already ready. We'll have our calibrations for our t test already ready. We will be set to go whenever we're ready to start the TIA process. I did bring someone with me. I brought Tracy Gibson with me tonight. She is from NWEA. So if you have any specific questions,
she is happy to to answer anything that you have. Alright. Thanks, miss Betty. Questions? A couple of questions. So I love the presentation. I love that it looks like all of this is gonna be used for our staff, on our kids. And it also looked like it was it was going to be able to track to see what their progress could possibly be on STAR if that ends up staying around and on the ACT and the SAT. I wanted to ask, is there a way on these assessments for middle begin or beginning, middle, and end for parents to log in and see their students? Thank you for having me this evening.
At this point in time, there is not a way for parents to log into the platform to see student performance. However, there are ways for the district to share the student's profile with parents. And there's a specific report called the family report that can be sent home. Miss Petty, are we gonna look at being able to do that? Is it upon is it going to be upon parent request? Is it because I know, like, on the elementary level, they call you in, and you do, like, you do your they go over everything with your kids and parent conferences.
We lose that, yeah, when they get older. No. We want to definitely do this. I think I had mentioned before that mister Nickel has has personally used this, and it was based upon the same exact thing that the information was sent home to him so he could help his child as well. So if we're gonna have this data, we need to share the data with everyone. We need to share it with our staff. We need to share it with our parents. So, yes, that would be our intent. And and, of course, I've used it in other districts, Mr. Nico has too. It's it's pretty common, I think, for for teachers to share the the family information with with,
share the family information with with parents. Correct? Yes, sir. And then what would happen at the end of the year? Does the data get removed? Does it does it save? Since I would assume it's all is it all on technology? So is it saved that parents can still look at? Yes. You can go back and look at historical data, and that helps us see how children grow year after year. Okay. And we will keep that? Oh, absolutely. Okay. Okay. So if a student transfers in from another district that uses MAP, does that historical data transfer with them? At this point, no. What typically happens in other districts,
if a district is a MAP user, the records could be shared. They can be printed and shared that way. They're looking at ways to remedy that. Hi. A couple of questions. One, we've heard from the community for years now, about privacy and student data. Can you tell us that this data, you know, is secure? Yes. We pride ourselves on that. Everything we do is very secure. When we're thinking about the testing experience for students, students would, miss Petty and I need to discuss this, but there's an option to test in a lockdown browser.
Mhmm. When we're looking at privacy for students, we take that into consideration. Everything is very secure. We have a very, good record at NWEA for honoring that. There's a belief that some of college entrance exams sell data. That's why oftentimes if we had any of our kids that are, you know, going to college, they're getting data dumped and it seems like they have an understanding of just exactly the academic proneness of students. Does this data go to anybody, especially talking about you know,
people that are in nine through 12? Is this data sold? No, sir. It's not. Okay. Good. Miss Petty, you and I, we've talked about this for four years and that is we have been untethering our students from technology. Correct. So one of the big issues that this board has talked about in regarding to STAAR is that the state, it's an unfunded mandate and that the state says you have to take these state required assessments on a device that's owned by this district. That then puts financial hardship on us. Right. Right? We have talked about it and that is how do we handle that and and
rotate around the the number of owned devices that district has, especially in grades where they don't have devices in one to one. This is another assessment test. So my questions. One, have we thought about the logistics of that because these are tests now that are three times a year. We saw kids that were stressed out, parents that did not like it and that is a third grader who's taking an essay on a device who has very little, if any, typing skills. So I'm going to have a couple of questions here. And then, is there, like STAR,
the opportunity to have a paper option? Okay. When we first started looking at NWEA, we did, bring in our principals and we talked to them about it. We did we ran through a presentation with them to show it. The principals were very excited about it. Their philosophy was it would reduce it would reduce the stress on students because it's just like it's just an assessment. That's all it is. We just wanna know where are you. So it did reduce the stress level as opposed to one test, one day. SARS,
one test, one day. If I bomb this test, I I'm gonna have to go to AI all summer and my summer's gonna be ruined. So by doing this, it is one test, one day. I mean, this is tested over three times during the school year. It shows remediation and and enrichment when we need it. I do believe we can get paper copies. Is that correct? At at this point, we do not have an option for paper copies. Okay. Because each question is adapting based on how the student is performing.
So, for example, if a child answers a question correctly, the next question will become a bit more rigorous. It's dynamically served. I got it. So I just feel that the logistics, because, again, we got into this with our technology team and that was taking devices, right, for different grades. One of the things back to college tests, they allow a student's own device to be used. This could help us because we're we've got a BYOD policy from nine to twelve. Is is that, you know, okay with with, you know, what we're proposing here and that is that it's a student's device laptop nine to
twelve? Yes. That is. And we've discussed that. Whenever we were talking about it with the principals, that was one of the things that they did like, with our elementary levels, you kinda touched upon it a little bit with the typing. We will be implementing the, typing program throughout our elementary schools. Schools, so we are working on those skills. We're trying to filter in, okay, how are we gonna get all of our kids through? How much time are we gonna have on the computer? How are we gonna teach them the basic typing skills? So we do understand that these are issues and concerns that our community has, and we are working on that. Okay. And my last question,
and thank you very much. I'm just thinking of all all the questions that parents have asked me over the years. I don't see necessarily the word TEKS in here. I don't wanna assume, but I would think content is tied to the tiques. Could I get some understanding of that? Absolutely. They it is absolutely tied to the tiques. Would you go ahead? Yes. Absolutely. We can dig in and teachers can explore the different they're called rip bands, and they can see how the ticks are unfolding within each rip band. So they can utilize it as a content explorer. And then within each student profile,
we can explore and dive even deeper to see how students are ready to develop each TEAC. So it breaks it down very, very well. And then my understanding is kids get into the upper grade levels, it does the same thing for ACT and SAT. Is that correct? I don't know that it's a TEAC, but it would be it would be aligned to, let's just say, college board's framework. So it would be aligned to their teaching or their testing, but not necessarily to our state TEACs because those tests aren't aligned. No. I I understand that point.
I'm just saying for for the upper level, when we get outside of of the star tested subjects and and we're talking about MAP testing, what is the correlation with ACT and SAT? Yes. There's a projected proficiency for ACT SAT beginning in fifth grade. Okay. I promised the last question, but this is actually just a bonus question for Ms. Petty. You've heard this, and that is, how parents have said it's so much testing, right, with STAR. And I know in this special session, the legislature could do something with STAR.
I don't know how quickly that would take effect, probably not for another school year, I'd imagine. But do you, knowing you've been here so long, you know how many days STAR takes away from the syllabus. Compare that to MAPS. Is there good news you could tell a parent in terms of, you know, is it less? Even though it's three times, you might say it's it's cumulatively less time than it is for STAR. And we know about the STAR prep time that our district does. We have great scores, but we also pull our kids out of out of the syllabus. So can you speak a little to that?
Yes. These tests take now it depends upon the grade level, but these tests take about forty five minutes as opposed to us closing the school down Okay. For a week. So, it's considerably less. Do you have anything you would like to add to that? Yes. And the beauty with that is research has actually shown that if children take an excessive amount of time, it's not going to result in a better score. And so that's something that's very, important to front load educators and children about. Great. You can testify,
probably next week when they talk about STAR. That's a great point. Thank you. All right. Any further questions? I don't have any questions, but Ms. Petty, thanks for bringing this forward to us. I can't think of a better way to baseline and measure student learning and growth. And it's the most important thing we do here. And I know we've talked about this during strategic planning, so glad to see this come forward. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both for being here. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. All right. Last agenda item, consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor?
Motion carries six-zero. We have some unfinished business to discuss in executive session, so therefore we'll adjourn to executive session in accordance with Texas Government Code 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, five five one dot zero seven six, and 551-0821 at 07:31PM. Alright. Good evening. We'll call this meeting back to order at 07:57PM. We forgot to take action on item 9.2, consider approval of NWEA measures of academic progress MAP, growth and professional learning for CISD.
Can I get a motion? I move to approve the MAP, growth and professional learning for CISD as presented by Ms. Petty. Second. Motion and second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries six to zero. If no objection, we will adjourn this meeting at 07:57PM.