Alright. Good afternoon. We'll call this regular meeting of the Carroll ISD Board of Trustees to order on 10/20/2025 at 5PM. Our first agenda item is executive session. Therefore, we'll adjourn two executive session in accordance with Texas government code five five one dot zero seven one, five five one dot zero seven two, 551074, 551076, and 551-0821 at 5PM. Alright. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone. Yeah. Alright. Good evening, everyone. We will call this meeting back to order at 06:02PM.
Our first agenda item is the opening prayer, pledges of allegiance, a moment of silence. Will you all please rise? Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight thankful for the opportunity to serve our schools, our students, and this incredible community. We ask for your wisdom and guidance as we make decisions that affect so many lives and futures. Lord, we lift up the upcoming special election for Place three on our school board. We pray that every voter would approach this election with thoughtful reflection, seeking what is best for our students and our district.
As our community considers the VATRE, may our hearts and minds be guided by understanding, wisdom, and a sincere desire to support the continued excellence of Carroll ISD. We also pray for doctor Glenn as he prepares and presents the state of the district on Wednesday night. Grant him clarity, confidence, and inspiration as he shares the story of our district and the challenges we face, the progress that we've made, and the vision ahead. May his words unite and encourage all who hear them.
Father, we thank you for our teachers, staff, and substitutes of the month for their dedication, patience, and love of our students. Bless them with renewed energy and joy in their work, knowing that their efforts make a lasting difference in young lives every single day. Be present in this meeting, Lord. Help us to listen with open hearts, speak with respect, and lead with integrity. May everything we do bring honor to you and serve the greater good of this district and community we are blessed to call home.
It's in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all. Honor honor the Texas flag. And now it's time for the moment of silence. You may be seated. Thank you, students. We will move on to, item number four, which are recognitions tonight. Item 4.1 is our recognizing our National Merit semifinalist students, miss Lewis.
Good evening, Doctor. Glenn, President Bryan, and Board of Trustees. It is with great pride and pleasure that I stand before you tonight to recognize a truly outstanding achievement by our students. Those in our senior class who have been named as National Merit semifinalists this year. The National Merit Scholarship Program began in 1955. Over the decades, it has grown into one of the most respected academic competitions and scholarship recognition programs in the country. These young men and women have distinguished themselves not only by exceptional test performance, but by consistent dedication to learning.
Their accomplishment is a reflection of hard work, perseverance, and the support of families, teachers, and the district. To become a National Merit semifinalist is no small feat. Each year, more than 1,500,000 high school juniors across tens of thousands of schools enter the competition when they take the PSAT, a National Merit Scholarship qualifying test. Fewer than 1% of all test takers advance to semifinalist status, and this year, CISD is excited to celebrate 32 in total. Wow. You can cry.
Yeah. You can cry. Our students are among the very best in the nation. They've earned recognition in a highly competitive, multistage process that values academic excellence and future potential. For our school community, having 32 semifinalists this year speaks to the rigor of our academic programs, the effectiveness of our teachers, the commitment of our students, and the supportive environment provided by their families. I'd like to extend a heartfelt thanks to our teachers and counselors who coached and mentored these students, who helped them navigate rigorous coursework,
who encouraged them to pursue honors and advanced classes, and who fostered the habits of inquiry and perseverance that lead to achievement. I'd also like to thank the parents and families for supporting their Dragons, providing time, space, and encouragement, and believing in their potential. As these students move toward the finalist stage and potentially receive scholarships, let us also remember that their journey doesn't end here. The recognition as a semifinalist is a milestone, not the finish line. Many will pursue leadership roles, research, community service,
entrepreneurship, and become lifelong learners. We are confident they will continue to bring distinction to themselves, their family, and our district. Students, as I call your name, please come forward. We're proud of you and we'd like to celebrate you for this accomplishment. Arav Agarwal. Zoha Askari, Carissa Chandra, Benjamin Conley. Veer Dave. Nita Dutta. Marley Fraser. Penelope Garrick. Abigail Grahl, Joel Hansen, Brian Heath. Hassan Khan. Ryan Koehler.
Gavin Lee. Justin Lim. Aditi Naganuri. Danielle Neff, Isaac Niu, Thomas Pask Van. Isha Panoff. Maile Reinke. Eric Revell. Jibran Saleem. Akhil Sanapalavinkata. Arob Sharma, Nandita Shetty, Gavin Strange, Abhishek Tiaghi, Nahitha Verapalli, Natalie Wang, Alright. Congratulations, Susan. Let's get a pick. Yeah. I will I'll stand on the table. Amy. Okay. They're tolerant messages. I know. I know. This is a tall class. What?
Okay. Firstly, sorry. I don't care. Why are you going down? It's a big night. Big night. So if they so, like, because we really got a one moment. So, like, if they come back if they come back, they'll take them back every, like, three years in a row, they have to do the thing, which is kinda cool. There's a theme here. So while people are, exiting the boardroom, can I just say that this is the third year in a row that Carroll ISD had the most per capita semi National Merit semifinalist in the entire state of
Texas? Is that incredible? Super proud of these guys. Alright. Next agenda item is, item 4.2. We are, recognizing our campuses at Alunst, our two intermediate campuses, Durham and Eubanks. Take it away, miss Scheller, miss Wheeler. Good evening, doctor Glenn, president Bryan, and board of trustees. Miss Shetler and I are excited to be here and more excited to be together to unite, the intermediates. We've had a lot of fun working together over the past month to be able to create a video for you guys to kinda give you a day in the life of an intermediate school student. And so we're really excited for our kiddos to kinda showcase what they get to
do day in and day out on both of our campuses. But before that, we have some amazing leaders that represent DIS Ambassadors and Eubanks Student Council to tell you a little bit about their favorite things from our campuses. Hi. My name's Lola Lemons, and I'm a sixth grader at Durham Intermediate. One thing I like about the ambassadors program is that we get to be a voice for the student mind. My name's Eloise Salon, and my favorite activity at school is the new playground, and definitely the shade they put over it. Hi. My name is Libby Faith Perkins. I'm a sixth grader at Durham Intermediate.
And my favorite part about Durham is the passing periods, where we get to mingle with our friends and, like, kind of have some more freedom than we did in elementary school. Awesome. Hi. My name is Akshaya Mohan. I'm a sixth grader at Eubanks Intermediate School, and my favorite thing about Eubanks is its positive and fun environment. My name's Alaina Neff, and I'm a sixth grader at Durham Intermediate School. And my favorite thing is, My favorite thing is the Chick fil A that we get everywhere. That's a good one. That's a good one. That was worth the wait. Hello. My name's Emily, and I'm a sixth grader at Eubanks.
My favorite part about Eubanks is the welcoming teachers there. My name is Lily Corley. I'm a sixth grader at Durham, and my favorite thing is the teachers and staff. My name is Eva Martinez, and I'm a sixth grader at Eubanks Intermediate School. And my favorite thing is the dress up days and how everyone participates. Hi. My name is Harper Lown, and I'm a sixth grader at Durham Intermediate School. And I love having morning recess so I can see my friends before classes start. My name is Carolyn, and my and I'm a fifth grader at Eubanks. And my favorite thing about school is how short the classes are.
Hi. My name is Annabelle Bolson. I'm a sixth grader, and my favorite part about Durham is the independency that we have and how we get to rotate to different classes and how we get to hang out with our friends a lot more than in elementary school. Hi. My name is Anika Barve, and my favorite thing about Eubanks Intermediate oh, I'm a sixth grader at Eubanks Intermediate, and my favorite thing is how, how good the education is. And if a student is struggling on a subject, they can get help. My name is Parker Wilson. I'm a student at Durham Intermediate School. And my favorite thing about Durham is, if I need help with an assignment,
I can go to tutorials. Hello. I am West Bassenway, and I'm a fifth grader from Middle School. My favorite part is science because yeah. Hi. My name is Bella Longo from Durham, and I'm a sixth grader at Durham Intermediate School. My favorite part of Durham is that we get to have different classes with different people and teachers. Hi. My name is John Shouse. I'm a fifth grader at Eubanks Intermediate, and my favorite part of Eubanks is the new sport court. Welcome to UVA's here. I'm checking out this school. Welcome to miss Wyler Luca's fifth grade class.
Welcome to the spa. Julius is sixth grade classroom. Welcome to the Richardson sixth grade social studies classroom. Welcome to UBank My Gap. We have four square, a log of people just talking. The fox, volleyball, and apple. Durham library. This is our music room. Hey, you guys. What's your favorite school activity? My favorite activity for spirit days, especially in now. My favorite activity is the student staff volleyball game. Hey, Drew. What's your favorite activity at school? One of the guidelines about Durham is that you have more freedom for development for
school. One thing I love about Durham is that we all get to express our creative skills. Keep the dragon tradition alive. We just wanted to thank you all for, allowing us to be here tonight, and then thank you to our students and our staff for helping us put this together. Thank you so much. Thank you, miss Shetler. Thank you, miss Shetler. Is there any way we should get a picture with all the students, okay? Yeah. Miss Shetler, miss Shetler? Yeah. Shavona. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was good. Yeah. I liked how we did it. Yeah. That was great. Alright.
Okay. Always great to see our, students, especially our intermediate school students all together as one. We'll move on now to our, four point item 4.3, 4.4, and 4.5, which is our Inspire Excellence teachers, employee, and Dragon Super substitute of the month sponsored by EECU Credit Union. First up, I think, is miss Williams. Good evening, doctor Glenn, president Bryant, and board of trustees. It is my honor and privilege to introduce October's elementary Inspire Excellence Teacher of the Month, miss Katie Hannan,
a beloved third grade math and science teacher at Johnson. As you know, this recognition celebrates teachers who go above and beyond to inspire dragons, and miss Hannon is a true source of inspiration on on our campus. Katie inspires excellence in her students and among our entire staff with her relentless dedication, contagious energy, and heart for our students. Quite simply, miss Hannon chooses joy every day, and that joy is felt anytime you encounter her. Since joining the Johnson Elementary family in 2020, miss Hannon has become a strong pillar on our campus. She has taught both second and now third grade, and her ability to build strong connections with students and families has made her classroom
a place where every child feels seen, valued, and capable of success. Clearly seen by her posse here today. Her teaching blends structure and creativity in a way that keeps students deeply engaged and just as importantly, deeply loved. You can hear that the heart reflected in the words of the parents who nominated her. Katie Hannon is the kind of teacher who leaves a lasting impact. Having taught our child for both now second and third grade, she has created a classroom environment that is positive, nurturing, and inspiring. Each day, our daughter walks in excited to learn and leaves more confident, not only as a student,
but as a person. Miss Hannon has a very rare gift for making every child feel seen, valued, and capable of everything. Another parent shared, Katie is an exceptional educator who helped build a strong second grade program and has transitioned to third grade because of her leadership and excellence. Even while adjusting to a new grade level, she continues to model perseverance, passion, and qualities that make her truly deserving of recognition as an Inspire Excellence Teacher of the Month. These words perfectly capture who Katie is, a teacher who leads with her heart, lives through her example, and brings out the very best in her students and her colleagues. On a personal level,
it has been such a joy to watch miss Hammond grow as an educator and as a leader on our campus in the last few years. I'm so incredibly proud of the teacher that you are and the leader that you will continue to become. You inspire me, miss Hannon, and you inspire excellence at Johnson. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ms. Williams. Congratulations again, Ms. Hannon. Okay, Ms. Lewis, you're up next. Okay. It is my honor this evening to recognize mister Michael Flores, one of our outstanding teachers at Carroll Senior High School, as this month's Inspire Excellence recipient. Mr.
Flores has been a Dragon since 2013 and during that time he has built a remarkable reputation for his unwavering commitment to students. He was nominated by multiple parents who have witnessed firsthand the powerful impact he has had on their children's confidence and enthusiasm for learning. One parent wrote, I am nominating mister Flores for the Inspire Excellence Award because he has brought back my son's love of learning and excitement for Excellence Award because he has brought back my son's love of learning and excitement for school. Thanks to his dedication and passion for teaching, my 16 year old son is once again feeling proud and confident in his math
skills. It is so heartwarming to see him look forward to math class and feel successful. Mr. Flores comes to school every day with a mission to teach math and to inspire students to enjoy the challenge. That same parent went on to share a specific example. Just this week, my eleventh grade son came home from school excited to tell me about his math grades. Then he said, my teacher is energetic about math. Mister Flores spends time teaching us until we understand our homework. We are so thankful for mister Flores and the time he invests motivating and inspiring his students, even when the material is difficult.
His ability to capture the attention of teenagers is remarkable. The confidence and the love of learning he instills will stay with them far beyond their high school years. During a recent walk through, it was clear what a bright light Mr. Flores is on our campus. Mr. Flores creates a calm, structured, and focused learning environment where students are fully engaged and take ownership of their success. He consistently goes above and beyond. He offers tutorials during his own lunch. He provides detailed and meaningful feedback for students in special programs and approaches each day
with a positive attitude that inspires students and colleagues, and with all of that, remains extremely humble. His approach is nurturing. His willingness to meet students where there are are inspiring. And through one on one guidance and quiet encouragement, it speaks volumes about what kind of person and educator he is. Mr. Flores, your ability to connect with students, spark confidence, and bring joy to learning embodies the heart of Inspire Excellence, but more importantly, a dragon. Your passion not only transforms how students see math,
but how they see themselves. And we wanna congratulate you for being our October Inspire Excellence. Excellence. All right, pretty cool. Up next is our Inspire Excellence employee of the month, Doctor. Davis. Good evening, Doctor. Glenn, President Brian, Board of Trustees. It is my pleasure to celebrate Michelle Capello as the Inspire Excellence employee for October. She is a passionate and dedicated educator who inspires a love of books and reading in every student she meets. Through her creative Library Ninja program, she encourages students to explore, imagine, and develop a lifelong love of reading. Michelle works tirelessly to ensure the library and computer library engaging spaces where students are
excited to learn and grow. In addition to her campus work, she also serves as the district lead librarian, supporting all campuses to ensure libraries are filled with high quality, age appropriate books. A true lifelong learner herself, Michelle continually seeks new ways to make literacy come alive for students and staff alike. Miss Cappello was nominated by a parent and a staff member. A parent described her as amazing with all the kids. Always positive, encouraging, and able to spark a genuine love for books and reading. Her enthusiasm creates a joyful environment where students are excited to learn and grow. And a staff member shared,
as both an elementary and district lead librarian, Michelle's dedication and leadership extends far beyond her own campus. She supports our staff and students across Carroll ISD, often working behind the scenes to ensure success for all. Whether managing technology updates, advocating for improvements, or mentoring colleagues, she embodies excellence and inspires everyone around her. Thank you for Michelle for being our Inspire Excellence employee of the month. Congratulations. Okay. Up next, we have actually two, winners in this category. That's Dragon's super substitute of the month.
First, we'll go with, miss Wheeler. Do you wanna go first? She's not a spotlight person, so this is super fun for me right now. This evening, it is a great honor and my true joy to recognize miss Allison Davis as substitute of the month representing Durham Intermediate School. Miss Davis is an incredible blessing to our campus. She embodies what it means to serve with heart, dedication, and grace. No matter the situation, she's always ready to jump in and help. Whether it's covering a classroom, offering support to a colleague, providing comfort and consistency to our students,
or representing us on our PTO exec board. Missus Davis does it all with a smile, a calm spirit, and a deep love for Durham. This year, miss Davis has gone above and beyond in supporting our fifth graders as they make the transition to intermediate school. She has helped them adjust to new routines, new faces, new expectations, all while making them feel safe, cared for, capable, and loved. Her ability to connect with students and nurture their confidence truly makes a difference every single day. And in fact, when I shared with the student today that miss Davis would be representing us tonight
as substitute of the month, he said, what? She's just a teacher, not a sup. Miss Davis truly is a valued member of our team seen by staff, parents, and kids. She shows up with enthusiasm, professionalism, a servant's heart, and is always focused on what's best for our kids. Her presence brings joy and stability to our Durham family, and we are incredibly thankful for her unwavering commitment to our students and our staff. Please join me in celebrating and expressing our deepest appreciation for miss Allison Davis, our substitute of the month, a shining example of what it means to love,
serve and lead with a Dragon Heart. Okay. Miss Shetler. Alright. I am excited to recognize Angie Hodges as the Dragon Super Sub of the Month for Eubanks for October. Angie has been a reliable and dedicated substitute at Eubanks for the past three years. Our teachers consistently call on her because they know she can handle any classroom with ease. That's a lot. She has excellent classroom management, treats every student just like her own, and always brings a positive attitude to campus. And she goes above and beyond to build relationships with both students and staff, truly making her part of our u being a part of our Ubanks team.
She has even her own little dragons, not so little are they? They're bigger, big dragons I should say, in the district. And truly, Eubanks is just happy to have her. Thank you, Angie, for everything that you do for our students and staff as well as our district. Congratulations, Alright. So much fun. Our next agenda item is item 4.6. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but one of our elementary schools was awarded, the number one elementary school in the state of Texas. And I'm gonna let turn it over miss, or trustee Stacy to, recognize the principal of this,
elementary school. So you're hiding, but do you wanna come on up? Speech. Speech. Other than, you know, my bangs look in the that I truly cannot do it without yeah. And the students in our community. Yep. Well, tonight, our board wants to recognize Carroll Elementary School for being recognized as the number one elementary school in the state of Texas by Money Incorporated, a digital news company. Congratulations to principal Stacy Wagner for garnering such an incredible accolade with which reflects the high standards and achievement that make Carroll ISD such an exemplary district year after year.
The state's elementary schools were all evaluated through multiple criteria, including academic performance, among other important metrics. This designation reflects the strong long term commitment to excellence at Carroll Elementary School and the leadership of principal Wagner. Evaluators called CES one of the state's premier public elementary schools, consistently ranking within the top 1% of all public schools in Texas. In addition, US News and World Report recently ranked Carroll Elementary as the fourth best school in
the state. The, Carroll Elementary maintains a five star rating with School Digger reflecting an exceptional academic performance. Congratulations. Woo hoo. Alright. Congratulations again, miss Wagon, Carroll Elementary School. And can I just remind everybody, every campus, all 11 campuses and Carroll ISD is an a plus rating, through the TEA? So we are quite accomplished in this district, but, to be recognized as the number one, elementary school in the state is just really special. So thank you guys again for all that you do. Alright. Next item is, 4.7,
and that is Carroll Business Academy student team career elite. Miss Morrow? It gets going up here. I just wanna thank doctor Glenn. Mister Madkiff? Yes. I'm giving you the floor. Oh, that was a brain. I'm confused easily. You know, Walt Disney once said the greatest natural resource that we have in this country is the minds of our children. And that lies at the root of everything we do. And we could not be here in as quick of a time as we have without the support of Doctor. Glenn, mister Bryan,
all of the, trustees and the teachers and the administrators, and hopefully I'm not forgetting anybody, but without that backbone we would not be here tonight. And one of the most fun things that I do as the president of Carroll Business Academy boosters is hand out money to our great students. And so here we go. I'm gonna introduce you to my director of operations for Carroll Business Academy, Julie Morrow. So it's all yours. Good evening, doctor Glenn, president Bryant, and the rest of the board members. As Guy said,
my name is Julie Morrow, and I'm the executive director for the Carroll Business Academy boosters. And tonight, we are honored to recognize an outstanding student team. That team is called Career Leap. And Career Leap was a business team formed in Entrepreneurship One in the Carroll Business Academy, and they put together an innovative app. And this app uses virtual reality and other tools to help students discover their career path. And they did such a remarkable job that they were able to pitch at our
pitch fest. And because of their teamwork, their presentation skills, and their innovation, they won the pitch fest and a $3,000 grant from the CBA boosters to further their business and to, continue in entrepreneurship too to take it to wherever they the sky is the limit for them. So without further ado, we're gonna present them with their their grant, and, also, we're gonna hear a brief update from one of the members about what where their business is now and where it's going. So Career Leap members,
Brianna, they're into, Avery Kress. You can come stand right up here. Trenton Beam, and Sadhana Rajesh. Congratulations, guys. Let me tell you what's the update, and then we'll give you your check. First, I'd like to thank you all so much for the support and encouragement you've given us because you've really helped us turn our dreams into a reality. Now for the update, we've created a fully functioning prototype of both our app with the diagnostic tool, helping users understand how their skills, interests, experiences, and goals filter into different careers and then how they can pursue it.
And we're really looking forward to testing this out with Carroll High School students and understanding what other features they would like. And, really, this has just been such an exciting journey so far, and we can't wait to see what comes next. And we even have a little, mascot with us today too. Awesome. Cool. Congratulations, guys. We're so proud of you. Mister Midkiff and, miss Morrow, thank you for your leadership as well. Carroll Business Academy is the flagship business program for Carroll ISD, which makes it the, the top business, organization in the state of Texas in a public school district. And I think these students are a reflection of that.
And, for any parent watching online that is interested in their, student pursuing business opportunities and they want to plug in, you can go to our website and link to your website. And so we certainly encourage students and parents alike to become boosters and join the organization. Yeah. Thank you both very much. Okay. Moving on to Item number five in our agenda is public comments. There are two speakers signed up tonight, so we'll give each speaker three minutes. Ms. Yeltsin, will you please call the first speaker? Our first speaker this evening is Tim Schutz.
Mr. Schutz? Good evening, president Brian, superintendent Glenn, and the rest of the board. I wanna begin thanking miss Lewis for taking the time to meet and discuss the bell to bell phone use policy. I truly appreciate her openness and her recognition of both the administration and teachers need to increase their focus enforcing the state law and our school policy. Now that we're about ten weeks into the school year, I think it's a good point to reflect on how the policy is being applied. While most students are following the rules, there are still many times the enforcement is inconsistent from one classroom to another and
during hall pass time. This policy was not intended to be an open to optional enforcement. It was designed for to create a clear, consistent environment that minimizes distraction and supports learning. Another technology distraction is happening. The students who use iMessage on their MacBooks are effectively texting in class, which undermines the purpose of the no phone use policy. If we can choose if we can close the gap through a combination of policies,
clarity enhancement, teacher support, and reasonable technical measures will go a long way to restoring the focus and fairness of this policy was meant to ensure. I also went want to mention that I've communicated with mister Stewart, who provided some insights on why solving this problem is with MacBooks can be challenging. It I appreciate his perspective and technical realities involved. That said, I do look forward to having additional time to discuss this in-depth because I believe
we can develop some specific guidance for teachers to help reduce the growing work around of phone use. In closing, I wanna emphasize this is not a criticism. It's about consistency, accountability, and support for our teachers. The policy itself is strong. We just need to make sure it's enforced uniformly, adopted today's technology realities. We have an opportunity now to close the gaps so every student can learn without distraction, and every teacher can teach without compromising. Thank you for your time.
Your attention to this issue, if I haven't brought it up often enough, And if you're wondering about my daughter, she loves her MacBook. Thank you. Thank you, mister Sheets. The second and final speaker is Marissa Mahon. Good evening, trustees, President Bryan and Doctor. Glenn. When I read the agenda tonight, I was genuinely excited to see a human resources update and really excited to read the reduction, in contractors. However, the document left me wanting more. As many of you know, I've been inquiring for years about staffing. In the past, I've submitted open records requests to highlight challenges such as the low fill rates for
special education substitutes, an issue that ultimately led to differentiated pay for those roles. And I thank you for that. It's no secret that the substitute challenges we recently experienced across various campuses left many parents feeling uncertain and questioning our procedures around background checks and fidelity checks for substitutes. There were several key areas I was hoping to see addressed in today's report. An organizational chart showing rules and reported reporting lines, especially for administrative positions. A plan to address longstanding vacancies such as
Special education paraprofessionals and bus support staff, and how those gaps are currently being filled with qualified staff or is that burden being placed back on our teachers and campuses. A clear procedure a clear procedure is for recruiting paraprofessionals when an ARD committee identifies a need and how principals are supported in that process. A monthly staffing report as I suggested in the spring detailing resignations, terminations, reallocations, and retirements to increase transparency. Raw data on differentiated fill rates for special education positions to assess the impact of
last year's pay increase so we know how effective it was. Retention data, particularly for historically hard to retain positions. A plan to rebuild parent confidence and the substitute process including fidelity checks on teacher best teaching best practices with data collection. A system to notify parents when classes are combined, which frequently happens at the elementary level, my personal favorite, automatic email notifications per period when a substitute is assigned, including the substitute's name like we do for our library books. In summary,
we are a highly engaged and intelligent community, providing detailed robust information during departmental updates, and making raw data available alongside all future presentations would empower us to be informed partners without having to do the heavy lifting. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to additional information that will allow us to take a deeper dive into these important human resource topics. And while I have thirty one seconds, House Bill fourteen eighty one, I also have seen all of these kids are mirroring their devices right onto their
computer. There are tools that are out there, but we are not currently utilizing them. And so, therefore, our kids are completely accessing their phone in full all of the apps without additional technology being implemented. So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Mahon. All right, moving on to item number six, consideration and possible action on personnel report. Yes, I move that this Board, well, I say that this Board moves and approves the personnel report as presented in Executive Session. Second. The motion is second. Any further discussion? All in favor?
Motion carries five to zero. Thank you, Trustee Yeager. Moving on to item number seven, which is the President's Report. 7.1 is Committee Reports. I know we have a few tonight. Trustee Layton, do you want to start us off? Yeah, I've got two committee reports. On October 7, we had our first for the year Student Health Advisory Committee called SHAC. We had about nine committee members there and four administrators. Ms. Petty walked us through kind of some of the things we've already talked about here tonight. You may not remember, but there were literally 44 new laws passed during the legislative
session. At least six of those we covered in this in the SHAC meeting that had to do with student health. One, I know both of the speakers that just spoke talked about the this cell phone policy. But two others I'll mention that were discussed in SHAC were SB25, it's on physical activity and nutrition. And this law increased the amount of physical activity required at a minimum to thirty minutes per day per student from kindergarten all the way through twelfth grade. One of the other things that it specifically did,
it restricts the use of certain behavioral consequences in schools. Specifically, and this was what the act was called Make Texas Healthy Again. It prohibits school employees from punishing students by taking away their recess or their PE classes. So you can't punish them in that way. They need physical education. And the only other one I'll mention is HB1587. It relates to immunizations. Anyone can decide not to be immunized. They have to fill out a form. There used to be a form in place that you had to have certified and
you had to jump through all kinds of hoops. Those requirements aren't in place anymore. So that is SHAC. And then I'll also give a quick update on we had a DAC meeting on October 7, 21 committee members present, three administrators. Ms. Petty briefed everyone on the academic dishonesty policy, which has three levels of offense, which as you can imagine if you get caught cheating as a student, you have a zero on the assignment, you cannot retake the test and your parents are notified.
And then it progressively gets worse or more difficult to Level three, which includes a parent conference and ISS time and possible alternative placement. Ms. Petty also kind of went through the teacher incentive allotment process. I know we've had this in place before and it became a little more there's a few more requirements to actually implement it in the coming year or two. And the last thing that we learned about is the LASSO, which is the Learning Acceleration Support Opportunities Grant Program where the school district can get
funding to offer for mentors of Thank you, trustee Landon. Trustee Stacy? Okay. I have a lengthy one too. So, we had our strategic action team meeting for goal one, objective one, and four on October 8. It was a tiny but mighty team, that showed up for that. It's actually bigger than the next one that I'm gonna say, which is great. But doctor Iris was able to give kind of the current state of where we are in our strategic planning. So we're actually in year four. And what's exciting about this is we've actually most everything from from years one to
three have been accomplished. There's one thing that really is probably just gonna have to be put on hold. We're not gonna be able to accomplish it. It's the academic dashboard that we had talked about. But just with funds, that's just not something that we're gonna be able to do right now. One of the things that we really, really need to hone in on for year four is our executive functioning k through 12. And we actually had a a Zoom meeting with a company called Acxiom. And although it was great, it's all digital. It's all online, and we don't even know where to put it, where to fit it into curriculum.
We were thinking about career investigations, but we really wanted to do something with pencil and paper and how that's gonna be added into, our curriculum because it's already so heavy, for our staff. What we did notice is that in the intermediate schools, one intermediate school uses agendas, and one intermediate school doesn't. And so we thought that would be probably a great way to implement some executive functioning as to where everyone has the agenda, and it's pencil and paper, and they can be writing down what they need to do Yep. With their schedules. We also had a CTE update, so we are up to 21 pathways now, with miss Goodman.
So that was super exciting. So we went from five to eight career clusters, which was great. We also are doing some, some AI implemented, to implement some strategic planning around that. We also had some feedback that we switched from Naviance at the high school, and we switched it to School Links. And we've been receiving great feedback that it's more streamlined. It's so much easier to navigate for the staff and for the students, which is great. And then at our spring meeting, we will actually be able to go over our first round of MAC data, which we're super excited about. So that was that was October 8.
And then we turned around the next day on October 9 and had a strategic action team meeting, goal one, objective two. I think I was the only person that was not a staff member that showed up, and we had a great time. Yes. So we got the current state for that too. The main thing is we were talking about GPA. That was something we were gonna be looking at for your four GPA grading policies, but the state has kind of taken that over for us. So, SB eleven ninety one is where TEA has to reimagine policies and student offerings and basically put everyone on a on the weighted scale for GPA.
We have no idea what that's gonna look like, when they're going to do that, how long that's going to take. I think we're kind of we're kind of dreading what that's going to look like, especially for our students. And then we looked at, we're still ongoing with our student pathways, and then, our expectations for student passions. The great thing accomplished, we our district really wanted in strategic planning to have those extra opportunities like foreign languages and orchestra, and we have those. And that's going really great, and those are full. So I think we have lots of great things going on for our students right now. Alright. Thank you,
trustee Stacy. I just wanna mention to you that I know that you've experienced it, trustee Landon, all of us have experienced that, you know, we have some really great committees that have been formed with a combination of staff, and trustees and committee members, and it seems like that we're getting a very low turnout, in our committee meetings with community members. So, I guess I just encourage, if you're signed up for a committee, and if you're in the community that we our expectation is that you show up, and you show up a 100% of the time.
We have tons of community members that didn't get committee assignments, because we just didn't have enough space. And I know there's people out in the community that would love to attend these meetings and contribute. So, if you're listening to this or you're viewing in tonight, you know, messages, we just want, you know, community support, we want community input, and we can't get it if they you don't show up to our meeting. So, from here on, moving forward, we're just going to ask the community to, if you're on a committee, show up. And if you just don't have the time,
call us. Let us know, and we'll find somebody else that can attend these committee, meetings. So thank you, trustee Landon. Thank you, trustee Stacy. We'll move on to, my president's report. I'd like to begin by reminding our community that early voting is now underway. Election day is Tuesday, November 4. On the ballot, voters will see two important items for Carroll ISD, the election for board of trustees place three and proposition a, which is the voter approval tax ratification election or VADRE,
v a t r e. If passed, prop a will generate approximately 4,000,000 in additional annual revenue for our district. These funds will directly support our teachers and staff and help us maintain the high standards our community expects. It's important to note that the board has already adopted a tax rate that is 4¢ lower than last year's rate and below the no new revenue rate. This means the VATRE if approved provides $4,000,000
in additional funding without increasing the rate above what the board has already set. We've also taken proactive steps to ensure our staff are supported. If the, the board has approved a $2,000 stipend for all employees in the district if Prop a passes and we have directed the administration to bring forward new pay schedules in April for all staff groups. Our goal is very clear, to bring everyone to at least 95% of market value which will keep Carroll ISD
competitive with our neighboring districts. If you still have questions or want to learn more, please plan to attend our last two of 18 total, VATRE town halls. They are both being held tomorrow. The first one at 9AM in the fine arts center and the second one at 5PM at Johnson Elementary School. Looking forward to seeing you all there. Also, I want to invite everyone to join us this Wednesday evening at 6PM at the Fine Arts Center for Doctor. Glenn's State of the District presentation.
This is a great opportunity to hear firsthand about the successes, challenges, and future direction of our district. We held our second meeting of the BRAC Tiger II team last week. Our discussions were primarily focused on facility consolidation and potential impacts that would have on the district. While the team is still weighing options, we can say that if facility consolidation becomes the recommendation, it will not, and I'll repeat, it will not be in the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven school year. The next Tiger Team meeting is scheduled for November 18 and we will continue to
provide updates as we get closer to a final recommendation which we expect at our regular board meeting on January 26. Lastly, I'd also like to recognize the Southlake Young Men Service League class of 2027. Vice President Trustee Yeager, Doctor. Glenn and I had the opportunity to speak with them last night at their monthly meeting about the importance of civic duty and giving back to their community. Since their freshman year, this outstanding group of young men has collectively contributed,
and get this, contributed over 2,500 volunteer hours in service to others. We encourage them to make community service not just an activity, but a lifelong habit, one that strengthens both their character and community. As always, thank you for your continued engagement, your trust, and your commitment to our district's continued success. Alright. We'll move on to our superintendent's report item number eight, doctor Glenn. Thank you, trustees. It is a privilege to share a few October highlights and updates this evening as
we move through a busy and exciting fall in Carroll ISD. Let me begin by offering a special congratulations to our athletic director and head Football Coach, Riley Dodge, who recently celebrated his one hundredth career win. It is a tremendous milestone and that testament is not only to his leadership, but also to the hard work and dedication of our student athletes and coaching staff. We are proud to celebrate this achievement with him and the entire Dragon Football program. We also want to recognize and congratulate both our Team Tennis and Water Polo teams,
boys and girls, on their outstanding seasons. These student athletes demonstrated a commitment, perseverance, and excellence throughout the fall and their performances represent the Dragon standard in every sense of the word. We're proud of what they accomplished and how they continue to represent Carroll ISD across the state. Shifting gears to community engagement, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has attended our VATRE Town Halls. Your participation, questions and thoughtful engagement help make our District stronger.
We still have a couple of additional Town Halls as President Bryan said and we encourage anyone who would like more information to attend and take advantage of these final opportunities to learn more and ask questions. Looking ahead, we're very excited about the upcoming State of the District event this Wednesday. It's a significant opportunity for the community to hear directly from our administration and our Board of Trustees about where we're at as a district, where we're headed and the key initiatives that will shape our future. I also want to take a moment to thank our Board of Trustees for their
continued leadership in creating spaces for these conversations to happen. Their commitment to transparency and accessibility through Town Halls, State of the District, regular Board meetings and committee meetings reflects a genuine desire to keep our community informed and engaged. It's through these shared conversations that we grow stronger as a district and continue to meet the high expectations we all share for Carroll ISD. Thank you to everyone who has played a role in helping us maintain the Dragon
Tradition of Excellence, whether it's in the classroom, on the field, or at a town hall meeting, your partnership makes all the difference. Mister President, that's your report for October. Great update, doctor Glenn. Thank you very much. We'll move on to item number nine, which is the information portion of our meeting. 9.1 is update on Child Nutrition Services department donation account. Miss Dodge. Hey there. Good evening, trustees and doctor Glenn. Tonight, I'm here to share with you that we do have a child nutrition donation account, and those funds are directly benefiting the recovering meal cost for supporting the free students
that, that qualify. And that's what the accounts for. Thank you, miss Dodge. And I I I just wanna say, again, I received a call last week, from a community member, and, she was just asking, hey. I know that there are, kids that are possibly suffering or having hardships, and they get their lunch accounts that have expired or in the negative. And she just wanted to know how she could contribute, to those types of accounts. And I said, you know, that's a great, fantastic idea. I called doctor Glenn. He said, you know, we had that in other school districts that I've been in before.
So why can't we just set up a an account where community members can say, I'm gonna donate to this fund, and they know that that money is going to, kids in need, in our district. And we do have those Yes. In our district. So, we're super excited that, doctor Glenn, that you've agreed and, miss Dodge, that you've agreed, to put this on. Do we have any details yet on how that's gonna work? How are we gonna determine, you know, who these children are, you know, that type of thing? So right now, the process is if somebody is in need,
they apply using the application, and then we verify income and that kind of thing. So, those students come through the lunch line, and they're not identified at all. And Right. They're not charged for a plate lunch. Okay. And, so throughout the year, they can accrue some costs on our end. Mhmm. So this donation would help cover those costs. We do have that account as we call it, like, an angel fund account, and it's been established before I even got here. Okay. And so, for example, some of the kids, that leave the district or graduate,
we do have a form online right now that they can transfer to, you know, a sibling, get a refund, or donate. So this past year, we got a lot of donations actually for graduates, and it was very successful. So miss Dodge, if we had a community member out there who wanted to donate to this angel fund Yes. Account to help economically disadvantaged students, how would they make that donation? So they can email me directly if they'd like. That would be the most straightforward way. The other way they could do is fill out the Google form if they'd like. Okay.
So but they can just make a check out right to the district and then the business office would make sure it's donated to that account or designated specifically? Exactly. And we have a a form that we would give them so they have a record of it as well. And then, mister Park, the trustees would accept that as a donation to the account? To make it easier, is there a way to just do, a donate button for that particular just have on our webpage have that particular page just for that and have a donate button and that goes to Anadot account or whatever. Yeah, right. Seems like that would be easier than people writing checks and all that if they
could just go and hit a button, donate and we'd be off and running and I'm assuming that we'd have we're going to have a marketing plan and get the communication out there to our community. No, 100%. You're exactly right. And I know this is something that you've asked for for a while is for something right on the home page whenever you log on and I know that Mr. Park is exploring that where individuals can click a button and make that donation immediately whether it's to the Angel Fund to help students with meals or whether it's to contribute to a specific sport program or academic program or just to give back to
the district and say, hey, we know that the district has needs and we want to make sure that we're you know, providing anywhere there may be a shortfall for our students and staff. How soon can we get this going? Pretty quickly? In a board meeting with all of you sitting here fast. I see Mr. Park over there taking those. I would think I know this has been something that has been passionate for you for a while and so we'll make it a priority to make sure that within the year, this academic year, we, we have that up and running for our community. I think that's awesome to have.
I think it's something that we've needed for a long, long time, and so I appreciate you embracing that. Any questions? Dodge, where is the Google form located? So the Google form I was referring to was when parents are trying to figure out how to get a refund, transfer, or donate. So there's three choices you can make. Is it on the my school bucks app? No. It is on child nutrition Okay. Web page. Okay. Okay. We'll be here. Have to make it clear where it is. You can also, in the search button, say donate, and that's how we've gotten a lot of people. Oh. Oh, that's awesome. Miss Dodge, you talked about, that there was a a fairly large amount of dollars that were donated by a
graduating class. Right? So you got a senior, it's May, you don't need the money, they're leaving the school district. An IOU, that I'd like to have is that, come this spring, we have a specific communication to our seniors, alright, and to the senior parents to say here's your opportunity to pay it forward. Yes. Right? You're you've got a graduating senior, here's your opportunity. So because I don't know that we've ever communicated that before, so here's an opportunity to do that. And it would be kinda fun to see and have sort of a competitive spirit. We're dragons.
Love it. It's how much we can donate, you know, this year versus, you know, going on. Lovely. And I think we get with Jeff Brady in the Communications Department and we can make that happen. Any other questions, comments for Ms. Dodge? Thank you. Thank you so much for doing this. Okay. Moving on, nine point two, update on TEA school security audit. Mister Nickel. Good evening, President Bryan, Doctor. Glenn, and Board of Trustees. I'm here just to present an informational item on the recent, district vulnerability assessment that our district went through. And so, that is a a this is our first time to have have gone through that.
It was a a large undertaking. Previous to October 9, we were asked to submit roughly maybe 50 pieces of documentation, things that they wanna see that we have met the, school safety standards. And so, over the course of, of August, September, we gathered a lot of data showing the different pieces that we have have met that, the TEA requires, submitted those for, for assessment prior to them arriving here. And then on October 9, they brought, four of the agents from the, Texas, Center for School Safety or, I guess, from the Texas Education Agency Office of School Safety and Security.
They have four agents here, and, they did a facility assessment where they're checking doors, gates, checking all of our window film, our AEDs, anything they can related to our facilities, looking at all of our, drill schedules, all of our response to emergencies, and then they also interviewed staff. They talked to administrators, nurses, counselors, teachers, our SROs, and, so it was a very in-depth, assessment, focusing on both our facilities and our, processes. As far as feedback, we're awaiting their official feedback. That's going to come over the upcoming weeks.
But, during the assessment they gave us just some anecdotal response and kind of commended our leadership by our administrators and by our central administration. Could tell that it was very evident that we had a strong posture towards school safety. They found our staff well trained. They were impressed by our communication systems, our electronic systems and those safety pieces we had in place. They committed us on our relationship with our Southlake Police Department and their presence on
our campuses. And then they noted that we had, several systems that were above the state standard. So, they came in and I believe whenever they were on-site, they said there were about 40 pieces that they needed to see or hear about. And, then they had all the things they checked before they got here. And, they said that the things that they were looking for, there were several things that we had well above, the required standard. One of those being an example, the state says that you have to have, one stop the bleed kit per campus, meaning if you had an emergency, you've got to have one of those kits to stop an emergency bleeding situation.
Three years ago, we put one in every single classroom in the district. And so we have multiple areas where the state says this is the standard, but we are well beyond what, what the standard asks for. So they were, very, complimentary of that. Next steps, we're awaiting the feedback from TEA. They're going to give us a list of suggestions, things that are not necessarily required but things they noted that they said you may want to look into. And then any direct findings of, hey, you're doing this but the law says you actually need to do this extra piece. And if there are any of those, we will immediately respond.
There are some things we've already worked with our, maintenance department start, rectifying already. And then we will continue to collaborate with our, district, school safety committee as well as our principals to, to continue to meet those standards and hopefully improve, all of our safety on our campuses. We've already taken some proactive measures, even before the DVA happened. Things that you may note if you are on our campuses at the senior high, and I I give credit to, to miss Lewis. We've made adjustments to our drop off patterns where we are bringing kids into the building from the buses,
to help secure our entrances and, make sure that, our visitors are coming in where our visitors need to come in, our kids are coming in where our kids need to come in, and minimize some of the crossover. We've also recently adjusted some of our gates to again reduce the access to that campus and make sure we're funneling people into, the appropriate, places. At both Carroll High and Carroll Senior High, we recently added some campus security staff. They're helping to monitor our parking areas and, to anybody who might be, again, walking in the parking lots or approaching the building that,
doesn't belong, as well as checking our exterior doors and just to make sure that all those things are are kept secure. And at the senior high, you'll notice, there will be a guard shack there at the front entrance. That's where we want them located again to help, you know, notice anybody who's coming in, who does not belong, and, help make sure they get to the right place and and that, they need to be there. And then, also, another thing that I noted is our our maintenance staff with mister Mooney, they are checking every door of every single campus, once a week. Our principals are already required to do that, and they've been doing that for several years.
Then our maintenance staff divided up the buildings and they go through every building every single week and they adjust it where the building you checked this week is not the building you checked next week. So there's not like a any sort of, I guess, a lackadaisical. They're they're seeing a new building every time and pulling on the doors, looking for anything that may not be, latching appropriately or any gate that they don't like the way that it's, secured. And so I get tickets, daily where they are, seeing things or making adjustments. So those are some proactive measures that we've been taking to, again, not only meet what the state requires but,
go above the standard. Questions? Thank you, mister Newkel. No. I think our parents would appreciate, and I know those that are listening tonight, thank you and your team. I know it takes it's a team effort, to prioritize safety and security on our campuses in our district. It is the number one priority to keep our children safe, when they are on that campus. And passing these, DEA security audits really falls on the heels of the principals. It's the principal's responsibility for making sure that their campuses are safe and secure. And so, because that is so important, I wrote just a brief statement, that I wanna read to our principals.
And that says, on behalf of the board of trustees, we wanna take a moment to commend our principals and campus leaders for making safety and security their top priority. Carroll ISD has successfully passed the last three years of TEA campus security audits on all elementary, intermediate and middle school campuses which is a direct reflection of their leadership and dedication to keeping our students safe. We especially want to thank principals Lewis and Holiday for taking these audits seriously and
for the proactive steps they've taken at Carroll Senior High and Carroll High campuses to strengthen security measures ahead of the upcoming audits. While there is still work to do, it is evident that they are bringing their commitment to prioritizing safety and security to their new campuses and we remain confident that these campuses will pass their security audit this year and in the future years. So, thanks to every single principal, assistant principal, Brian, mister Nickel,
you and your team, facilities crew, you guys have done an outstanding job of of making this our number one priority, which is so, so very important. We just wanna make sure the community understands that their children, when they drop them off every single day, that they are they are safe and they are secure until they come to pick them up in the afternoon. So thank you very much for what you are doing. Thank you. Okay. I'll open it up for questions. Yep. So have we ever been through a DVA before? I mean, it sounds extensive. No, sir. This is a this is a new system. They've piloted it for a few years,
and this is the first, year of it being real. And and so we're we're in our first year of going through this. And, yes, it it was extremely extensive. So so how many schools did they choose to go through this and what was the criteria? Did they share that with us? I know that it's a three year, a three year cycle. And so I I assume that there's a a third that, that were chosen, and I think some of that has been in response again to the schools they wanted to go by and see, and so they selected us as one of those. We yeah. We were contacted last year and had a conversation with the state about some areas
that we could improve upon. And so this DBA was in direct response to Terry as he needed to be addressed here in Carroll. And to President Bryan's point and also to what Mr. Nichols stated, I think that our principals do a good job now with maintenance doing perimeter checks every day, but also our every week, but our principals doing it every day and having a sense of urgency. I think that parents are starting to see and definitely our kids and teachers are starting to embrace that security is our first and foremost,
our top priority as a district. Thank you. It absolutely is number one priority in this district. And like many parents, every time I hear a siren go by, my first thought is to worry. Is my kid okay? Did they make it to school? And when they get to school, I don't have to worry about it because I know they're safe. We've got great security protocols and great security measures, but we can always do better. So I'm sure this audit will help us pass our high school audits and those are challenging situations, so challenging campuses.
Thank you, Trustee Sexton. Any other questions, comments for I do. I just I wanted to take time publicly to thank you, doctor Glenn, because when you came on the scene with your leadership style being 90% on campus, 10% in your office, you just you had perspective and a fresh set of eyes where you were able, with your extensive knowledge being in other districts, to come in and identify gaps, and then just put in, you know, protocols to be put in place to make sure that we're just being very intentional. And so I really appreciate you, taking security very you take it very seriously.
And I know I really appreciate that with my kids being on four different campuses and then, you know, kind of with the with the scare that we had last year with Old Union. I mean, we knew that that campus was safe, But just to know that you were being so intentional with helping our principals really make sure that our kids are protected no matter what campus they're on, I really, really appreciate you doing that. Well, thank you. And I'm and I'm super proud of our principals. They they do a great job. Again, Patrick and Shatina, the sense of urgency they've had this year has been amazing. Brian Nickel with his leadership, TEA was very complimentary of him as he helped guide them through the district.
But it is important. I mean, these intruder audits, while we may think that, you know, it's not a ton of information that comes out from schools because of security related reasons, the truth of the matter is like over 90% of the campuses that are audited pass. And so the expectation for Carroll ISD, it absolutely should be that we pass every time. And our parents know when they send their kids to us they're safe. And I think that if anything comes out of this audit, it is what that auditor told me. It's like when he met with Shatina, he was like,
man, I feel really, really good that that principal understands her role in security and she is expressing that to her staff. And they stopped and visited with teachers and students alike. And the feedback they got was exactly what they were looking for. So we're proud of all of our principals, proud of the leadership of the at the district level because it really does take a team. And it starts with you guys here at the dais who are implementing policy and setting expectations for us. Thank you, Doctor. Glenn. Thank you for pointing that out. Trustee Stacy,
thank you, Mr. Nickel, for what you're doing. We look forward to the report back, whenever that comes. When do we know? Do we have that time? We don't have an exact timeline. I know that they've been actively working on it. They're still in communication with me. And, and one of the biggest things I can say again, I know safety, a lot of times people hear about it when there's a problem. You hear about it when there's a when there's something like what we had at Old Union. But, as somebody who deals with it every day, I could tell you we have a very proactive staff. I don't know, you know, I would say out of a five day week, at least four days out of the week, I'm speaking to our SROs about something,
or our principals our principals daily about either, you know, something that they're seeing, that they're concerned about, or, measures they wanna take, or, hey. We've noticed this speaker in this hallway is not working. If we make an announcement, we can't hear it very well. Like, they're very proactive. And that to me is a thing that you don't always hear, because it's it's always happening in the background. But, yeah, we have a very active, group that takes a posture towards those things. And, it's it's something that, again, is not noticed because it it happens without you knowing about it. And I appreciate while while we we are ultimately responsible to TEA,
I do think the relationship we have with our amazing city and the, Southlake Police Department, them putting an officer on every one of our campuses, an armed officer, absolutely amazing. Yes. Thank you for bringing the SRS up. I forgot about that. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Nickel. Thank you. Okay. Next up, nine point three, Human Resources Department report. Ms. Kibodeau. Good evening, doctor Glenn, president Bryan, board of trustees. I'm excited to, share a little bit about the HR department. We currently have, three employees in HR. We are down one. We have,
Virginia Smith, who is our HR manager. We have Josie Badillo, who is our HR specialist. And we have one vacancy, as an HR specialist which we, have interviewed and we've narrowed that down to three possible candidates and hopefully we'll have someone in place fairly quickly. I've listed here some of the areas, some of the main areas that we're responsible for. I won't take the time to read those to you, but, if you have any questions, let me know. So I know it's a lot of you know, I'm gonna stop you right there because I I think people that,
are watching this and seeing this slide and saying, wait a second. This is a six a district, and we have, three people in our HR department and one's vacant. You know, what what's going on with that? I know that, doctor Glenn, you've been you've talked about that in a few of our town halls, and maybe you can just speak to, you know, our admin staff is really, really thin right now. And, you know, we had to thin out on purpose because of our our finances. But, is this normal, numbers for an HR staff for a six a school? Absolutely not for a six a district. In fact, it's probably the lowest, smallest staff of any five a district in the state of Texas.
And I do speak to this. I know, I appreciate how hard Ms. Kibodeau and her staff work because I know we put a lot on them. We have a lot of departments. We have a small curriculum department, a small technology department. So we've had to is we've had to make cuts in expenditures. The brunt of that has fallen on Central Office. And I think we're incredibly fortunate with Melanie and her team. When you have a small staff, they better have a lot of experience and they better be really good at what they do. And I think Melanie is, as I look back at Gina and the team with her tonight who will speak
in a few minutes, the same for them as well. And so while it is a small team, Melanie's leadership has been instrumental in being able to lead what is a very large district. Thank you, Ms. Gubadeau. Okay. So looking at staffing, we currently have ten eighty five employees, in the district. 680 of those are professional employees, which would include your teachers, counselors, librarians, nurses, and administration. 164 paraprofessionals which include your secretaries, aids, and campus technicians. Two twenty auxiliary employees Those would include your food service workers,
bus drivers, bus aids, custodians, maintenance, and grounds. And, fortunately we've been able to, add the chairs that's the childcare, facility and that is going really well and we currently have 21, staff members dedicated to that. Is that fully staffed? I think we have one aid position open. Oh, little drivers. So we're just pretty much always there. That's great. Great news. She's done a great job of hiring. We do work really hard even with a small staff recommendation for a new hire, we try, to get them processed within forty eight hours or less.
If they have their fingerprints, that's, fairly easy to do. And and no one comes into the district as an employee, substitute, paraprofessional, bus driver, custodian without going through the DPS FBI clearing house for fingerprints. Correct? We require fingerprints and then we run them through the DPS system, which also does the FBI background check, the do not hire registry, the sex offender registry, and, we also require recommendations. I'm assuming that's on par with all the other districts in the state that Every every district in the state,
it is state law. And so, yeah, it was kind of a rhetorical question to Melanie because I knew the answer, but it is, is that DPS clearinghouse is the gold standard of background checks. And not only just and I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think it's just an important point. Not only does it do a background check, but the fingerprints are actually flagged. So if there's ever an employee who there's an issue with, we get notification immediately whenever there's an incident, which I mean, prayerfully, we hope that that never happens. But in reality,
the world the way it exists from time to time it happens. And so it's really a strong safeguard that the State of Texas has put in place to protect students and staff. And by law, we do have when we run them through the DPS system and FBI, we do have to subscribe to them and we have to, stay subscribed to them until they resign from the district. So. Looking at advanced degrees, we currently have 186, staff members with a master's degree and eight with a doctorate.
The average salary, for teachers is $68,125 which is an increase of about $4,000 from last year. And paraprofessionals, slight increase from last year, to $27,857 really proud of this, data. As you can see, I've tracked back for since 2324. And you can see here that we had 35 contract workers that year. Last year, we were able to reduce down to 10. And this year, I'm very happy to report we have one.
And how was that? I mean, how how do we do that and maintain our, standard? Is that just because we've hired, full time FTEs, to replace them? We have been very successful in hiring employees this year. Okay. Our principals and departments have worked really hard to hire employees that are actually employees of CISD and not working through contract numbers. That's great. I I'd actually like to see the numbers at some point. It it's no rush. What our contractors were maybe even five to ten years back, what those numbers look like compared to one that we have today.
So that's excellent work. An increase having been a principal before. There wasn't there has been an increase in the contract area since COVID. We didn't you didn't see that quite as much prior to COVID, you know, just a shortage of teachers. But just having one this year, and that's our visually impairment teacher, and we'll all we'll all have that just because we don't have enough, students, unless for some reason that was to change, that person. I wanted to thank you and your small staff because those of us that have been on the Board for four or five years, we talked a lot about this and it was a huge expense.
And this slide, I mean, it really just tells you how hard you're working because 35 down to 10 down to one. You know, we had one of our two speakers, public speakers who came and talked about staffing. This number right here, that speaker should look at this and say, wow, it has really dramatically increased for the better. So thank you. That's not easy to do in this day and age of trying to retain education staff. Well, and a real shout out to our, like I said, our campus principals and departments too. They worked hard.
They were very intentional to make sure that they did not have to have contract workers this year. So these numbers are incredible. So, I would like to add to that, at the start, when we hiring season kind of starts mid March and, looking at the number of, the average number of applicants per week, it's averaging, it averaged at 58.4 applicants, across the district for that with the positions that we had. Wow. So Per week? Per week. Wow. People wanna be dragons. I mean, that's a that's a good data point to have.
I mean, that's something that we need to, you know, talk about. I mean, 58 applications per week, is pretty good. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. Substitutes, we did see a slight increase from twenty three twenty four to 20 four-twenty five. But what I'd like to point out here is that we have, seen an increase in our fill rate. So, we've increased that by 4%. So, that indicates to me that we do have subs available and that they are picking up that job, which is important. Containing on the expectation of teachers is that they leave,
you know, lesson plans and instruction just carries on just like it was as if the teacher wasn't there. I mean, I I I assume that it just seems like to me a million dollars that we're paying for subs is a lot of money. Is that does that come out of campus budgets or the district budget? It's campus budgets, correct? So we've started really looking at that and trying to clean that up some so that it does come out of, campus General fund. Budgets so that everybody's, really taking a look at that,
and ensuring that we're not just getting subs just, you know If it comes out of the campus budget, the principals who are the they're the administrators on the campus closest to the ground. They're the ones that the teacher is typically having the conversations with about why they're missing schools. So we really want them to help monitor. You know, it just, you know, last year was a trend. We saw some of our staff take a few more personal days. But also keep in mind that we're paying our substitutes more now too. And so as we look at trying to pay a little more than we did
three, four, five years ago, costs are going to escalate when there's more absences, but also whenever you're looking at paying more in salary and benefits. So with the not filled rate, so the 13%, is that covered by teachers and we just shift things around and move kids to it? Yes, sir. Or combined classes. Or combined, yes. And Ms. Kimbrough, there's about 300 of those jobs, if you would, or fills that were increased over the year before. Was there a trend?
I mean, you know, I would think it may be a bad flu season. We had a lot of teachers getting sick, but I don't know that that occurred. Is there any any trend? That is something that, we really wanna start taking a deeper dive in just to kinda see what what is going on Mhmm. And seeing why, we have I do know that one of the things I would like to look at is putting in some blackout days so that teachers can't take off before or after a holiday Mhmm. Without, you know, extenuating circumstances which they would submit to their principal and then would eventually come to
HR for a part time. One other quick question if I may. You mentioned the number of applicants for full time jobs. This chart we have two ninety nine. Last year number of substitutes used three twenty. What's the pool of substitutes? Is that a healthy? Is it a concern of yours? What's We have over 300 active substitutes. Okay. Enough to meet the need? Okay. So, Ms. Kivner, I know, Doctor. Glenn mentioned pay and pay isn't on the screen, but I have to believe your fill rate and your success with substitutes is because
we increased the rate and I don't know how it compares now to other school districts, but are we doing well with our rate of pay for subs? I I think it's still a little low compared to the area. So it's definitely is we've had conversations you all charge the Board with or I'm sorry you all charge the administration with reviewing pay schedules next year for staff substitutes will fall into that category. So when we come back hopefully in April with pay scales, we'll be sure to address substitutes again because we know that that's an area where
we can catch up on. Assuming the VATRE? Assuming ratification, correct. And Ms. Kibbuto, how are we doing this year? 2526? I did not pull that data for tonight. I can definitely pull that and, get that to you. Thank you. Okay, so just some highlights, specific to HR. Proud to say that we have no classroom waivers this year. When we were looking at staffing projections we really, made sure that we were staffing, to ensure that we weren't gonna have to, file waivers. So And that's a huge deal. Right?
I mean, that's a huge deal. And that was a huge deal. We had like a half dozen last year or maybe even more. Yeah, I can close this. Explain, Doctor. Gunn, explain what this is. Yeah. So a classroom waiver is based on the student teacher ratio. And so when we're looking at grades kindergarten through fourth grade, if you go over a 22 to one student teacher ratio, then you have to get a waiver. So you have to get a board approval and then get TEA approval. And so we all know that instruction is related to class size and we want our class sizes to be as small as possible so that we can maximize learning.
And we are proud that we did have probably 10 or more class size waivers last year. And so 12 and the year before that we had, I believe, nine. So 12, yes. So in the last two years, yes, over 20 and to be down to zero. But again, that was something that I know as trustees was important and that we had conversations that, that it was the desire of our Board to make sure that, we weren't applying for waivers this year and, proud of our principals and HR department for hitting the mark. Transportation has gotten creative in an effort to ensure bus routes are covered,
and so we are currently, using some professionals from time to time, after their current their actual role in the school and helping with that, in the afternoon. And so, that's, we started that a couple weeks ago and it's been successful. So, last week marked the first informative meeting with CISD's TIA committee. The discussion was productive and set a foundation for further discussions specific to the TIA. We continue to receive positive feedback from across the district about campus leadership.
Their data connotation continues to make a meaningful impact on both students and staff. Campus and district leaderships provided positive feedback on the streamlined onboarding process for new hires that, we took a deep dive in and we, revamped that whole process and implemented that in April 2025. Yeah. That's good to hear because I know we had talked about that a couple times, how to how to improve that or make that more efficient. So the feedback is that people, they're liking it? Okay. And with, you know, at the during the main part of,
hiring season, we had four people and it even, one of Tracy Bass who'd been here for a while, she was like, this is so much better. That's good to see you back. It's been good. We have been successful in moving, several of our key, HR processes to a digital format, improving turnaround times and reducing paperwork. So many of the things in HR have been a lot of paperwork. So some of those examples we moved our resignation retirement form totally online. Our ESL and DOI addendums are online now.
Our pre employment affidavit, which is a new, TEA revised the pre, affidavit, pre employment affidavit and so we've got that all online and goes directly to the new hires for signature. Our leave request form so anybody that has to be out more than five days they have to fill that out and it comes to it goes to their direct supervisor and then comes to HR for final approval. And then our sick leave bank form for opting in and out of the sick leave bank, that was always done, through a spreadsheet. We're we're just now automating this process.
And I'll say when you have I'm kidding. When you have a small staff like miss Givodeau, you you better get everything digitized fast. And so thank you for your leadership in that. So we're working really hard to get that, all, as much as possible, digitized. One thing about digitizing it, it does allow, all of the any forms that an employee fills out goes straight into Frontline and it automatically goes once we approve it, it goes straight into their personnel file inside Frontline so they can access that at
any time and see their actual personnel documents. And with the eighty ninth legislative session, supported teachers through the teacher retention allotment and also allowed the board to raise our minimum hourly rate to $15 per hour and increase starting pay for bus drivers from $22 to $23 an hour. I heard lots of, positive feedback about that. And then, we are excited, about possibly planning for a one time, stop in of $2,000
for all staff contingent upon the successful ratification of the VADER. And then just moving forward, our initiatives. We want to continue to evaluate pay structures to ensure Carroll ISD remains competitive with surrounding districts ensuring we continue attracting and retaining top talent across all positions. We will continue to streamline HR processes for more efficiency and we're, are going to work closely with curriculum instruction to improve the evaluation process because we
want to make sure that all employees are, receiving positive feedback, areas that they need to, to grow in, so that we can, address those issues if we have any. I would like to take the time to thank Doctor. Glenn, and the board for, your continued support. It is greatly appreciated. Thank you, miss Cabotet. We'll Thank you. We'll make sure that you get more than, two employees. Right? We need to fill that one vacancy. Well, doctor Lynn did approve one last year, and I went to him and I said, I just feel guilty taking one with all the budget cuts, so we'll work with what we've got.
So Well, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for hanging in there, and, hopefully, relief is, headed here soon. So thank you so much. Any quest any other questions for miss Kibeda? Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Moving to 9.4, CISD facilities initiative. Take pride in our facilities. Mister Brady. Good evening. President Bryan, trustees, doctor Glenn, delighted to be here tonight. Jeff Brady, your executive director of communications. Our big audience has somehow evaporated, but we'll we'll push them online. Online. They're all online.
That's right. So I'm delighted. We've got something new to talk about tonight. So we're gonna kinda give a a vision, an overview of a program, a plan, that we hope becomes another tradition here in Carroll ISD. We're calling it CISD Serves, and that refers to a particular day in the spring, but we have a vision for how we might lead up to it and prepare for it. So that's what I wanted to go over very briefly here tonight and then, of course, answer any questions or take suggestions because there's always a way to, improve it. So as you as everyone here knows,
we had some really significant enhancements to some key facilities in Carroll ISD very recently. Probably the most visual was the stadium. It was a very nice paint job added. Some of the signage was replaced and updated at Carroll Stadium. Really gave it a nice fresh look for the beginning of the the fall year and the football season as well as a big, a bright, beautiful electronic scoreboard for anyone who's been to the senior high, gym. They've certainly seen that. So those added a real punch, a real lift to those two facilities. So the question became,
what else can we do? Right? How can we leverage that momentum and do something for each of our campuses? So although these two, facilities look great now, you know, others, maybe not so. We're doing a fantastic job inside the classroom, and that was highlighted tonight, clearly. So but but what is going on outside the building might need a little refresh. Maybe some of these programs or gardens or beds that were initiated beautifully years ago, you know, it's just hard to keep up. So how can we address that? So what we came up with is a campus beautification partnership,
and that's the beauty of this program. It's not being done in isolation. We're doing it together with the community, a collaboration between our facilities, department, PTOs, dads clubs, student service organizations, and students that want service hours, as well as, community sponsors or partners. And what we thought also is it might be a great idea at the first, the first year, the first iteration of this program is just keep it low, keep the bar pretty low, and start with just elementary schools. Just gonna start with the five elementaries and get a win that level and then hopefully expand it in years to come.
So how would this work? Well, it's three phases. We thought we might kinda phase this in. The first phase would be starting this fall, November through February, about four months, And that's when we would try to establish a team for each campus, a collaborative team about six people, maybe someone from the dad's club, someone from the PTO, maybe a a student leader. In fact, at a recent, student leadership conference meeting, we came up, doctor Glenn, really challenged our student leaders to say, why don't you guys step into the role as leaders of these teams?
You take the initiative. You take charge. How awesome would that be to add to your student resume? I led this team for a campus beautification project. So, anyway, during this first four month period, the teams would come up with the ideas. What do we need to do? What's gonna be involved? What would it cost? What does this campus need? And then phase two, that's just a one month period in March, a preliminary, a time to get the preliminary work done. What can we do to prepare for the CISD serves day? Do we need to, pull weeds? Do we need to prepare the curbs for paint?
Do we need to pick up trash? Do we need to buy mulch and rocks? What would that look like? And then this all leads up to, finally oop. Keep hitting the wrong button. Phase three is our CISD serves day. And that is the big day we wanna push toward with a lot of communications and get some momentum in the community toward this one day in the spring in April. There would be two shifts, basically, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. And the the community, the the PTOs, the dad's clubs would all lend a hand and help beautify each campus.
And so, you know, that would be determined what they're gonna do what would they do on each campus? Well, each team would decide. What's this gonna be? What's our project gonna be this year for this campus? Plant flowers in pots, paint the curves, spread river rock in front beds, plant drought resistant shrubs and ground cover. So ideas like that. And then in the future, you know, we're hoping this becomes an annual tradition, somewhat like they do in College Station with the, the big events Big events. Yeah. Where the whole community turns out. Maybe get media coverage, print some t shirts, invite our silver dragons, as they're able to participate if they want to.
So that's what we have so far. That's the basic outline of what this could be. Well, Jeff, I'm excited. I know the, the student leadership council, we did challenge, 40 young leaders, who accepted the challenge to step up and work with our elementary principals to identify projects in the spring and, and kind of kick off this, CISD serves day, which, yeah, I do kind of envision it like the, the big event at Texas A and M. So yeah, that's an awesome reference. Also, you know, I think the challenge extends to maybe kids that are out working on Eagle Scout projects. Yes.
We're a district that would be happy to partner with those kids and provide them opportunities to complete their projects, while helping to beautify our facilities. Right. So we're open to ideas, suggestions from the community, certainly from our trustees as we kinda put this idea together. But we would start here in the fall probably with, you know, putting out an invitation for a team, to be appointed for each campus, and we'll begin there. I think it's a brilliant idea. I'd I'd I appreciate you running with this thing. I mean, a lot of our facilities are twenty plus years old and really haven't been touched
in twenty plus years. And, you know, just like you get up every day and you take a shower and you comb your hair and you make your bed and you clean your room, you know, we we need to take pride, in what we have here at Carroll ISD, and we have a lot. And we need to take care of that. And I think a program like this, really encourages, a whole community to come together, and really make our facilities what they they should be. And that is a place where our students, our staff, our parents want to come to, and feel comfortable in. Many of our students and staff spend more time,
on these campuses than they do at their homes. And so we want them to feel comfortable. We want them to feel proud of where they work, in coming in every day. So, mister Brady, thank you and your team. I I think this is gonna be a great start. I think it sounds, wonderful. We need to start getting that communicated out to our community and, you know, getting some energy behind it. Sure. I think it's really, really, really a good idea for you guys, to come up with. Thank you. Thank you. More to come. Okay. Moving on to, item 9.5, consider 2026, 2027 academic planning guide. Ms.
Petty. I think the whole curriculum team will be taking us home tonight. Next three items. Okay. That's right. Good evening, President Bryan, trustees, doctor Glenn. Thank you for having us here tonight. This is one of our our favorite times to come for board meetings is because today, we get to be here to to show you the, academic planning guide, to go over the grading guidelines, and then to talk about new courses. So it takes a lot to put all this together. So I wanna kinda go over a couple of things, and I have brought all my friends with me to help out because,
truly, this is a huge, huge task. This year, we decided that, we've got a lot of handbooks. And people can't find things because they are looking through all these different handbooks. So we decided to combine the academic planning guide with the grading guidelines handbook. So you're looking at your courses, and then you're finding out it's the what and how type. So, anyway, that sounds like an easy task. It was not an easy task. And I want to thank doctor Irish.
He was the organizer of all of this. He took this on. At first, he was he was a little, like, during the headlight. It's it it was a huge task, but he did a great job with it. And as you look at it tonight, you know, honestly, whenever we did it, we were first we thought we were afraid it was gonna be 200 pages. I think it only turned out to be a 126. So we feel pretty successful about that. Anyway, when you look at the, academic planning guide in the the the courses that we have, I wanna go over a couple of things of how it all comes about. So in August year,
August 25, doctor Iris sent an email out to our principals stating, here's your timeline. These are the deadlines that we're gonna have. This is how we wanna make sure that we get this process going. This is how it's gonna go about. The principals got the email. They then met with their faculty. They went over, alright, let's look at these two books. What courses do we need to reevaluate? Why would we reevaluate them? We would reevaluate them if we haven't had if we've had very low enrollment numbers or if we haven't had anybody take these courses in years. Do we still need to have them in this booklet?
Alright. Then we took a look at we had the prints the the the teachers take a look at their course descriptions. Is this what your course still looks like? This is is this what you want people to see when they're trying to figure out if they want your your course or to take your course or not? And then we had them come up with new courses. And that's the really exciting part of all of this because we've got great opportunities for our students now. But if you've looked at the at the five new courses that we're bringing forth, we've got some great opportunities for our kids. They are very, very fortunate. And I hope that they're gonna enjoy these these courses that we hope to make.
Alright. So in September, John sends it out in August. In September, we do a check. We kinda check where are we. The principals talk to the department chairs and the staff. It comes back to us. After it comes back to us, John organizes the meeting. We get all the principals, all the counselors, all the teams people, everybody. It's in that room. We even have, our assistant superintendent comes in and hangs out with us for a little while while we're in these meetings. We get input from all all sources to say, what do you see? What do you think? Is this can we do this? So some of the things that we first do,
we first looked at courses that we were going to remove. So the first course that we removed was our independent study in GT. We have not had enrollment in that class for the last at least five years. So we're not gonna keep it in there. If we need to bring it back, we will, but at this time we will not be bringing it back. When we looked at our math, we wanna take a look and see, okay, we've got a lot of math opportunities, but what classes are these two students really taking and which ones aren't they? If you look at our, calculate at our pre cal numbers, I think it was about three years ago,
college board created the AP, precalculus course. Ever since that course was created, it has been filled. So we no longer after talking with the principals and looking at our enrollment numbers, we no longer need the advanced precalculus class. We need more AP classes. We need to make sure AP precalc classes. We need our teachers to teach those classes. We have a huge demand. When we look at our fine arts classes, we combine those classes in with our with other classes so that we would make sure that everybody's needs are being included.
For our CTE, our animation classes, again, no one has entered those classes for the last three years have have enrolled. So we got rid of those. The other classes that you see listed, the principles of business marketing and finance aid, the principles of human services aid, child development aid, dollars and cents aid, lifetime nutrition and wellness aid. We have, we have combined those courses as well. We feel like we can do a better job of meeting all the needs of our students by combining these courses. Alright. Now, we're gonna talk a little bit about the courses that we want to add. Alright. Because we've removed some,
now we can add some. Right now, we, have an we have a very popular advanced journalism program and it wants to continue to grow. So we are asking to add advanced journalism two, newspaper, advanced journalism three, newspaper. We do currently have the staff that can that will continue to carry that. There would be no cost in that. She would just continue to grow that program. In our CTE program, we have got some great opportunities for our students. And I have brought Kim Goodman, and I'm gonna have her give you a brief overview of the courses that are
available. Hello. Alright. Yes. We are very excited. I know one of the questions that y'all y'all are probably looking at when you look at these courses is that why is college board getting into the CTE world? Because they're AP business, AP cybersecurity, and then we're looking also at AT net networking, in the next year. But this is what the reasons they are. They're saying that they are looking to industry professionals. They're looking at data that's coming in through workforce, commissions in all 50 states, and they're seeing that there is a higher demand for those much more rigorous courses.
And it's money too. Right? College board's gonna make some money on these tests, but they do understand that they are providing a more of a standardized, and strengthening curriculum when they get into the ball field with us as well. And, we're seeing the request from our students that they're also wanting that. So not just in the core curriculum, they're also wanting to see what can we provide them, in the CTE world. Two of the courses, so AP business with personal finance is going to be one of the ones that we are recommending, for approval for the 2627 school year,
and then the AP cybersecurity. And just some of the reasons that why we look at it for us as Carroll is that we do look at that labor information just especially for North Texas. We have seen some data that shows that a lot of our graduates, even though they may go far away for college, they are still coming back here to the home area, back to North Texas. And so they look at what those labor, requirements are. We are showing right now just in how we did our research in trying to decide if we wanted these courses,
that 33% increase in just the North Texas area of information security jobs are going to be, every single year, compounding every year. We're looking at AI and all the different cybersecurity and just the networking, what that looks like for just the equipment that's gonna go into that. So we think that AI is just in a cloud somewhere, but, really, it's running by machines as well too. And it's still gonna take employees to be able to work in that area. So it's really not that, like, it's going to eliminate any jobs in that area.
We wanna make sure that we are looking at those industry certifications, and that's what AP can help us provide as well. Not only are they you gonna have the opportunity to get that college credit with an AP course, you're gonna get those industry certifications. And so those are the two classes. We have already been piloting these classes in our independent fourth year practicum and independent study computer science classes. And so our students have been taking a pilot test, and then they're getting certifications. And so when we talked about some of the increases in certifications, in some of our strategic planning, meetings. That's where some of those increases came from is those students that are piloting,
and they're wanting more. And they're like, yes. We think this is gonna be great. So that student feedback has been really, really good for us as well. So we're excited about those, two courses. And then AP networking won't start until 2627. Oh, wait. No. 2728. I apologize. 2728. So, and then challenged here by doctor Glenn, he said, I want to kinda grow the aviation program. Did you know that last year we had 10 students that actually got their pilot's license? I did not know that either. I had to go, like, really digging for some information and finding these kids, and I was searching all over their Instagrams and,
like, looking at them in the cockpit and everything. And so because there is going to be an aviation shortage, the we need to really kinda see if we can't build a robust program for that as well. And bringing that from his prior district, it was very successful. I went out there and and toured it. That's the thing you said all night. It's yeah. It's really great. Program. That's awesome. So we're gonna we're gonna offer that aviation ground school. It will be an off campus just like off campus PE, but an opportunity for kids to be able to to take that class. So we're excited about it. That's great. Thank you. So that's my little spiel in the nut Thank you very indeed on that.
That's great. That's awesome. Yes. Alright. Here's miss Petty back. Good men or miss Petty, I I have to ask this because it came up earlier and I couldn't write it down quickly enough. And that was when miss Stacy were talking about strategic planning. Yes. And you're talking about the growth because we're such CTE fans. Could you go, again, go over the growth in the last four years, where we were and where we are now in CTE? Yeah. So the national framework for, our career clusters is there's 14 career clusters on the national framework. And we are now at eight career clusters, and we were previously at five. And even prior to that,
before COVID, we were only at four. So and part of that is a little bit of how TEA, and State Board of Education has also kind of redone a little bit of our program of studies. They've also been working a lot behind the scenes getting this all prepared and ready as well. So it's not just a CAROL thing. It is a statewide thing too. And you'll see a lot of districts are really kind of growing their career clusters. And then within our career clusters, those eight that we increased out to, we've now got about 21 pathways. And so with the Carroll Business Academy, Carroll Medical Academy has gotten another pathway out there too that's outside of their academy.
We're growing the aviation. We're growing robotics into two different pathways. So we're seeing a lot of growth in that area. Now we'll be growing out our computer science and technology pathways. And and just a frame of reference, miss Goodman, 21 pathways, which is great. Yes. And about four or five years ago, what was that number? Four or five years ago, I would tell you that it was probably really, like, low, like, 10. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It was low. So we've we've been kind of, like, adding, like, a third every single year to where now we're at doubled. Mhmm. Well and and again, miss Goodman has done a great job. Did, I guess last spring we met and and challenged her to,
to really step up, what we're doing from a CTE standpoint. And it probably I would imagine just about every student in the high school and senior high is impacted by a CTE program. Would you agree with that? That is true. That is true. Yes. We will look at our enrollment numbers now. And even so, we do have some courses that are not getting to the enrollment numbers or the request to enroll like the animation, and that's really because AI is taking over with, and so there's not a a big interest for that. We will see that other classes are definitely growing. So, you know, we were able to add that other business position. So we've got they're they're full classes.
So we're really close to about 4,000 students impacted, in our CTE program. Mhmm. Yeah. Within our high school. That's really great. Great job. Alright. Yeah. Alright. Miss Betty. We truly do want to thank Ms. Goodman. She has given up part of her summer for the last two summers in order to pilot these programs, so we appreciate her doing that. It's not like she's not busy enough anyway. Alright, So we had our new courses. Now let's go back and let's look in the, academic planning guide and the grading guidelines. I'm just gonna hit a few of the highlights of the things that we have made some changes.
First of all, we merged the two into one. We think it's gonna be one stop shopping. We're pretty excited about that. Secondly, we've revised the schedule change request time from the first week of school to the first ten school days and extended the window for dropping an AP course from the end of the three weeks to the end of the four weeks. We did this in order for our students to get a better understanding of what it's like to be in an AP classroom. A lot of them were getting in there and we noticed that and Terry has done Terry Shen has done a great job of really helping in some of his
areas. I think a lot of times our students are getting in there and they're getting scared immediately right out of you know, within the first three days of school. I can't do this. This is too overwhelming. If they would just ride it out for a little bit longer, they'll be better. But we wanna make sure that we instill we want our kids to take the most rigorous programs that they can. We want them to take the courses that will really challenge them. And so we we're really that's a major focus for us this year. And as we're working with our curriculum teams, we're making sure that that is a focus that our kids that our students know.
We are here for you. We are going to provide scaffolds for you. We are going to do everything that we can do to help you be successful in those classrooms. And it is an expectation that we are going to make sure that we have tutoring available for our students, that we have these opportunities for them to to try a class if they so wish to try these classes. So that's that's one that that we've done. When we first started remember, I wanna go back. We started this August 25. August 25, when we started working on the new courses, the state had told us that we needed to we were gonna place,
the new state board of education requirements included the replacement of an economics course with a personal fine a financial literacy course as a graduation requirement for the class of twenty twenty eight. So in the academic planning guide, we put that class in. Only to discover on Friday, guess what? TEA has decided they that we're going to need to delay that. So we will get that date changed. It's now been changed to 2030, and that's not even a guarantee. But John stays on top of that. So as soon as we know what that date is, we will make those updates.
But that was we did want people to realize that that as of right now, the economics is going away, and it is being replaced with discourse. But for now, economics is staying. Do what? But for now Yes. Economics is staying. Yes. It'll come in with with one of the graduating classes. Okay. Yes. We've updated the course flowcharts just so that people will will, be able to see the flowcharts. Those are very popular. People are constantly asking if they can have the have the flowcharts. We've we've revised the wording of several CTE courses. Kevin's done a good job with that.
We've clarified in the grading guidelines. This will be popular for many of our students. We've clarified in the grading guidelines that all summer assignments must be voluntary and can no longer be required. We had some issues at the beginning of the school year. What was happening was, we were using it as a stepping stone to teach a lesson. However, we had we noticed that we had people that all students at all different levels, and they didn't all come in at the right level. So now we're just going to you know what? Our kids need a break. And so we we don't We still want them to be able to. If they wanna practice their math,
if they wanna practice their reading, we highly encourage that, but it's going to be voluntary, not mandatory. So we think that's a great addition. We've also added a section to the grading guidelines that require that the assessment reviews be conducted following the administration of assessments. Many, many, many years ago when we created the that test must be returned, the reason for test that test must be returned was because we were not some some of our staff members were not, reviewing the assessment. We were giving the assessment,
but we got caught up in time. And as you have students that have absences at different times, we would forget to go back and review the exam. Well, that's the one of the most critical parts of giving an assessment is providing the the feedback on the assessment so that you know. So we have made sure that we are emphasizing that. We are also we've we've tightened up some of the language in the returning of the assessments. It has been our practice in the past that the test that have to that all test have to be returned. The test that do not have to be returned would be any assessment that is
copyrighted or midterms and finals. Copyrighted would be our CogAT, our ITBS. It would also be our college board AP test. It would be our TEKS base, our TEKS test bank that we that we have. That's gotten a little blurry. And so, because a while back, we had we had created curriculum based assessments. And so it got a little blurry. Do curriculum based assessments need to be returned? Do they not need to be returned? So we made it very clear. We took that out. Now it simply says, if it's copyrighted, it cannot be returned and midterms and finals will not be returned.
So students should have their assessments with them so that when it's midterm and finals, they do have their assessments that they can go back and look at. And then the last section that we added, we already had a section in the grading guidelines about academic dishonesty. But as we talked about a little earlier, as we got new administration at our high school and at our senior high, the principals asked if they could assess their faculty, kinda put some general guidelines in place to see if we could
to what degree was the academic dishonesty occurring. They found out quickly. We did put procedures in place. It has helped. However, we need to go to the next step. So at the next step, we did put in consequences for the behavior. I'm going to let John get up and talk a little bit about, he has talked about creating some committees, academic dishonesty committees. So I'll give him the floor to talk about that for a few minutes. That's just a nice way of saying cheating. Yeah. It's a nice way of saying cheating. So, one of the things that that we did at the beginning of the year was,
the CNI department met with miss Lewis and mister Holiday as well as some of the board members to talk about, like, what are some things that we need to do to try to get a hold of, the academic dishonesty. And it's not just in Carroll. It's all over the place. It's it's it's at all levels to college on down. You can, you know, see stuff on the social media all the time, and and what are some ways that we can deal with it. And so, at that meeting, they had initially talked about, kind of having the principal since they were new in their buildings,
you know, and they're trying to get to know their staff and stuff, sort of make it more, kind of informal, kind of like, well, here are some things that we wanna we'd like to see. And, what we've what we've determined and I and I've talked to both Shatina and Patrick extensively this year so far as well as talking to other teachers. My wife teaches at Carroll Senior High School, and she's always willing to share her opinion on everything with me and certainly, certainly on schools school related stuff as well. And so and so I I felt like there was probably we probably needed something
more robust. We probably needed a little bit more serious conversations and probably needed more things in place in terms of, like, what teachers need to be doing, when they're doing assessments. And, and I and I I just think I'm I'm not I'll be the last person to recommend that we have more committee meetings, but I do think this is a serious issue, and I do think it's a serious problem that probably needs to that would warrant some additional conversations and and especially with with with some of the stakeholders, in the district about academic dishonesty.
Yeah. I mean, I think you have this full board support for whatever you need to make that happen because we know it's a huge problem not only on our in our district but, you know, everywhere. So whatever we can do to help you as a board, you can count on us to help you. Would you envision I'm sorry. No. Go ahead. Would you envision a a committee of adults or a committee of peers? I I mean, I think probably, we we probably need to have representatives from CNI. We need to have our building principles of our secondary campuses. We probably need some some,
board members, and we we probably could potentially invite, community members, if they were interested. We could even, you know, I don't know, maybe possibly even have students on that committee as well. I don't know you know, again, that would be kind of conversations I think that that we would probably need to have as far as who we would want to include on that. But, you know, students are also vested in this conversation as well. You know? I mean, they're they, they know what it's like, especially in this district, to you know, those those top 10 positions are really tied and really competitive.
And, you know, as a former AP teacher in here, I always had those students. So I know one point could be the difference between valedictorian and and 10%, you know, being out of the top 10%. So those students that are doing the right thing probably also have some some, opinions and some some ideas about how we could possibly deal with that. Yeah. Yeah. No. I thank you for your leadership on this, the entire curriculum department. People have to have confidence in our academics, and and you're right. You're spot on. Like, our our students and their parents made great sacrifices to be successful and to be
in that top 10%. And I'll say not only that, like anywhere in Carroll ISD. And so it's an issue, especially with the advancements worth our time and our effort. It is part of our responsibility to protect the integrity of our academics and our curriculum. Do you have any questions? Thanks, miss Penny. I know this is a huge undertaking. Your team is certainly worked super hard to make this happen, so we really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate your support. I want to just say thank you for the Aviation program.
I think that's awesome. It's about time. I'd probably get seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths. I'm disappointed in the economics thing though and then that's driven by TEA. What recourse do we have? Do we have any say in them? Because I just think economics is fundamental and must be learned. And if you don't take it early, you wait till you get to college, it's a harder economics. It it's much harder. Yes. That's all. Well and and I think they're still trying to it's an ongoing process that they're going through. And John and I were talking about it this morning. And do you wanna give an update on what you found out?
He went to a coordinator's meeting on Friday. I was, I was at SMU on Friday, and we have our monthly coordinator meetings. And, that that's what Gina was saying. It's like the the the timeline is still not determined. There's a there's a lot of things, that TA, has not decided yet, but one thing that they have decided is that the economics is going away. They're they're it's gonna be replaced with a personal financial literacy course, which, a lot of school districts have been offering those courses for several years. We've we've really steered our students in the direction of the economics because of what
you said, mister Sexton, because we we believe in that economics foundation is really important, especially because of all of our kids are going to college and they're, you know, they they there's some sort of fundamental issues that they really need to know. But, unfortunately, the the direction is is is kind of more on, like, we want this course to be more pragmatic and more practical. So in terms of, like, learning about finances and learning how to, you know, do, like, basic, you know, balancing a budget and and filling out a checkbook and and things of that nature.
There there's a lot of there there's a there are some school districts like us, and and I've talked to other school districts that are similar to us that have voiced real concerns about that, about that move. Unfortunately, I I don't think that there's anything that we're gonna be able to do about it. The other thing that's a little bit up in the air too, which there there has been a lot of concern with with coordinators, is what do we do about the AP? Because if you're gonna have a if you're getting rid of economics and you're gonna replace it with a personal financial literacy class, well, what AP class is going to
would be used to to satisfy that, and we haven't gotten any real answers from from, TA or the state board about what they're gonna do in terms of that. But they they have sort of gone back and forth. We're in a little bit better situation than other school districts because because most of our kids take economics. So when they do make that shift, we'll just replace that course. I mean, economics, I I I misspoke a little bit. Economics is not going away. They are still gonna require school districts to offer economics as an elective. They're they're just flipping. They're they're flipping it. Yeah.
They're flipping. We're we're clarifying that. Yeah. And and the economics course, is going to be a year long course that they're telling us that we need to require. So, again, it's gonna be a little weird because right now, it's just a semester course. So there's a lot of things that are sort of up in the air, but it does look like that that's that personal financial literacy is going to be the new state requirement. Again, who knows when. But Is the requirement a certain age? Like, does it have to be nine through 12? No. There's not any anything like that, and there are some school districts that are talking about creative ways of
offering that. It's probably still gonna be paired with the government class because that's currently the way that those two semester courses work. And so that'll stay the same. Government still saying. So I don't know. I think there's some tricky issues about offering those courses to younger students, you know, like government. We we were just talking about that this morning with with mister Nickel about, you know, you would think, like, with a government course, you would want seniors to really be in that because they're turning 18. They're, you know, 14 year olds probably are not quite as interested in in politics or or even
probably financial literacy as as an 18 year old is. You know? So I don't know. But there isn't any requirement in terms of, like, it has to be offered as senior class. I took, in middle school in this building. I took a fine we had to take a financial literacy class. And I just I wonder if career investigations at seventh grade is half a semester. I wonder if you could add financial literacy to be the other half of the semester in seventh grade and then keep everything the same going up. I wonder if that would be a I don't know. Something to think about or look at. I guess we'll see what they say. I wanted to add something.
Okay. So I appreciate that you combined the APG with the grading guidelines, and it looks like you combined it for middle school too. So it's all one document, so I totally appreciate that. I wanted to ask, so for the 2526 on page one ten, when you talked about returning assignments and reviewing tests, that kind of stuff, For the 2627, it's on page one seventeen. How how do these when you make these, I guess, these revisions, how do they get communicated to our staff, to where it's implemented and followed consistently?
Because I I know that particular one probably because everyone's scared with cheating, and you don't wanna give them back their test. But the reality is it is in our grading guidelines that that is something that our staff has to do. And so how do you communicate that and make sure that it is being implemented so that if a student needs it or a parent requests it, that everyone's on the same page and they're able to give that? It is in the grading guidelines. We also work with our staff. So, like, Terry will be meeting with some teachers on Wednesday. As the coordinators are working with the curriculum writers and then in August when we
come back in August and we've got our staff, we've got all of our staff together, we will reiterate it again. The principals are also very good about at the beginning of the school year hitting some of the highlights of the grading guidelines and the the the, grading guidelines and the the the, academic planning guide so it will be reiterated again. But we do talk about that on a very regular basis. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Anything else for mister Eddie? Just wanted to say your whole department, you know, we had an officers meeting and I we first looked at this. And there are people who just see courses, you know, added or subtracted and your team did a wonderful job. Thank you so much of explaining why something's coming out,
why something's going in. And I particularly would like to say thank you for for that extra effort from all of you guys because if you're watching tonight it made perfect sense. And the part that I wrote down with an interesting note and to look at more is just, Ms. Goodman when you talked about how wise AP getting into the CTE world. I thought it was fascinating because I would imagine that's going to be a trend that's going to continue to grow. It is. Yes. Yes. So thanks for keeping us posted. I'm thanking you in the future. Okay. That's not a full IOU.
That's just a thank in the future. Okay. Okay. We're gonna move on to, item 9.6, which is consider fall twenty twenty five acquisition of instructional materials and elementary classroom library materials. Miss Petty? Thank you. All right. If you will recall in July 2022, we did, revise some of our policies of which one of the policies that we revisited was ensuring that we had a fall and spring acquisition list completed for our, our libraries and for our classroom libraries.
So today we bring forward to you the fall acquisition list. It is it does need to be available for viewing for thirty days, so we will not revisit this until until December until the December meeting. Where is that gonna be? That will be close. Access and view. The what? Where will it be to access? It will be we can make it accessible on our website Okay. And it's it's in the board book. But, yes, we we can make it, available on our site. And just have a conversation with communications just to make sure it's easily accessible.
So maybe they can put in one of those boxes on the, the home screen. Okay. Yeah. And I was just gonna say if that could also go out in the weekly newsletter to parents as well? Absolutely. We can e blast it as well. Okay. Okay. Anything else for miss Petty on the subject? Okay. Thank you. Moving on to action item one ten point one, consider approval of twenty twenty five twenty six district improvement plan and campus improvement plans. Alright. Betty. If you will recall, I was here last month, and I did bring to you the district and campus improvement plans. I, again, want to give a huge shout out.
I hope the community has had a chance to take a look at these, campus improvement plans. The principals put a lot of time and effort into them. They honestly, they look better than I think I've ever seen them look. They have done an outstanding. They put a lot of data in them. They put a lot of thought into them. And so we are seeking approval for them tonight. Yeah. No. I I'd echo that. I mean, I think because we've been on the board together for four or five years and and Eric and we've never seen campus plans that are I mean, you're like, okay. It's kinda cookie cutter each year.
They just take the same one and present. So this is a this is a huge improvement. So kudos to you and your team, and thanks to the principals. I think this is a They do. A giant step forward, in this regard. So Okay. That said, I move that we recommend the approval of the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six district improvement plan and the campus improvement plans as presented. Second. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries five to zero. Perfect. Thank you, miss Betty. Alright. Last item on our agenda is the consent agenda. I know we have several, donations.
Trustee Yeager, you wanna take it away. I do. And those of us who go around the state and people ask what's the special formula for Carroll, in our success. We talk about the amazing teachers, the staff, the incredible students. We saw so many tonight. And then the last element of that is amazing engaged and giving parents. So with that said, I'm going to just read off a couple of our amazing donations. And these amounts were really just incredible. So the Johnson Elementary School PTO donation of $58,140
The Dawson Middle School PTSO donation of $16,993 the AP boosters, a donation of $5,613 the Southlake Association for Gifted and Talented Booster Club, a donation of $19,357 and the Carroll High School PTO a donation of $16,651 and President Bryant, I put forth these for approval. Thank you, Trustee Yager. I move we accept the consent agenda as presented.
Second. Motion is second. All in favor? Motion carries five to zero. No objection, we will adjourn this meeting at 08:37PM. Thank you, Board.