All right. Good afternoon. We'll call this special meeting of the Carroll ISD Board of Trustees to order on 08/04/2025 at five p. M. Our first agenda item is executive session. Therefore, we'll adjourn to executive session in accordance with Texas government code 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, 551076 and 551-0821 at 5PM. All right, good evening. We'll call this meeting back to order at 6PM. Our first agenda item is the opening prayer, the pledges of allegiance,
and moment of silence. Will you please rise? Heavenly father, we come before you today seeking your guidance and wisdom in our discussions and decisions. Bless this meeting and grant us clarity and compassion as we work for the good of our students, staff, and community. Help us to listen with open minds, speak with kindness, and act with integrity, always striving to serve with your grace. Lord, we ask for your protection over our students, teachers, staff, and their families as they begin a new school year. It's in Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. Would you please join us for the pledge?
Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America, and to the republic for which it stands, a nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now for the Texas Pledge. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Silence. All right. Our next agenda item is public comments. Ms. Yelton, do we have anybody speaking tonight? We do not have any speakers this evening. All right. Thank you, Ms. Yelton. Our next item is item number five, which is consideration and possible action on our personnel report.
Trustee Yeager? And before I make a quick motion, I just got a text that somebody said that they might be outside and locked out. I don't know if we could have, thank you. We love people from the community to come, so we wouldn't want to lock them out. Trustee Brian President Brian, I move that we approve the personnel report as presented in Executive Session. Second. We have a motion and second. Any further discussion? Just one quick comment. Trustee Layan. I am very proud and pleased that, what we're passing tonight will include, an increase in stipends for specifically those who have masters or doctorate degrees.
I know we've been talking about this for many years and, we've had tight budgets but we want to be a school district that recognizes and rewards excellence and I think this will be a step in the right direction. It's not a huge increase but it is an increase and it aligns us a little better with other districts. So I am proud to be a part of this Board and be supporting an increase to those stipends. Thank you, Trustee Lane. I know you've been actively pursuing this for a very long time at least since
I've been on the board. So we finally got it done and congratulations and thank you for your input and your advocacy for that, trustee Landon. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Alright. Motion carries five to zero. Thank you. We'll move on to the president's report. I just have a couple of items, to report on tonight as we begin another school year. I wanna take a moment to reflect on two meaningful events that marked a strong and inspiring start to the year. First, our annual convocation with teachers and staff held this morning was a tremendous success.
The energy in the room was very high as we gathered to confirm our shared commitment to educational excellence and to each other. It was encouraging to see our teachers and staff come together in such a positive and unified way, focused on the success of every student. From the messages of encouragement to the celebration of accomplishments across our campuses, the convocation set the tone for a year of partnership, innovation, and student centered excellence. A special thanks to Doctor. Glenn. Thank you Doctor. Glenn for his genuine remarks and vision and to everyone who helped plan and participate
in such an uplifting kickoff event. Second, this past Thursday, we hosted an open house for our new Little Dragons Daycare, a program created to support the dedicated teachers and staff who serve our students every day. The open house gave our employees and community a first look at the nurturing, engaging environment we've created for the youngest members of our CISD family. It was wonderful to see the smiles of parents and staff as they explored the new space, met with professionals who will be leading the program. This initiative reflects our deep commitment to investing in and supporting our teachers and staff,
not just professionally, but personally. And we are proud to offer this resource to those who give so much to our district. Thank you Doctor. Glenn for bringing this idea to reality in such a short period of time. Both events underscore the strength of our community, the talent and heart of our educators, and our district's dedication to continuous improvement. As we begin the school year, we are confident that these positive moments are just the beginning of what promises to be another exceptional year here at Carroll ISD. Now we'll move on to item number seven,
our information section of the agenda, item 7.1, which is consider memorandum of understanding, MOU for Carroll Medical Academy students with Methodist Health System, miss Henning. Can y'all hear me okay? Yes. Okay. Good evening, doctor Glenn, president Bryan, and board of trustees. Thank you for the opportunity to share a significant development for Carroll Medical Academy. In line with Carroll's enduring tradition of cultivating meaningful partnerships within the Southlake business community, I am pleased to announce the establishment of an affiliation agreement with Southlake Methodist Hospital.
This partnership will provide our 52 senior biotech students with weekly hands on clinical experience in a hospital setting. This work is a result of diminishing internship opportunities that were previously available to our CMA seniors. As our CMA program continues to grow with 75 incoming CMA freshman students, we must develop partnerships to provide the clinical experience that our CMA program is known for. Beginning this fall, students will report directly to Southlake Methodist each day,
each Tuesday, during their biotech course, rotating through various departments, including the emergency room, ICU, operating room, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, anesthesia, and more, with the potential access to labor and delivery as well. Our biotech teacher, miss Corina Metcalfe, who is joining us this evening, will be on-site to support students, monitor attendance, and align experiences with academic expectations. This is a defining extension of our program's mission, combining rigorous academics with real world exposure to prepare students for competitive health care pathways.
To support this initiative, our booster club is also providing custom dragon scrubs to promote professionalism and school pride. Additionally, this partnership allows us to continue hosting our career day at the hospital for grades nine through 11, offering a preview of senior rotations and helping students visualize their path in health care. At its core, this program develops confidence, professionalism, and purpose. It turns classroom learning into real preparation for post secondary goals. With Southlake Methodist Hospital as our partner,
we are expanding opportunities and setting a new standard for Carroll Medical Academy students. Thank you for your support and your consideration. Miss Metcalfe and I are here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, miss Haines. This is, this is pretty cool development. Thanks to, Methodist Southlake for, making this happen. Just a quick question. I I think maybe you said this, but I I missed it. Is it all CMA students that are participating in this program that are selected? It's only the the 52 biotechs. So the seniors. Yeah. The seniors will be participating in those clinical rotations. Okay. And then, I'll turn it over to trustees for more questions.
But can we get a set of scrubs for the trustees? I want a set of scrubs as well. We said we want to wear scrubs on Tuesday. Right. Absolutely. Exactly. Right. Okay. Thank you. Open up. Yes, thank you, Ms. Henning. You had mentioned that there was perhaps a need for more, I want to say, internships isn't the right word but experiences. You've got the community here listening. Is there are there any other needs? This is absolutely awesome, 52 students, but there are more students in CMA. So just like beyond your your,
you know, need list that you could communicate to us. Sure. So in the two years that I came on to be the CMA director, we I had found that, previously, there were a lot of partnerships in the communities, a lot of our parents who are physicians, community partnerships. But since, post COVID, it has become increasingly harder to have students go into those medical offices for liability purposes. And so this agreement will allow us to provide that internship experience on a regular basis. Some of those providers were only able to accept one,
maybe two students for six hours for the whole year. So this provides an exposure to a lot of different areas in the hospital and that clinical setting on a weekly basis. Because we've got great communication that goes out to parents. I could see if there is a need. Would you please let us know so that we can put it into e blast, right, calling all physicians, parents, right, etcetera? Yeah. That would be really great. And one of the things that, I've been working with our booster club, they had concerns about students that may be interested in veterinarian or dental,
orthodontics, things like that. And so if there's any community member that are in that field that, you know, we have students that are interested in some of those fields that maybe the hospital can't provide, we would be willing to work with them, in, you know, hope in hopes to have a similar agreement with with those community memberships. Yeah. I don't really have a question, but I have a comment. My own daughter, was in CMA and when she was in high school, and she got to do one of the internships. And because of her experience just for one summer, it literally has given her the path that she wants to take with her career.
And because of that one internship and so, I really like the idea that we offer internships through CMA and the Carroll Business Academy too. So I'm glad Trustee Yeager brought it up. For those that are listening in our community, that are in the medical community or any kind of business, if you can offer internships to our students, please get in touch with the district and offer those. It could change their lives. So please, you know, make us aware of those.
Thank you. Trustee Leinen? Any other questions, comments for miss Henning? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for being calling. All right, thank you. All right, moving on to Item 7.2, consider an order calling a voter approval tax ratification election to be held by Carroll ISD on Tuesday, 11/04/2025. Mr. Park? Can everyone see the slide? There we go. All right. Good evening, President Bryan, Doctor. Glenn, trustees. It is my privilege to be here today to discuss this monumental opportunity that we have before us.
I will disclose that this presentation was updated today based on some new information that we received, but, I I do believe that, it will be more beneficial, to our taxpayers and communities. So, with that little caveat, I will begin. Alright. So I'll go over the current challenges that that we have facing, our district financially, and then, talk a little bit about what, this VATRE opportunity, does for us. And then, you know, I'll open it up to to you for questions and discussion. So our current challenges. So this year that we just wrapped up,
we're expecting to be up to a $5,000,000 deficit operationally this year. So we've had to make significant cuts, not only, on our departmental, and campus operational budget side, but also, payroll as well. And so, you know, we've had some some very tough discussions this this, spring, you know, going into this summer to, make sure that we can bring a, balanced budget before you, which we did back in June. One one, thing that our efficiency audit, that I will discuss next board meeting,
brought to our attention was that Carroll, as we expected, had were among the lowest funded in the state per student. We that that audit, showed that we have approximately $11,034 per student, versus the state average of over $13,000 a student. So, mister Parker, I I wanna stop you there real quick because I wanna make a clarification on this on this bullet point and that is, due to legislation and other rules, Carol ISD has to spend, and we do spend $11,034 per student.
That is not the amount that we get from the state. Correct? Yes. This is this is total, you know, all our local local revenues plus, you know, whatever donations we have. This is Right. Operationally, this is the revenue per student that we that we have to operate. That we spend on students. Correct. Whereas the state provides us about 8,300 per student. Correct? So we we as a school district have to figure out, how to come up with an additional $3,000 per student every single year.
And that's revenue that's not coming from the state. It's coming from it's not coming from property taxes. Yep. It's coming from us asking parents to spend extra so that we can, spend the minimum amount that is required under law. Correct. If we would like to provide the same opportunities, revenue wise for other students, the average student in the state, we would have to come up with a little over $2,000, per per student more per year. And times 8,000 students, that's like $16,000,000 Mhmm.
Close to. Is that right? Is it 1,600,000.0? 1.6. 1.6. My decimal is in the wrong spot. So again, the challenge that we're facing is that we are in a state of declining enrollment, so which means year over year that we are losing funding from the state that just based on that that student decline. And projected in this in this fiscal year, 2526 school year, we will have a 131 less students than than this previous school year that we just closed, which means just start,
you know, zero days of school, and we will already have, $1,100,000 less in funding, than our than the previous year. It is well documented that, you know, every district and, you know, we are just facing high rates of inflation inflation over the past few years. And then also the 2425, teacher pay scales, the comparison charts what what's published by, UEA for 2425, and it showed that, Carroll across all years, 2001 to five,
six to ten, fifteen plus, 20 plus, showed that Carroll ISD was somewhere in the median to the third quartile in teacher salary averages compared to all the other, surrounding areas here. So, kinda paints a a good picture of where we are. So we've we've exhausted HB two, summarizing how the how's that, done for us. It was touted as the largest school funding bill in Texas history. The teacher retirement retention allotment. I'm sorry. The teacher retention allotment,
added about $4,200,000,000 of that, 8.5. And the impact to us was that, we will be passing through, an approximate amount, dollars 2,400,000.0, for teacher salary increases. And then the rest of HB two will net us about $1,000,000 in funding increase. However, that's already, negated from the student loss that we experienced this year. Right. So, mister Park, so out of the 8,500,000,000.0, extra and unprecedented money for public education from our,
friends down in Austin, we essentially net zero. Is that correct? Here at Carroll ISD? Correct. With, yep. And then last last but not least, you know, this we were one of the few districts that that that did experience compression with the new, MCR formulas with HP2. We would reduce $1.16 from last year's MCR of $6.01 $6.09 to this year, current year, at point zero at point six zero five three. And this that that, mister Park,
is mandated by the state. Correct. That is That's tier one, compression. That's mandated by the state. We don't have any say over that portion of the tax rate. Correct? That is before the pennies that are available to us, locally here in the district. Gotcha. Okay. So, going to the opportunity that we have at hand, we would we could exercise this VHRE to add three golden pennies, as they say, to the enrichment tax rate, to exercise our local control, to add those pennies, which are not subject to recapture.
I would like to reiterate that, you know, as many times as I can. And that, would would add approximately $3,600,000 as evidenced by our by our, efficiency auditors, in in in the report. That would add $3,600,000 annually, to our M and O revenues. That is not subject to recapture. And let's be clear, that's an estimate as property values grow, that number continues to grow over time as well. So 3.6 could easily become 3.84, 4.5 as values in what is a very, I guess, volatile district as far as housing prices and property prices as it continues to grow,
these numbers grow as well, correct? Correct. We are above the 96 percentile in penny yield golden penny yield. And so as these as our tax base grows, our MNO revenue would grow with that. And so to capture those pennies would be very important and very critical for us going forward to continue to add revenue to our operations. And we would we are continuing to lower our tax rate, and so we will be proposing
an adoption of 0.9294 at the upcoming board meeting. As we mentioned before, the sixty fifty three, tax MCR set by the state, plus now we are going for the eight enrichment pennies. So our MNO, would sit at point six eight five three. And, on the I and S side, we are looking to, get below the no new revenue rate. And so in order to do that, we'll be setting our I and S tax rate at point two four four one, which is a, 5.07
cent, reduction on the I and S side. So just to show you a graph of our, tax history over the past decade, ten years ago, we were at 1.395, both MNO and I and S, collectively. And in the 2223 year, we're at point, 1.2188. And so we've almost dropped 30¢, since four years ago, and we'll be proposing a rate of point nine two nine four for adoption. And then go ahead. Yeah. I was gonna say, to our records, and I saw this on a previous slide, and, it was actually given,
some documents, I guess from your office about tax rates back in like 70s and 80s and this is by far historically low level school tax rate for our district. I'd just like to point out that most of us have been on the Board with the session of Trustee Landers just a year or so ahead of us, since 2021. So if you take a look at the 2021, 2022 where it starts, the amount of reduction that this Board sitting right here has reduced is really unprecedented and certainly the lowest ever in Southlake and Carroll ISD.
And we continue to do so by this year going below the no new revenue rate which we will vote on next Board meeting for the second if we vote for it, it will be for the second year in a row which Mr. Park, in your experience, in ISDs, do you typically see is that normal, that school districts get below the no new revenue rate? No, it is a very difficult phenomenon to achieve. Right. So this Board is extremely aware of our fiduciary responsibility
to this community. And despite the fact that the district and the Board is going to propose a VADER that increases the MNO rate, we're still going to be below the no new revenue rate for the second year in a row. And just to explain to the community that 0.9294 is is 0.9294 per $100 of assessed value of their property, correct? Yes, sir. Okay. Let me just interject one thing. A lot of times people look at lower tax rate and they assume lower tax
rate means less revenue or less monies that will come into the district. And in this case, it's not. What we're talking about by lowering the tax rate is just how this Board chooses to invest the pennies that it's allowed to invest. And so by making the shift on the I and S side, we're talking about being good stewards to our taxpayers. We still give the Board the opportunity to look at the defeasance to pay down debt. But on the M and O side, the reinvestment there triggers an election that has to be ratified by voters but that
ultimately could yield as much as $4,000,000 in revenue while still seeing the lowest tax rate in the history of the district. And so essentially what we're doing, Doctor. Glenn, thank you for pointing that out, is that, next next meeting, which is August 18, we're gonna set the tax rate for '25, 26, correct? We're gonna set the tax rate. So it's not gonna be any question, come November whether to vote or not vote for the VADER. The tax rate is going to be set whether you vote yes or whether you vote no. So what you will be voting yes for is either 3.5
to $4,000,000 that Carol ISD gets to keep in the MNO side or 3.5 to $4,000,000 that Carol ISD has to send back to the state to send to places like La Jolla and other, areas that, our money is being spent on things that are not educational. So, I think that, it's very important to understand that, we're not asking the community to trust us, that we will reduce, or increase the tax rate if you vote for this thing. We are already going to vote next meeting on a tax rate,
so the real vote is going to be whether or not we want to keep $4,000,000 or whether we wanna send that $4,000,000 back to the state like we have been doing, in previous years. Okay. I know the the comment about, you know, the, tax bill versus tax rate came up a second ago. So, this this slide will kind of, illustrate that a little bit. So, just because your tax rate does not is going down doesn't necessarily mean that your total tax bill would go down. The values increasing, that kind of dictates, what the total value is gonna be. But, this slide here,
it just kind of provides an estimation, on a $1,000,000 home. So in fiscal year 'twenty five, the year that we just concluded, with a $100,000 homestead exemption, a taxpayer here could expect to pay around 60 $8,656, on their on their INS taxes. In this next year, even with the three additional golden pennies and the 100, $40,000 homestead, your tax bill for, the INS taxes would be $7,993,
which is a $663 decrease from last year. And so this, house bill two, and the and the $140,000 homestead that will be voted on, in November as well, you know, that that will make a huge impact, to our community here. So, again, just a reminder. So last year's tax rate was 0.9617 and this year, we'll be dropping $0.323 to $0.92 -ninety two point nine four dollars Mr. Park, if you could keep this slide here for a moment. There are we're all
property owners here in this Board. And you travel around the state and you hear this and that is people are being taxed out of their homes. And the great thing about Texas is the great phenomenal growth we're having, but we also see with growth comes the property valuations going up. And we talk a lot about this in Tarrant County. It's great. It's a great investment. But truly, it's going up faster than we can reduce taxes. So I just wanted the community to know, in this slide, and if you go back one more into
President Bryan's comment and those of us who came out on the Board in 'twenty one, we're doing everything we possibly can to be good stewards of your tax dollars. And if this slide isn't going in that direction, the pain people will feel with the combination of basically a static tax rate or even one that might go up go to the next slide please with the property values going up, we would be hearing it even more in Southlake. So, I mean, I hate to say this but yes, they're expensive homes but what you get,
you get the best education you can find of a public school in the state and you really do get maybe one of the lowest tax rates of any public school entity. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. We'll be for sure close to the lowest in Tarrant County. I mean, so that's a tremendous value even though it's like, wow, this is a huge bill. Compared to other places that have 1.3, 1.6 tax rates, I mean, we're doing everything we can to make it as affordable to live here as possible. 0.92
is amazing. So again, if approved, we have an opportunity to gain 3,600,000 to $4,000,000 of MNO revenue in this first year that is not subject to recapture. And that's just necessary to even get to our balanced budget that we that we adopted this year. So, that's kind of the bottom line. Next one. This is really important. As you know, it hospital two took care of teachers, but like you said this morning that, twenty five percent of our staff did not get anything. And so, it will provide an opportunity for a much needed increase for all of our staff.
I wanna just make a quick comment on that too. And I said it this morning at convocation and this board is committed to keeping salaries of all staff, teachers and staff, at 95% or above market average. And so there's two measures that is gonna help us have the opportunity to get there and that is if we can get this VADER passed in November and then if we can, follow through on the sale, which we have pretty high confidence now that we will, on our surplus property that we can put in a high yield account and earn
interest. We will be able to, give our teachers and staff, expectations every single year of, expected pay raises in lieu of having to rely on and wait on our legislators every two years in Austin to come up with some sort of, you know, package to pay our our teachers. So, it builds expectations. I think it's something that, I appreciate Doctor. Glenn, you, Mr. Park, and everybody else who's been working on this, to get our our finances back in order, to get us to a point where we think that we can be,
deficit free, which is a goal that we always have because we've asked you guys to come with a balanced budget every single year, which we will never pass a deficit budget again in this community. And we appreciate the work that you two have done making this happen. I know it hasn't been easy and you've been getting different numbers even since we met this afternoon you got new numbers which were good and it's going to be able to help out with our deficit reduction. So thank you very much for this. And lastly, if approved, it would protect and maintain all the programs that we currently offer that make Carol I see what it is.
And so if the VHRE does not pass, we would have to think about Make some tough decisions, right? Yes. Doctor. Glenn, you mentioned some of these programs. What do we mean by Yeah, I mean, in Carroll ISD, we do. We have some very, very unique special programs that the districts our size typically don't have. One of them is the fact that we have five foreign languages. A lot of districts that are set around 8,000 students don't have five languages that they're able to offer at the high school level. We have a lot of advanced math classes.
You don't typically see algebra three at a lot of senior high schools or high schools for that matter. And speaking of high schools, having a high school and a senior high school is a significant advantage. Science labs at the elementary level pull out GT, pull out care programs, all huge advantages, programs that cost a lot of money, but they're programs that make our district special. And when our BRAC committee met, they placed heavy emphasis on protecting programs. We know that we're an A rated district. We're one of the top districts in the nation. Certainly, hands down one of the top districts in the state And we believe it is
our programs, the quality of education that we offer that makes us great. Second to that is those teachers that are pouring into those kids in those classes. And so taking care of those two things was a priority of the BRAC Committee. These funds, if ratified by voters, ensure that those programs and teachers will be taken care of for the long haul. Thank you, Doctor. Glenn. So in summary, again, the $3,500,000 to $4,000,000 that we would generate on the MNO side, that is not just subject to recapture.
And then for the taxpayers, just the the the lower tax rate, you know, we would be going down by that 3 and a quarter cents, to to $93.94, you know, continuing to be historic lows for this district. So, and just despite all the challenges we have, I just wanna, you know, shout out to to all the administrators, all all the teachers and and principals, you know, continue to to, make this district, you know, the best in in academics and in athletics and fine arts, you know, in in the state. And so, that is where we are. And, the timeline, to the to election day,
so we are right now here at this, August 4 meeting presenting this information to to you. On August 18 at the next board meeting, we will adopt our tax rate, and then we will hold a public hearing to, consider, adoption of the, order for election. And then, once we move forward, then September through October, the communications department and administration will be holding, several, key community conversations in in in various formats. August, early voting starts, late October, and then pretty pretty quickly soon after that,
is is Election Day. So, with that, trustees, I'll open up to questions. Thank you, Mr. Park. Trustee Bunn? Mr. Park, just, one point of clarification because I think I heard this in the past. When it does go on the ballot, does it say this will be a tax increase? Like, does that language have to be on the ballot? Yes. Correct. Per per, legislative language, it will say that, it is a tax rate, tax increase, but, and so, you know, that is an education piece that Let's look at that. Let's look at that, and we're gonna pull it. I think this is a tax rate increase in bold letters specifically for bonds.
That that's a great question, and and we will have the exact language that voters see on the ballot, at our August 18 meeting. And probably within the next week, we can get that to you so you can view it. But I'm not sure that the language that's on a bond is the same as what's on a VATRE. So it is going to have language speaking to taxes, but I think it's in terms of like percentages and how much funds are being yielded to the district. Mr. Park, we know that, at least on the Board and some in the admin, when you have a VADER called,
there are certain communications that change when you're an employee of the district. We're talking about this right now openly. We can talk about the benefits. But once that's called, in our next meeting, can you just inform the public, and I'm sure that our our staff and faculty will will be trained on what they can and cannot say? Yes. So This is legally. So the official term is called electioneering. And so as a as a district employee, on district time, you cannot use, district resources, to advocate, or use any language that would suggest that you're advocating,
for for the election in you know, positively or negatively. And so, bishop Brady and the communications office, will have, information that that goes out. And and we will speak with every, unit of of of staff representation to to make sure that that everyone here understands, the do's and don'ts about about, you know, what they can and cannot say once the VATRE is called. And and and not only is it this applies to every election, not just to VATRE, so we'll also have a special election for trustee. And so, Mr. Park is absolutely right.
From a staff standpoint, it is electioneering to use the district time or resources to advocate for a proposition or a person. Mr. Brady actually helped us set up training, ethics training for our administrators, he and Mr. Nickel, two weeks ago. And so we are actually coordinating a communication that will go out to all staff probably in about two weeks right after you guys, if this Board decides to move forward with calling. Thank Thank you for pointing that out, Trustee Yeager. Anything else? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Parks. Appreciate it. All right. We'll move on to item number eight, which is the discussion action portion of our agenda.
8.1 is consider approval of the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven school year calendar. Ms. Petty? Thank you, president Bryan, doctor Glynn, trustees. I am here tonight seeking approval for the, school calendar. It puts us one year ahead. So we've got this school calendar, and we are asking for approval for the following one. Can I just say that I appreciate you guys, you know, getting a year ahead of this? I think that it builds expectations for our our families in our district. And I've heard I'm sure you guys have heard too that it's very much appreciated.
People can plan here way in advance. So thank you, Ms. Petty for doing this. Yes. And hopefully it helps with attendance, that families can plan two years out. I know Gina, you and your team work super hard on it. And so thank you for putting it together. And so barring any big legislative changes, that will be the practice of the district moving forward is to make sure that we let families know two years longer. That's great. I move to approve the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven school year calendar as presented by Ms. Petty. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?
All in favor? Motion carries five-zero. Thank you, Ms. Petty. Moving on to eight-two, consider approval of updates to twenty twenty five, twenty six grading guidelines. Miss Petty. Yes. We have added two components to our grading guidelines for an update. We have added the homework guidelines for our elementary schools. We also added and updated our ESL portion. Those are the only two components that have been changed to the grading guidelines. So we're seeking approval for that tonight. And I move that the new grading guidelines as presented for twenty twenty five-twenty twenty
six be, as presented be approved. Second. Motion and second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries five-zero. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Moving on to 8.3, consider local board policy related to participation of homeschool children in UIL activities. Mister Nickel. President Brian, doctor Glenn, and board of trustees, I am here to visit about, senate bill four zero one that I talked about two weeks ago, where, I guess, previously, school districts could make decisions regarding the participation of homeschool students in their, UI activities. Now with new legislation, it says that basically school boards,
have to adopt policy, to not have that if they wish to not participate. Otherwise, by default, you are choosing to participate in having homeschool students involved in your, in your UIL activities. That being said, we have a policy that we have given to you for review and I'm open to any questions you may have. I move. Is there any discussion? Just one question. Just something that we covered a couple of weeks ago and just to reconfirm, I know that in years past we've talked about this policy before, but only recently through the state legislature's movement have we actually gotten I believe some
funding. So if or when homeschool children want to participate in ULL sports as I understand it will come with $1,500 per student that participates? Per student per activity and those are stackable. So if a student comes in and plays let's just say volleyball, basketball and runs track then you would see $1,500 times three so $4,500 for that child. I'm glad to hear that. I know that there could be some impact to our district financially.
And I'm also glad to know that we can look at this on an annual basis. And if it is a bigger impact than we expected, we can look at it again every year. So it's not permanent, although I believe we only consider it once each year for the year that follows. So I'm I'm supportive of it and, looking forward to having some homeschool, children participate in ULL sports. And I know one other thing that was brought up the last time I presented that I wanted to make sure clarified is it was asked of me,
if students are not residing in the district, would we be compelled to to have to have those students, participate? And and no, we would not. And that's that's part of the resolution that we we recommended for you guys. Thank you, mister Newkel. And I I just wanna point out that we've made, the district made and, we're considering, a pretty restrictive policy, that really only allows, those students that are either residing parents that are residing in Carroll ISD boundaries or residing in the boundaries that we have approved for open enrollment and no exceptions, beyond that. So,
we have an interview process, we have an application process, and just because you apply doesn't mean you're, will be accepted, into the program, is that correct? That's correct. Mr. Nichol. Right, so we, and I believe that, Doctor. Glenn once you have recommendations each year, you will bring that to the Board Yes, sir. As a recommendation for approval. So it will be on the Board's responsibility to approve those new UIL students.
Yeah. So this policy, these guidelines, I actually send them to communication and pending board approval tonight. They'll be up on the district website, something that was a priority. Last meeting when y'all spoke about this was let's get the guidelines out there quick so families have an opportunity to opt in. The start of school is the deadline for these families to decide they wanna be a part of this program. So they're, they're gonna be on a short timeline just like we are. I do wanna acknowledge, our athletic director, Riley Dodge, here, and, his team, provided really, great input, as we help build these guidelines. Also, Ken Johnson,
who's our Director of Bands, provided great input. I want to thank both of those gentlemen, for everything, thing they did to help put this together. I had two concerns that I think you've resolved with, you know, putting in the guidelines. And my concern was just making sure that they're not breaking any UIL rules or regulations with too much training time. So it looks like, you know, either agreeing to follow UIL policies and then, more importantly, to follow our coaching policies. So I'm assuming once the student enrolls that they're kind of going under our coaches guidelines and they're doing their training programs so that you've got some oversight and just
making sure that we're not putting our program at risk. Yes, that's correct. Yes. In those guidelines, Trustee Bottom, I appreciate it too. We see the, it says the student must be meeting the UIL eligibility requirements. So just because you're homeschooled doesn't mean that you can't be you have to be passing grades. You have to be just like you were a student here at Carroll. And the other thing, because it's come up in the public before about costs, and I'm glad, Trustee Landon, you brought that up. So $1,500 per sport or activity because it could be things like robotics or other UIL activities,
but also any fees that are attached because there are a lot of our programs do have additional fees. And they'll have to pay those. So essentially So that's in addition to the $1,500 So, yes, so essentially they're treated once they decide to opt in, they're treated just like any other student in the activity. So the expectation from the coach will be you'll be at practice during the class period, you'll be at practice after school, your parents will attend all the after school meetings. I think the policy is very clear. No exceptions will be made. They'll comply just like every other athlete that attends the public school here.
And if they don't, they can be removed from the program at the discretion of the coach. That said, I move to approve the local policy related to the participation of homeschooled children in UIL activities for the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six school year. Second. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries five to zero. Thank you, mister Nickel. Next up, mister Nickel, consider local board policy regarding students' cell phone use. Yes. I've I've visited with you guys about this a few weeks ago, and, we have made a few more revisions based on some information that came out from
TEA. Before whenever I visited, there was a little bit of ambiguity depending upon the district about how they were viewing bring your own device policies. TA has since come out and said that, yes. You can do that, and they just gave us a few parameters that we needed to make sure we're following. We've written that into the guidelines that we have before you, also to include some language about how, devices would not be searched whenever they, if anything is taken up. And I know that was a concern. And so I have that before you today to, for recommendation. I just want a few comments, and that is that, so everybody knows this policy,
we are saying that the property of the District includes the school bus. Yes. That is correct. So essentially it will be bell to bell while in the buildings and we did add the school bus. One good thing about and again thank you to Mr. Nickel. He did a great job not only communicating with TEA and other districts, but we put together what I think is a very sensible policy. In some aspects I think if the state left it to local control there are a lot of things that we would recommend that the district should do differently.
But at the end of the day, we are going to implement the law as intended knowing that we have great kids, we have compliant kids, but we're also especially at the high school level, we're preparing kids to be future ready. And then we are hamstrung financially by our legislature and so maybe their true intent of everything is, we have to kind of review our finances and what we're able to do, which is why we're keeping parts of BYOD. But, I don't think it is necessary to browbeat kids over a cell phone policy, especially when you see so many adults that are using phones all the time.
And I also wonder what it's going to look like for our teachers day to day, how often they use cell phones, how often I use my cell phone. And so it's going to be a hard reset for all of us and we're going to take a step back, but I think we do it with compassion, knowing that we're going to give kids warnings, we're going to give them opportunities to correct the action and if we ever repeat offenders, we do not want to see kids removed from class or put in out of school suspension or DAEP. We would just want to work it out with the parent and the student that look this is a state rule we're trying to comply. We want the focus to be on instruction and we think we can do that
with this common sense approach that will be our policy moving forward. I think we all appreciate you taking that stance on this work because I know it's going to be a tough year implementing that, it's going to be tough on our teachers, our admin and all of us. So I appreciate you saying that and I think it's going to be successful in the end. Yes. I mean, I think all of us can agree scaling back kids on devices, it's just I do sympathize a little bit having older kids knowing that I was part of that educational generation that pushed kids to get on devices early because we
thought that was best And here we are, you know, two decades later saying, you know, maybe, maybe we went too far with it. And so for our elementary kids, I think this is going to be a good thing. But, for our high school kids, you know, they've spent the better part of a decade, being told, use your phone in class, Pull your pull your phone out in the hallway. You know, listen you know, get on your phone at lunch. Listen to your, AirPods. You know, we're okay with those things. And now to take it away, and for that action to come out of Austin, you know, we're we're going to have to kind of work with the kids, but fortunately, we have great kids. And like I say,
I think we can get this done as intended by our legislature, but do it proactively. I appreciate that. I move to recommend Can I ask a couple of questions? Sorry. Yes. Because I know there was a lot of questions around the bring your own device. That was one piece. And I have been in contact with our education committee and also with TEA to seek clarification. So essentially, we are allowed to keep the bring your own device as long as whatever we do within our system, it kind of disables that instant messaging that they can message back and forth on
their computer. So we have that infrastructure I'm so glad you asked that question. So, yes, that I read TEA's, you know, their, I guess, model policy. And so we met with our tech team. And, and yes, we're gonna let kids know as part of the BYOD that needs to be disabled. But something that the people who wrote this policy may not understand is we have like brilliant kids here and even on the devices that we give them, the laptops and Chromebooks we give them, we have kids that will actually go out and design and build their own website. And, and they'll build multiple websites and they'll share that website and they will use our
devices to go in, log on to that website. And if they wanna message or play games, they will do those things. And we will try and catch up and block those websites as quick as we can. But, you know, to the kids, you know, a lot of them, they're super smart. It's a game to them. And, and they and they find ways and they're creative. So, so in the event those things happen, obviously, you know, we have we have rules in place. We have penalties in place. But, I I do think it's, for the state to say, like, be BYOD and if it's a district owned device, everything can be blocked. The truth is kids will find their way around it whether it's a district owned
device or whether it's their own device. And so we set the expectation, we set the rules, we ask kids to follow the rules. And I think we have compliant kids and those that break the rules, we have policies in place to punish those. And for testing purposes though, then they will be on something where they can't instant message each other? So for testing, state requires that they're tested on district owned devices and so we'll do that. I guess they're ACT and SAT, that may be a GINA question. They test on district owned devices as well? No, no. No.
Pretty sure no. So they can BYOD on ACT and SAT. So and again, and that's something we said six months ago before all this took place, the reason we shifted to BYOD. And we've always kind of questioned why kids can't take a state assessment on their own device when they're allowed to take the SAT and SAT, which seems to be like a heavier weighted test for their future. They can use their own device for that, but they can't for STAR. Does that make sense? It does, yes. I just wanna make sure that we've got policies in place we're following with what
our legislation stated and that we're Yeah. Doing everything we're doing. And so the short answer to that short answer to that is yes. But but I also would say that We've just got to understand that we have smart kids and there are workarounds. And so if that happens, we'll deal with it as it comes. But to say we're just going to scrap the BYOD policy because kids may be able to instant message on a computer they can do that on a district device. They're smart enough to figure that out. So we're going to have BYOD, we're going to set the policy in place and if they do it that will
be a violation of the rules like anything else would and that's how we'll handle it. I move that we approve the CISD personal device policy as presented by Mr. Nickel. Second. Motion and second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries five-zero. Thank you, Mr. Nickel. No objection, we'll adjourn this meeting at 06:56 p. M. Thank you, Board.