Hey. Good afternoon. We'll call this special meeting of the Carroll ISD Board of Trustees to order on 12/08/2025 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 point zero seven one, five five one point zero seven two, five five one point zero seven four, 551076, and 551-0821 at 5PM. Alright. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for being here. We'll call this meeting back to order at 6PM. Our first agenda item is the opening prayer,
pledges of allegiance, and moment of silence. Will you all please rise? Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight with grateful hearts as we begin this meeting. We thank you for the opportunity to serve our students, families, and community and we ask for your wisdom and clarity in every discussion and decision we make. Lord, we lift up our incredible teachers and staff, especially those we recognize this evening as teachers and employee of the month. We thank you for their dedication, their compassion, and the countless ways they make every single day.
Bless them with renewed strength, joy in their work and the assurance that they are truly valued. We also celebrate the remarkable achievement of our girls volleyball team in their state championship. We thank you for their hard work, teamwork, perseverance, and the coaches and families who support them. May their success inspire our entire district to strive for excellence in all things. Be with us now guiding our hearts and minds. Help us lead with integrity, humility, and a spirit of unity.
May all we do tonight honor you and serve the best interest of every student entrusted to our care. It's in Jesus Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now for the Texas pledge. Honor the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state, under God, one indivisible.
We're a moment of silence. Thank you. You may be seated. Alright. Our next agenda item is recognition. It's item 4.1, board recognition Inspire Excellence Teachers of the Month. Principal Fike, you're up first. Good evening. I didn't realize I'm gonna be kicking this off. Glad to be here tonight with special night recognizing, that state championship. That's quite an accomplishment. I'm here actually, because one of our teachers at Old Union was nominated, for Inspire Excellence. It's Jaden Fried, our ace teacher. She's an amazing teacher that impacts all of her kids. So I'm gonna share what was written about her.
So the pair at the nominator said, I am nominating Jaden because there simply isn't another special education teacher like her. Her energy, passion, and dedication to her students are unmatched. Watching her on a field trip, seeing how deeply she cares for her kids, and how joyfully she celebrates their successes shows me exactly what every parent hopes for in a teacher. In just a few months, Jayden has taught my son so much. She celebrates every win and also fills her classroom with dance parties. Mamma Mia is a class favorite.
She makes school a fun, safe, and welcoming place for him. Early education is crucial, and the patience required to be a special education teacher is truly a gift. We are grateful for more years with her. Old Union and Carroll ISD are incredibly lucky to have someone who pours her heart and soul into students who need just a little extra support. So I'm proud to recognize Jaden Fried. Congratulations. Okay. Ms. Leonard, you're up next. Alright. Good evening, Doctor. Glenn, President Bryan, and Board of Trustees. It is truly an honor to recognize our Inspire Excellence,
Miss Aspen Meadows. This is her first year teaching at Dawson Middle School, and she is a proud former Carroll Kindergrad. She recently graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with the highest honors, earning a degree in education with a minor in communication studies and was a member of the UT Palm Squad. Ms. Meadows returned home to Carroll ISD following the footsteps of her mother, who has devoted thirty three years to education and thirty one of those right here at Carroll ISD. She brings the same passion and commitment to educating students both in the classroom and on the dance floor.
She currently teaches seventh grade English Language Arts and serves as the director of Dragon Gym's middle school dance team. Her Carroll roots run deep, Having been a Carol Greenjacket, Bell Captain, and a White's Chapel leadership participant, she is also an FFA Floral Design Competition winner with a Level II Florist Certification. Ms. Meadows is engaged to marry her best friend and fellow Carol Dragon graduate, Luke Winger. Here are just a few things that one of our parents said about Ms. Meadows that I wanna share with you guys tonight. Whatever magic Ms. Meadows is creating in her classroom, it's working.
I am so grateful for her encouragement, her compassion, and belief in my child. She has truly helped give him the confidence to shine. Her positive energy and genuine care for her students create an environment where every student and every child feels seen, valued, and capable of success. She not only teaches English, she builds confidence, she inspires joy in learning, and she reminds students that they are capable of more than anything they've imagined. She shows us the importance of how one teacher believing in your child can make the difference. My son, who is dyslexic,
always has been self conscious about reading aloud. This year, under miss Meadows' guidance, he truly has blossomed. He volunteered to stand up in front of his class and read A Christmas Carol as Bob Cratchit, something I never thought I'd see him do. Her belief in him gave him the courage to try. Now this same child who once dreaded reading is picking up a book almost every day to read at home. Miss Meadows exemplifies the dragon core values of excellence, integrity, and compassion through her patient support and her ability to see each child. She truly represents the spirit of Inspire Excellence and we are so fortunate to have her as part of our Dawson family. Congratulations.
Congrats. All right. Up next is our Inspire Excellence employee of the month, Mr. Park. Hello. Good evening. I'm here to honor miss Zoraida Estevez as our Inspirence Excellence employee of the month. She first of all, since I've been here, she always works to exceed the standard, works to the standard not to the time. And no matter who it is in our office and in a different department, she's always there willing to help anyone and everyone with whatever issue they have. One nominee,
you know, mentioned that she's always willing to step up and assist anyone who needs help. She readily takes on any task and can be trusted to follow through on any assignment, and that's just kinda essence of what she does for our office. So I'm extremely, blessed to have her, and proud to honor her with this recognition this month. Congratulations. I always forget to mention our sponsor of the Inspire Excellence Awards is the EECU. They've been a partner for many years, with the district and, very generous, for what they've done over the years. And so, we appreciate EECU very much.
They're always here, and thank you very much. Alright. The moment we've all been waiting for, we wanna celebrate our first ever state championship of our girls volleyball team. All seven of us that are sitting up here, was at the game. And I have to tell you my personal experience, it was the most exciting, nerve wracking, nail fighting, games that I've ever seen. I was super confident because I told everybody we're just gonna wipe them out three zip. And, after the first, like, what was it 14 points or something like that? I was like, see, I told you so. And, And, then after the third set,
I was like, oh, you know, what what's going on here? And, each we're proud of each of every one of you. Coach Jackson, all the coaches, parents, this is truly an amazing accomplishment. You guys, were so awesome all year and it didn't go unnoticed. We appreciate every single one of you. And I I never like to single out an individual, but, because you all are awesome. But, your Libero, your little Libero, what? Where is she? Is she here tonight? Stand up. I've never seen somebody so fast and quick and get down so low to get
those balls. So congratulations to to all of y'all. It's awesome. Coach Jackson, you wanna come up and say a few words? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not much of a hot mic y'all, so pardon me if there's some bosses in this. But super blessed with these girls and these and these families this year. We'll probably hear something similar in my speech next Wednesday for our banquet, but, you know, I think this was definitely a unicorn year. There's sometimes, you know, throughout a season with girls, there's some type of drama or some type of adversity that comes up. And there was not any of that this year with the girls or the families.
And, you know, the guy at the state tournament was like, give me, you know, something that describes your year. And I told him that these kids truly loved each other more than any other group that I've had, from the the kids to the families to the managers to the trainers. He was like, it's kind of a common theme amongst people that are in in in this, you know, final and Right. Final. And I was like, it is. But I I truly think that they have spent more time together this year outside of practices than any other group, and I think that matters. And I think our parents loved on every single one these kids that weren't theirs,
just as much as their own, and I think that's super special. So, I mean, like like you said about the state final, like, you had seen every every emotion possible in that match. Like, when it was, like, nine to zero, like, oh, it's gonna be great. We're gonna be at it. And next thing you know, it's, like, 20 to 16 not in our favor. And it's, like, okay. Never mind. Never mind. Never mind. But these girls fought back, and I think a lot of that had to do with their bond. Just trusting in each other and going to get after it for mindset. So that was awesome. So love you guys. Super blessed. Congratulations. Yeah. Now
I just have to say something about about your coach. You know, all throughout whether it's sports or whether it's in the business. Usually, a team mimics, the style of their coach. And coach Jackson and I watched you on that sideline, and you were just as stoic as they come, and you were just, okay. Okay. Okay. We're you know, we just, you know, lost a few points, and, and that's the absolute, you know, what your team is is made up of. And, we saw that on the court is that they mimic your leadership. And, we appreciate you, and and, we hope you stay here for many, many years to come.
We have many, many more state championships in order. So, can we, congratulate coach Jackson? Alright. Let's get a pic. You guys wanna get a picture? Yeah. Let's go down. Yeah. Hey. How are you? So happy. You're very welcome. Oh, wait. Tim's left. He came came for the meeting. You just said Kim before. You can invite. You can invite. Yeah. Tim. Oh, no. Thanks for the Bye bye. There's some seats in the front if you'd like them. Oh, okay. Alright. Our next agenda item is item number five, public comments. Ms. Yelton, do we have any speakers tonight? We do not have any speakers this evening.
Okay. Thank you, Ms. Yelton. So we will move on to item number six, which is consideration and possible action on a personnel report. I think we have, some action to take. Yes. I move that this board approve the personnel report as presented in executive session. Second. We have a motion to second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries six to zero. Thank you, Trustee Yeager. Next item, we are going to, enter into a public hearing on the school financial integrity rating system of Texas first report. At this time, the public hearing is declared open,
and I'll ask the administration to take us through a presentation regarding the first report. Mr. Park? Alright. Good evening again. Alright. So this is the public hearing for our, twenty four twenty five first rating, which is based on the 2324 school year, results. This this, first rating was developed by TA in 1999. It's basically to evaluate the quality of our financial management practices, and it's, kind of standardized throughout every district in Texas. The scale is here. You have a, b, c, and f,
and we've been superior, for, you know, quite quite some time now. So, you know, once again this year, I'll get to it. We we, our final score was 92 this year, and I can explain, kinda go through the explanation. So, it went down slightly from a 96, I believe, last year. So, but there's 21 indicators, and there's only two indicators here that that we did not score a a perfect score on. And so I like to focus on on just those two for for, you know, time, sake. If you have any questions, you can certainly, ask,
as as they come up. So, again, our final score is 92, which gives us an a, rating. Superior. I will just skip to number eight here. And so this, indicator here, it measures, our current assets to current liabilities ratio, and it basically kinda determines whether the school district had sufficient short term assets at the end of the fiscal year, to pay off all of our, short term liabilities. And so, the the big change from last year when we scored a 10 here was that the change in our fiscal year from August 31 year end to June 30 year
end was was really, the driver for this score not being a perfect score anymore. And so, unfortunately, when you go to a June 30 year end, your your recapture payment and our TIF payment to the city, and all of our payroll payables, for July and August become a payable. And so, our liabilities are gonna shoot up. You know, we have that much more cash on hand, but but, you know, our our liability shot way up. And so that's, the primary driver for this. So we had about $20,000,000 in in a recapture payment that was,
booked as a liability. We had about $8,600,000, as a liability to the city of Southlake for the for the TIF. And so, that's the main driver. And then I will say, this this one is a is a is a source of frustration for me personally because as a recapture district, you're you're penalized on this, way more than you should. You know, as you know, there's there's only a certain number of, recapture districts in the state. And so all those districts that don't pay recapture, they're they're not subject to this to this basic basic penalty that that,
you know, we are because this, ratio, it takes takes into consideration your recapture. And so while you have cash in in your assets, you know, it also it also, gets, booked into your liabilities. And so, you know, when you're when you think about it I'm glad you said that, mister Hart, because I didn't realize that. I mean, I get it that the TIF is part of our liabilities because that's the choice that we made. But we don't have any choice, with recapture. And that goes to penalize us because the state mandates, a certain amount that we have to get back in our property taxes.
It's just flat out wrong. That's something that we need to make a note of, for the ninetieth legislative session because that that's that penalizes us, might as well not even pay it. I mean, really? Right? I mean, it it means it seems like to me that that doesn't I guess, it doesn't make any sense to you either. Well, for when you're looking at your general operating funds, I mean, when we look at it to evaluate what our operating costs are, then the our liability for recapture shouldn't really affect this this indicator.
And so, you know, if you and I explained it here. If you netted our recapture, out of this, our ratio would actually be 2.32, which is equal to six points. And so at least we get a little bit better score. That would have moved us up above 93. Right. Mr. Park, excuse me. Is this a one time because we've made the change from the fiscal year. So are we not gonna have this same issue next year? Going forward, we will have this issue going forward. So, unfortunately, our ceiling is gonna be a ninety ninety six four or something like that going
forward. So, it is what it is. So we will never see I never say never, but we will never it will be very difficult to get 100 points going forward. So every recaptured district with the same fiscal year has got the same issue probably, right? Yes. But I mean, but it shouldn't be this substantial. We shouldn't lose this many points in future years. That piece should even out a little bit. Does the fiscal year time have anything to do with it? It does. Just because we switched, but going forward, is it still going to be the same? Yes. But the loss won't be as substantial on eight points,
correct? We'll have to see. It depends on what our recapture payment is year over year. Just from a legislative point of view, what would you believe would be the best course of remedy? Is it a controller? Is it a TEA? Where do we go to talk about this? The first report is put out by TEA, but ultimately it would probably require some sort of legislative initiative to get them to change it. Pressure from Austin always helps. From our standpoint as we look at indicator eight specifically, what we need them to understand is when we're talking about like liability ratios that
we don't want recapture essentially counting against us, right? So if we're talking about a level playing field against the other ten sixty three districts in the State of Texas, we should be more comparable with the 80% that don't pay recapture. Yes. Yes. Just as an anecdote, we did appeal this one year at Highland Park, and they accepted the appeal. And then the very next year, we sent the exact same letter, and they didn't accept the appeal. And so, you know, it's So do you send that to the commissioner? Yes. To the to to the To appeal to DEA?
Yeah. So Right. Can we is it too late for us? For for this year, I believe so. But, you know, going forward, we can, when we receive our preliminary ratings, we can Yeah. Let's go ahead and plan on on appealing. The next indicator that that we, did not receive maximum points on was was was number 11, a long term liabilities to total assets ratio. And this one, just due to our, debt service payments and and how much we have outstanding, As we pay that down, this one will go up. And so, you know, as you can see last year,
we had a six, and and this year, we had a eight. And so as we pay off our our debt service payments, this one should continue to improve. We missed it by 0.01. Correct. And then that's the only other indicator that is less than max. So we should next year we should be okay on that in that area, but it's that one recapture that we need to appeal and And continue to focus on paying down debt. So which I think that this court has done a good job of. Yes. And I think it's also important to note again, superior rating,
the highest rating that the school district can receive by the state and when we've received a superior rating each of the last five years. Are there any further questions or comments? Questions for support? Okay. At this time, I'll recognize any speakers who have not already spoken earlier during the public comments to address the Board regarding the first report. Is there anyone who wants to address the Board? Okay, thank you. This concludes the public hearing on the School FIRST report. The hearing is now closed. Next agenda item is actually taking action on this. Trustee Yeager, do you have a motion? I move
I guess I'm reading the red here. I'm sorry, I'm a little caught up guard here. Okay. One sec. Yes, thank you. Okay, here we go at the bottom. I move to approve the twenty twenty four-twenty twenty five School FIRST Report Financial Accountability Rating of Superior as presented by Mr. Park. Second. Motion and second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries six to nothing. Thank you, Mr. Park. Okay. Next agenda item is item number eight, President's Report. I have a brief statement to read and then we'll, move on to the information portion of our agenda. Good evening,
everyone. I want to begin tonight by celebrating our incredible accomplishment for our district. Our girls volleyball team brought home the first state championship in school history. This is a remarkable milestone and we could not be more proud of the athletes, coaches, and families who supported them on this journey. Their hard work and competitive spirit has set a new standard of excellence for our districts. Congratulations, volleyball. We also want to recognize another exciting achievement. Our football team has advanced to the state semifinals and will take the field this Saturday at 2PM at Mansfield ISD Stadium against DeSoto.
We hope to see Tonight, the board will also be discussing several recent legislative changes that impact local governance. One of the key topics is the new authority allowing districts to consider moving local school board elections from May to November. Tonight, we will be reviewing the implications, timelines, and requirements associated with that option. Additionally, we have the fifth BRAC Tiger Team meeting scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday. We expect to receive their recommendation next week, which will include a proposed facility consolidation plan.
The board will formally discuss these recommendations at our December 15 meeting, that's next Monday. These are significant decisions for our district's long term planning and we appreciate the community's engagement as we work through this process. Thank you to everyone, staff, students, families, and community members for your continued dedication and support of our district. That concludes my president's report. We'll move on to item number nine, which is the information portion of our meeting. Item 9.1 is transportation department report.
Mr. Bennett. Good evening. My name is Jim Bennett. I'm the transportation director. Wanted to give you a quick update on the department. A, quick overview, we have 61 employees. As of this moment, 84 yellow buses. However, eight are slated for auction. And 16, fate to be determined, we'll get to that. Give me just a moment. We maintain five activity buses, nine white fleet SUVs, travel about half a million miles a year. Keep in mind, the Earth at the Equator is, 25,000 miles across, so that's a couple trips.
Our average route bus is nine years old and has about 50,000 miles on it. We move about 4,400 students throughout the day, over the course of, 47 routes, the majority of which are k through eight. Of course, we also do our field trips, including our white fleet SUVs. We have seen an uptick in SUV usage by our departments and our, programs, which is a good and joyful thing. And we have our, on average, 34 daily trips between the high school buildings. It's 11.4 mile trip round trip.
So sort of the, the biggest challenge that we have had in the in the department this year is personnel shortage. We actually started out the school year very strong, but over the course of September and October, we lost an average of a driver a week and it hurt us. Over the course of September and October, total of 37 trips were canceled. We've come at it with continuous interviews, hiring, training both licensed drivers and drivers that would need to be trained, and it has helped. November, we cut the October number almost in half to 10 and only one in the
month of December so far. We are continuing to chip away at it. Currently, we have three driver trainees and should have a new licensed driver by the end of the week. As you know, we are a we do bus passes and this is just kind of an overview of sales over the last five years. And also this is our fuel cost analysis. The largest portion, almost half of my non staff budget is my fuel cost. We've actually been very fortunate this year. We have not, well, there's only been one time. It was late August that we had to pay over,
$2 a gallon. And considering that we purchased about 8,000 gallons about every twelve to fifteen school days, it adds up. Nice. Okay. So the Curious about that, mister Bennett. Yes. Absolutely. So, so you say we purchase in bulk, so we get it For fuel. Yes, sir. Yeah. Discounted rate. And we also avoid certain taxes and stuff. So So do we have we have have have we always used the same, vendor to supply our fuel or is there are there numerous church choices, or is it just one one outfit?
No, sir. We have, a handful that we would just go to and see who's who's going to help us out. A good rule of a good rule of thumb is that, whatever you're paying at the pump, if you went to seven eleven or whatever, we're gonna pay about 60 to 75¢ less. Okay. And that, I I would assume most competitors are pretty much the same price wherever. I mean, you're not getting somebody that's Oh, correct. Yes. Okay. So everything is just determined by market value anyway.
Very much so. How often do we change vendors? Is that you know, do we go out once a year or do how do we do that? Every time we need to order, we just call You said how many how how often is that? Every about every twelve driving days, every twelve school days. Gosh. Okay. So every so every twelve days, you you essentially call call the vendors, bid it out, go with the the best price and then fill up the tank based on whatever the market value is at that time? Yes, sir. So I'm just trying to do the math here. With the dollar amount that we charge families,
to ride the bus, and the cost of fuel and the price, I guess, for personnel, how how much of that do we, do we we retain? I mean, is that do we is it 50% of our cost? Is it a 100% of our cost? How much is how much are we in a deficit? Do you mean bus pass sales versus Versus how much it costs the district? Sure. So the, for instance, I can tell you this year, bus pass sales is 912,000, and we still have the spring sales to go. Usually good for 5,000
to 6,000. And, the non staff budget well, just all in, it's about 2 and a half million, 2,600,000.0. So we're still short about 1 and a half? So so the district is subsidizing families to put their kid on the bus by $1,500,000, annually roughly. Rough numbers. Yes, sir. Roughly. Okay. Have you done the math to figure out what it would take in terms of, charging families to ride the bus to make us whole? In order to for it to be a, break even? Zero sum game. Yep. I have. I I have not yet this school year with the new cost,
the new budget, so on and so forth. I certainly could. Yes. Yeah. So short math is gonna tell you that it's just over double. I mean, if you Oh, well, yes. So what do we what do we pay now? What is what is the current most pass? A, for instance, a family annual pass is $5.75. K. So you would so that would be a thousand dollars to make us make us whole if everyone Probably closer to 1,200. 1,200? 12 to 1,300. Yes. Okay. And, one other question and I'll open it up for the trustees. So you said we have 47 bus routes, and we have 84 buses?
84 as of now. We do have eight slated for sale. And if you'll give me a moment, we're gonna have to, I need to give you an update on 16 more of those buses. Okay. Yeah. It just seems like to me I don't know how how did we in as a district, get up to 84 buses when we only have half the routes. Does that make any sense to you? Alright. We'll try to do that. For all of our time, but I just I'm just curious. Sure. Sure. Sure. Why why would we hold 50% more, inventory than we need? Right. So most districts do maintain whatever their however many routes they have. Most districts have that that's about two thirds of their fleet.
And like you said, we are over that as of now. Selling selling the ones for auction would get us a lot closer to that 66%. And that's what we're shooting for? Yeah. Okay. Correct. Yes. Okay. And that's just for because the maintenance of bus breaks down, you have a Yes. Correct. Also, you want your ones that can go on the, like, you want your route buses, your, field trip buses. Some of the buses stay at campuses, so I don't always have immediate access to them just in case something, breaks down.
Dents any other questions? Yes, I just have one question. I don't know if we've considered this anytime in the last year or longer, but I know some other districts actually outsource their transportation. And I'm curious, have we looked at that as an option for, you know, like recouping cost or saving anything? I know about this time last year, I did have that discussion with the finance department. They called me in, had me do some research, submit some numbers to them. I I can certainly follow-up to see what came out of that.
We've had a regime change since then. I mean, I don't know. There's a new, as a separate entity. So, in short answer to that is, again, outsourcing is possible, but again, you pass the costs on to the parent. Most companies aren't prepared to come in and operate at a 1 and a half million dollar deficit like the district is. So We have talked to enterprise, Fleet Services, a couple years ago. And then I maybe when you first came on board, we had them, come in. And their, their model is they they eventually take over the vehicles, and then we end up leasing from them.
So it's a it's a it's kinda like concrete and asphalt. Concrete's a very high, upfront cost, but it lasts longer, than asphalt. So it's kind of like you pick your poison, we want to pay for the first four or five years these big costs because we're paying double, just to get to a point where we're breaking even or saving money, I don't know. So I know that there's companies out there that do it. I don't know, doctor Glenn, if you're aware of any school districts that actually There are. And there I mean, again, in the metroplex, you know, it's there are there are districts that do it. I think it's just, you know, we go out again and we look at a cost benefit analysis.
But But right now, knowing how much that our families are paying and, and how much we're absorbing as a district, we would just need to be prepared to continue to eat some of that cost. But we can see if we can always go out and see if it's more efficient. But likely we're gonna be passing additional costs on either to either to families or onto the district. Right? Because we own these buses. We just took out bonds in 2017 for most of these buses. So, you know, as they as they get a little older, we may look at it again. It may be more efficient to go out outsourced.
So one other thing I know that has been discussed in the past is, how far away students have to live from a school to be allowed to ride on the bus. Correct. And I assume you're relooking at that every year as to be considered as one of the variables that we take into account, right? Have had discussions with Mr. Park about that, yes. We currently bus everybody even within the two mile radius, correct? Absolutely, as long as they bypass, yes. Most people are within the two miles then?
Correct, yes. I have a question. So when you're looking at the years, like the number of people that purchased bus passes for their kids, it just keeps dropping. And so with the amount of buses that we're putting up for auction, does it make more sense to try to put more up for auction since it looks like the trend is were going down? Actually, that decision may get made for us. Let me get to my next presentation. Yes. Give me just a moment. Alright. So senate bill five forty six. This is, this is new for this year. The quick short version is that in the past,
the seat belt requirements for school buses was very dependent on when the school bus was purchased, when the school bus was manufactured, so on and so forth. That is going away as of September 2029 so that, any bus that is operated or contracted that hauls students has to have the three point seat belt. So where is Carroll ISD as of now, or at least as of the November 21? As I said, the total fleet, 84 yellow buses and five activity buses. 66 of our buses, including all of those that we run routes with on the daily,
are already in compliance. That leaves us 23. So seven of those are already on seven of those are in the eight, already. That leaves us 16. Two of them have two point seat belts, but four 14 of them have no seat belts at all except for, I believe, one of them, possibly both, have seat belts for the driver. The buses that are in that 16 include two of our lift buses, not ones that we use daily, but two of our backup lift buses and our Dragon Wagon. That's actually our smallest activity bus. Seats about 15.
Okay. So what does that what does that mean? So of the 16 buses out of compliance, as you can see, the vast majority of them are nearing the end of their life cycle. The estimated cost to retrofit a bus is somewhere between 22 and 42,000. And I know that 20,000 is a big swing. What that is dependent on is, is the bus so old that in order to anchor a three point seat belt, we would have to retrofit the structure and then retrofit seat belts? Belts. I'm gonna be completely honest with you. A bus at the end of its life cycle, I would be over the moon.
Just in my in my experience, if we could get 4 to $5,000 at auction, I would just be blown away. I would be super excited and especially consider the fact that every district in Texas is in the same boat we are and the market's about to the secondary market is about to be flooded. We're not going to get that. It could cost us as much as $685,000 roughly to retrofit all 16 buses. As part of senate bill five forty six, I do have to share that that,
information out. So I heard it. How much did the the state legislature, give us each school district to to make this happen? So they have made mention vague mention very vague mention of a grant, and I the what the other, directors and I have been talking about is that this is them sort of what did we get ourselves into type thing and so that they will know. I do. Because every district has to report into the state how much is this going to cost to retrofit. Is it worth it?
They have made no promises as to what that will look like. I think at this point, they're doing a, I guess, sort of a cost benefit analysis. Okay. Mister Bennett, you had mentioned during our conversations, does the board have to take some sort of action, this fiscal year as it relates? The board, the board has to be aware and the Board has to say whether or not it is in the budget to pay $685,000 to retrofit those. I mean we could vote on that right now. No, it's not. Well, yes, we're not. I'm not exactly sure of the procedure but there you are. Mr.
Bennett, am I correct that some buses which have reached their lifespan are used to, I don't know, equip other buses that need parts. Do we use buses for that? I mean, are they are any of them of more value to keep so that we can use their parts on other buses? I could certain I would have to double check to be absolutely sure. I'm reasonably sure that these buses are old enough that it's not going to help us out with our current route buses. I am absolutely willing to get a more exact answer off that.
I'm certainly What's the down what's the downside of selling these 16 buses, putting them up for auction and just being being rid of them? Keep in mind that we would have fewer that we would have fewer buses, especially, like I said, our Lyft buses. If we run into a situation where one of our, current in operation daily Lyft buses breaks down, there would be an urgent need to replace that. Other than that, whatever money we got for them would just go back to the general fund. Well, I thought that you get rid of the 16, gets us down to the two thirds number that we're kinda shooting for for extra.
The eight would at least get us a whole lot closer to that. The 16 would put us well into Or within the two thirds? That would put us below the two thirds. Yes. Would we could continue to operate the two the two backup, special education lift buses until 2029? Until 09/01/2029. Yes, sir. Okay. So we have three years. How many Lyft buses do we currently have? Or how many Lyft buses do we currently have that are that are that meet the standards? That meets the standards? That would be sorry. I'm trying to think of our routes. Either four or five,
but the levy That it's in the in the best interest to equip the two extra lift buses and the Dragon Wagon and then sell the other 14? I would need to look into the cost benefit of that. It may actually it may actually be easier to retrofit an existing Gen Ed bus with a Lyft just so that it would be newer and more reliable. We have done that in the past. Off the top of my head, that's my guess, but I don't wanna commit to anything without having some hard Didn't we do that this summer with a bus? Correct. Yes,
sir. Like, $30,000 or so? That sounds about right. Yes, sir. Okay. And so what you're suggesting is take one of our current Gen Ed buses that already have the three point seatbelts on it and then just go ahead and putting a SPED lift on it? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Buses that have no seatbelts? 16. We have Two that have two points. 14 that have none except for the driver and then two that have the, two point belts. Yes. The ones that it's basically just a lap belt. Yes. But are those being driven? Not on the rig, no. For field trips or for coaches to haul kids from school to school or something.
President, Brian, the bus barn is in the TIF zone. Traditionally, funds raised through bonds have been paid used for transportation purchases. Could we not use TIF funds for this? That's a great question. Yes, that's a great question. We would look into it. Part of me wants to say that it's facility specific with TIF funds, but it's definitely something that we can look into. Yep. And bonds are supposed to be just capital too, but we're allowed to technology and buses, so maybe that still qualifies under the umbrella.
I think that's a good point. Oh, Chase is saying we can? Oh, okay. We can look at it. But you're giving the affirmative. The new regime is looking at it when you head nod. I have one more question. How much does it cost or how much do we pay for a bus to just set there for the year with insurance and Oh, off the, I would need to look into that. I know with Yeah. We're going to have a blanket coverage on the insurance. The yes. So I don't know that we're saving because they're essentially covering X number of buses,
but if you add one, it doesn't necessarily increase our premiums. But a new bus now is what about $130,000 It's probably going to be more than that. Dollars 150,000? Yes, sir. Yes. So, I mean buses have I mean they're expensive, right? And so one thing that we do need to consider is in the past the district has gone out for bonds and bought a large number of buses all at one time, which it makes more sense to have some sort of plan in place where from a maintenance standpoint we know that we need to be buying three buses or five
buses every year. We need to budget for that. And that's something we haven't had to do because when you go out for a bond and you go buy 50 at one time, then, you got plenty. Yes. And you're in and so but they really don't have great resale value to your point that you mentioned earlier. And you said $4,000 The truth is we're going to be lucky to get 1,500 for some of these buses. It could very well be that, yes. And so, yes, so when you're talking about how much they depreciate over a, gosh, I'm going to say a ten year window, it's a lot. Yes, sir.
From $150,000 to $2,000 is a big drop. Yes, yes. Did the retrofit bus work out pretty well that we put the special Yes, sir. Yes. It has, yes. Yeah. Well, we we appreciate, you, mister Bennett, and what you've done since you've been here and by getting all this, wrapping your arms around all this. And we look forward to, having more conversations and how to make this more efficient. And we certainly and that's a good idea from trustee Yeager, with the TIF zone. If we could use those funds, that would certainly help out, tremendously in getting this, back on scale.
But we appreciate if you take those IOUs that you had and get back to us either, at our next meeting or whenever Yes, sir. Is appropriate for you. Yes, sir. Okay. Alright. Thank you, mister Bennett. Appreciate it. Alright. Alright. Moving on to item 9.2, consider recommendation from academic dishonesty committee updates, to grading guidelines. Miss Petty? Good evening, President Bryan, Doctor. Glenn, trustees. I am here tonight to share with you some updates from the Academic Dishonesty Committee. If you will recall, we have had some issues with, some plagiarism,
some cheating that is going on primarily in our secondary schools. And so we created an academic dishonesty committee that consisted of, teachers, counselors, the two high school principals and the CNI team and we looked at what our current practice was. At the time when we, first started looking at this, we had two new principals that were in new positions and so they had asked if we would just give them some time so that they could review what the current practices were, put in more stringent practices and then they wanted to review it.
They have done that. They have asked us to come back and add additional components to it. So we did create the academic dishonesty, committee. The committee will be coming tonight with two fold. They want to first of all talk to you about, teaching protocols that we have created and that is primarily for just our staff. What are we going to do to increase test security with our staff? The second component comes with consequences of cheating and what would be those consequences. So I'm going to let Doctor. Irish who head up the academic dishonesty committee,
speak to those to you tonight. Hello. So as, miss Penny was saying, really, it's three components that we did. There's one, a teacher, kinda teacher facing component, and that is our testing protocols. And we've never had anything like that before, but we feel like a lot of the the cheating that's going on is is is being sort of magnified by our lack of Kind of structure inside our classroom. So we wanted to come up with some some kind of permanent, hardcore kind of, like, structures, and those involve three components.
The first is a classroom setup and supervision, the use of electronic devices, which is really just a clarification on what's already part of Texas law now and and school board policy, and then assessment security. Those are the three things that really we're getting at in terms of the testing protocols. The other the other component is really a student and administration kind of facing component and that deals with the consequences of it. And so one of the things that we needed to do was in our in
our current grading guidelines, we have we have policies for students that are absent when they miss homework. But it was pretty much just with daily work and homework. We didn't really have anything in there that was dealing with assessments, that was specifically called out for assessment. So what we did was we took what's currently in our with our homework policy and just sort of moved that and tweaked it a little bit to apply to assessments. And then the other thing that we did was, currently in the grading guidelines,
the consequences for a student being caught cheating was was not really robust enough, we felt like. And so what we did is we added some additional components to those consequences. And, basically, there are three offenses, three levels. So each time a student is caught cheating, they go to the next level. And then the third level, it just stays the same, you know, with with additional things that can happen. But I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any questions about any specifics
with I appreciate it, mister Irish. But what you're doing and miss Petty and your your team, we we love, seeing, directives about giving tests on paper. That just made us all, I think, very happy to see that. So we appreciate you, spearheading that. I think it's made a big difference. So I've heard it has made a a big difference thus far, but, I'll open up for questions. Trustee proceed. Do you feel like you need to go into a couple of these more specifically? Have the microphone, talking about, I know a lot of our conversations were around, makeup tests. Like, kids being absent and teachers not being able to give the test back to kids,
in a timely manner because you had kids pushing it out for weeks and weeks to do this. So can you talk a little bit about that? And then can you talk about when we're talking about offenses, it is beefed up a little bit more, but we also looked at other school districts, and what they were doing. And this is this was some of the other districts of what they were doing, when they caught us. Yeah. I I I think, probably the biggest frustration for the teachers was just the sheer number of students that were missing on days that were tests. And there wasn't any kind of like I said,
there was a policy for dealing with homework, in terms of when they have to, you know, turn in their homework on days that they're gone, but there wasn't anything in there about assessments. And, I mean, I've been in the district for fifteen years now. I mean, I was a teacher for twelve years, and I I don't ever really remember that being a big issue. Issue. There's always kids that are absent. You know? But over the last three or four or five years, it seems like especially the last, like, year or two, it seems like that, that is happening a lot more more frequently. I had, one of the teachers at the senior high,
texted me over the weekend and told me they had just given an essay, last week, like, on Thursdays and Thursday and Friday. And he texted me. He said, I had close to 30 students absent, on that. Just just for that period, for that test too. I don't know if it was just for that period. That is another phenomenon that we're also seeing over the last, you know, year, especially, students who are missing the just a block there where they have the assessment, and then they are back in class after that. Principal principal Lewis reported that to me and said that was something that she had
grown concerned about. And so I do appreciate Ms. Petty, I appreciate the committee being proactive in this. It's with the advancements in AI, I do think it's an interesting phenomenon that is occurring not just in Carroll but across high schools and universities. And so the idea that we're going back to more, pen and paper is certainly going to help that, right? So, we appreciate the work of the committee very much. And you'll have recommendations and details and everything for our meeting in January or our meeting Monday?
I I have details right now if if you if you want specifics. So, like, miss Stacy's question about I can I can tell you what we've done additionally, what we added to the, the punishments? So for, like, for example, a student who's caught cheating well, all of these are cumulative also. So, like, if you're cheating if you get caught cheating in your history class, that's one offense. And then if you cheat again in your English class, that would be a second offense. So they are cumulative. So, for the first offense, students, to have found engaged in academic dishonesty, they receive a zero on their assignment, with no opportunity for resubmission or retake.
The assistant principal will document the offense in skyward, and they would receive one full Friday night lights. In addition, the student we put on, like, academic probation for any honor society that they might be in. Then a second offense would be all of those all of those, a zero. The principles, will document it in Skyward. They will be removed from any and all honor societies that they are involved in. And then they would also be given a one day of in school suspension,
with other possible consequences too. And then for the third and any subsequent offenses, again, a zero on the assignment documented in Skyward, and then the student would receive two days of in school suspension. And all of the each one of those also involves contacting the the parent and, having a parent meeting with the teacher, and trying to to figure out what's going on, with that. So, and and like miss Stacy said, we did look at others other districts, surrounding districts, looked at their, their policies and stuff.
And so we we kinda modeled over some of them, and then we also took what we thought we we felt like was important for I guess, back to my my question is, what's the what's the time frame around, for taking action on this this new policy? And, do we do we need to save some time in between now and whenever we vote on it to allow for comments from community or I mean, how are we gonna communicate this? I mean, we can't just snap our fingers and say, okay, now this is our new policy. I mean, we have to communicate it somehow.
Yes. We have been talking with communications department and they are planning on on getting this out. Really, the teacher protocols which will go into place first, we are working the two principals will be working with their staff, training their staff before midterms. So we will have the teacher protocols taken care of. The other the other situations will not occur until this spring. So what we would like to do is each principal has said that they will be taking a faculty meeting to go in-depth to what these are. Communications department will be spreading the word out to the community.
We will have these posted on our website so that people could see them. We could we were hoping to get it approved at next Monday's meeting. We could hold off until people could see them. They are posted on this agenda for tonight. So they are out there able to be viewed. Just whatever I think your recommendation is, I think that's what we wanna follow to give you enough time, to get the communication out there and get your teachers trained and, all of that. And you said by spring? I meant to We would we would like when we come back in January, we want it to go into as soon as we start the second semester,
we want it to be in full effect at that point. So would it be reasonable then to have principals when teachers come back in January, they have their faculty meetings that's posted on the campuses, the teachers then have conversations curious whether it's next week that we vote on it or at at a later date with communications it doesn't mean that students aren't currently held accountable for academic dishonesty right? I mean like we will still be holding students accountable when they cheat correct?
That is correct. And we really do feel that going back to the paper pencil will help out considerably. So that's probably the biggest piece, right, is that, it's going to require some changes on how teachers give assessments and so we want to make sure that that's well communicated out to our staff. I mean, I think that, obviously, now we know that teachers when they find the kid is cheating, they contact the office and there are consequences. The kids are just made aware that the consequences now are much more severe, right? I mean, removal from an honor society is a big deal. And oh, I'm sorry.
And having the parent conferences. And, Cecilia, one of the biggest issues that was brought to my line of sight from a very concerned parent was the fact that kids were taking absences. So there would be one person that would take the assessment, everybody else would be absent, then they give them the, you know, questions or the test, and then everybody shows up when they want, takes it. So the policy that does need to be put in place is the repercussions or starting that grade at a lower percentage if you have an unexcused absence. That is absolutely something that has to be fixed. Yes. And also, I think what it's doing,
when you have 30 kids that miss one assessment, what's happening is the teacher is trying to accommodate all of these times. And I know one example was there's a teacher that's having to stay till 06:30 or 07:30 at night to give assessments. And so if if this isn't something that we that we wait on until January, those teachers, like, they're having to work so many extra hours just to accommodate all these different times that work for all these kids. So so how how is how is this policy solving that problem of, you know, students that miss one period?
Like, I'm gonna miss doctor Irish's English class, and then I'm gonna come back to school after fourth period. How does how does this policy fix that issue? Because I hear that more than anything from the principals. Yeah. So and like we said, like before, there wasn't really anything in place. And we had stuff for homework, but there wasn't anything that was dealing with, like, tests. So what we did was we took the current procedure and applied it to major assessments. And so currently and we also did some other things too which which came up. So currently right now the way it reads is, students who are absent on the day of an assessment will be required to make
it up on the assigned makeup date designated by the teacher, and that has to be done within two class periods. So that's the max window that a student would have. Yes. So, like, if I'm if it's a an a week and and we have class on Monday, they're gone, then they have till Friday to make it up. And that we're we're trying to empower the teachers because like miss Stacy said, the teachers are having a hard time. You know, our students are busy and stuff trying to figure out how to get them in. Many teachers are are having them come in during their lunchtime. They're coming in during their conference periods.
They're staying before school or coming in before school. They're staying after school trying to accommodate the students. So, and and students are some students are taking advantage of that and and just trying to push it off and push it off push it off. So that's the first thing. The it also in the Gradebook, it will automatically go in as a zero. So, like, when you're absent like, if you were absent on Monday and you weren't there for our essay, I'm gonna go ahead and put a zero in the Gradebook because then that will notify the parent, the student will see it. Like, that gets your attention. I know when I was a teacher and I would put that zero in as
a holding thing, that got a lot more attention than if it was just a blank. And so that would be kind of an impetus for them to try and, okay, let's let's come in and get this zero zero gone. For, one of the things that we also did was added four students, like you said, doctor Glenn, the student who just misses just my class and then they're in class right after that. If that gets logged in as an unexcused absence, then what we added to to this was failure to make up an assessment during this time frame oh,
sorry. That's something else. Students who have an unexcused absence on the day of an assessment may make it up, but only up to 70% of the original points. So there's gonna be a consequence now for you having an unexcused absence, when you just missed this class period and then and then you're you're there for the rest of them. Additionally, you guys probably will also wanna know, it also says that if a student so we'll put in a zero for when they're absent. Failure to make that up will now within that two day window now has a consequence also even for students who had excused absences.
So, one day, late considered late, the max you could get would be a 70. Two days late, the max you could get would be a 50. And then after that, it's a zero. So so, if you were gone on Monday, you didn't make it up by Friday, then that means that next week, if you come in the next class, if you're gonna make it up then, but the max you could get would be a 70. And then if you don't make it up then, you say, oh, I'm not ready or whatever, then I see you on Wednesday again, then the max you could get would be a 50 then. So we we significantly beefed up that
that procedure. Even if it's an approved absence? I mean, they're allowed Approved absences, they have two days to make it up. Okay. But they can get the full grade. Yes. Okay. Gotcha. Like a school related absence. So Or or anything, doctor, whatever. Anything that's excused absence, they would have two days to make it up. And that's consistent with Two days after they after they return. Yes. Okay. Yeah. But typically, a kid that's missing one period, that shouldn't be a problem. Thank you. I wanted to compliment Doctor. Irish, Ms. Petty and the people that were on this task force. Again, for people in our community,
this is not a committee that people from the community could be on. This isn't a standing committee. This is a task force to address a specific issue. So there were some questions about that. And one of the things, those of us that have had and have students that are children that are in college, they come back and they immediately tell you how incredibly tight the assessment protocols are at universities and colleges. And what I like so much about this is we talk about academically getting our students ready for the next level.
This gets them ready from, if you would, a code of conduct, and that, you know what, you can't leave the classroom, for example, when you're taking an SAT or an ACT. Right? Because frankly, some student, and it's very rare, but will go to the bathroom and they'll pick up their cell phone and they'll call a tutor or a friend or whatnot and go back. And what you're doing is you're you're basically saying these protocols are gonna be adhered to by all Dragon students. There's nobody who's disadvantaged. And it really does the students a justice to prepare them for what they're going
to face when they go to university college or even in the professional world. Any of us who've taken, certification tests, they're you go to a testing center, testing centers are incredibly tight, right? So, you know, I know it may come across at first to some students that this is tough, but this is the real world. This is what you're gonna experience at the next level academically, and I like the idea of you having across the board protocols. It's not one English teacher that does it differently than the math teacher. Right? They're all gonna be doing it the same way,
and I really think this is something that I'm I'm excited about this task force work. Yeah. I appreciate your comments, trustee Yeager. And thank you, doctor Iris and miss Petty, for this presentation, all the work in leading this committee and and what you do. I do think this is a super important effort, and it's something that the board is, certainly gonna support. And whenever we decide, to take action on it, I hope you guys know that we support you and we support what this committee has, recommended, and that, we wanna move forward as as best we can. And I think, mister Brady, your communications team has a big task ahead of them in trying to get this
out to the parents and making sure that they understand clearly what these changes are because it is a big change, and how we've operated and how this culture has been over many, many years as you as you guys know. So, thank you for being here. Thank you for that, and then we'll we'll let you know when we wanna take action on it. K. Thank you. Alright. Moving to item 9.3, consider proposed local policy board policy updates 2025.7, 2025.8. Mister Nickel? President Brian, doctor Glynn, board of trustees, thank you. I guess about two months ago, I think I was up here presenting about 30 different,
policy revisions that Tee had given me for, things that the eighty ninth legislative session have impacted. Tonight, I think I have about 16 or 18 more. I think as they go through, they're just finding nuance adjustments that have to be made or some new policies that need to be put in place. And so tonight, I'm just here to present those for information and try to answer questions if if I can, and then, we'll bring those back next week for before you guys to act on. And so I'll try to go through these quickly and then like I said, answer questions if you have them. So first policy is policy DGC. This is a new policy and it said it defines the disciplinary proceedings and,
specifies when a professional employee is exempt from such actions. It talks about, if if they have reported maybe the actions of an of another employee or something like that. It also goes into, if they maybe have had to remove a student from their class to make sure that there's not any discipline taken upon them. Almost kind of a whistleblower type act where you can't have a teacher go through discipline for reporting those kinds of things. Policy DP local, it says this changes the changes to DP local, and again these are, you can see the policies in their entirety in your in your board packet.
The changes to DP Local are informed by the provisions of House Bill six. A new section was added to DP Local addressing campus behavior coordinators. It outlines requirements and responsibilities and includes provisions for when situations arise when a school counselor is unable to devote 80% of time to the comprehensive school counseling program. It goes into some language about when we are put in a position where staffing makes it such that counselors have to be pulled into other activities and maybe there when they look at the hours of their day they have to go below the 80% threshold of being,
doing devoting 80% of their time to that comprehensive school counseling program. It says that the school district can has the option to go back and revise the job duties of the counselor to, maybe make allowance for that if they if they need to. Yes, ma'am? Let me just clarify. You don't have that, right? Everybody's a 100% full time counselor at all of our campuses? Their their job is a 100% counselor. This is something that came in maybe four or five years ago where the state was very intent. They know that counselors get pulled into things like So testing is probably the biggest
one where, like, during this it count like, traditional counseling duties where they would get overwhelmed and they'd become, like, testing coordinators for a campus. And so the state pulled it back to kind of restrict schools from using a counselor or guidance counselor strictly for testing. So it's probably not something that really applies significantly to our counselors all the time but there can be periods maybe during STAR testing where they're pulled a little bit and so it just gives us grace. And our counselors do a time tracking tool where they look at that. But, this is just a provision where, when staffing doesn't allow and districts get put in a position where they have to
pull from their counselors, that they do have the option of, I guess, revising job duties and the way that the counselor's role looks. Policy EHVAB local, the creation of this policy is informed by provisions of House Bill six and, eleven eighty eight. It says it outlines supplemental special education requirements including what qualifies as supplemental services and who who is eligible to receive these services. Next, policy FNCD local. This is about student conduct, tobacco use, and possession of the creation of the FNCD local.
It's informed by provisions of House Bill six. This basically, if you remember two years ago in that legislative session they made it mandatory the kids had to go to DAP if they were caught with with a vape. This has walked it back and said it's permissible for the school to do that. It's no longer mandatory. It's permissible. Just a revision of that. Policy FOLocal, this changes FOLocal that's informed by Senate Bill 25. It's been updated to prohibit school employees from restricting students' participation in recess and in PE and so those cannot be used for disciplinary purposes.
FOA local, this is has to do with removal of a student by a teacher or bus driver. It says the creation of FOA local is informed by provisions of House Bill six. FOA is created to outline circumstances under which a teacher may remove a student from class and the procedures for such removal and kind of the actions that would follow that. FOB local, the creation of this is informed by House Bill six. FOB is created to outline when and how out of school suspension is appropriate to establish the timelines for suspension. That also includes special provisions for students experience experiencing homelessness,
and students below grades three. And it also talks about how there are circumstances where parents may request, for in school suspension to be used in lieu of out of school suspension. If a parent says, Nobody is going to be at home. I don't want my fourth grader at home by themselves, can the school accommodate? And there is a process by which they can request that and the school can make amendment if they want to. Let's see. FOF local students with disability, the creation of FOF local is informed by House Bill six. It addresses that a student with a disability who receives special education services may not
have their placement changed for disciplinary reasons until the ARD committee conducts a an MDR review. FOG local, has to do with in school suspension. The creation of FOG local is informed by also by House Bill six that outlines when in school suspension is appropriate. And it talks about when we when we put a student into ISS, there's no limit of time limit that it was. Again, two years ago in the legislative session, they said in school suspension can't be used for more than three days at a time on any student. They've since walked that back because of just the issues that it causes on a
campus. It's they've said, there's no longer time constraints. If a school administrator needs to place a student for more than three days, they can. But every ten days that a student serves cumulatively for ISS, they have to go back and do a review and basically say, why are we doing this? Is it working? Is the students who are making progress, academically? Things like that. CJ local, having to do with contracted services. The changes to CJ local are informed by provisions of Senate Bill five seventy one and House Bill two ten. The changes establish a new requirement for service providers and contractors prohibiting any district employee
or contractor from assisting another in obtaining employment if they know or suspect prior sexual misconduct involving a student. It also includes a pre service affidavit requiring service providers to disclose prior investigation sanctions, etcetera, if they have those in their employee. CJA local is similar. This has very much to do with the contractor. It says the changes are informed also by Senate Bill five seventy one and House Bill two ten. These changes set new safety and compliance standards for contracted service providers.
It allows limited emergency access for contractor employees without completed criminal history checks if they're under direct supervision of the district. It requires that all service providers to verify that no individual associated with their services appears on the state registry or persons ineligible to work for an education entity. DBAA, the changes to DBAA local are informed by the provisions of Senate Bill five seventy one. It's been updated to align with recent state law changes requiring expanded disclosures in the
pre employment affidavit. The revisions clarify that all applicants must disclose whether they have been investigated, sanctioned, listed on the state registry of individuals ineligible to work or act as service provider for an educational entity. Applicants also have to indicate whether they have been employed by or provided services to a public private or private school and whether they resigned or were terminated from such employment. DEC local, this has to do with compensation and benefits. It adds provision that requires boards of trustees to adopt a policy giving a classroom
teacher the option to elect not to use pay personal leave concurrently with unpaid leave to which the teacher is entitled under FMLA. DH local employee standards of conduct, the changes to this are informed by provisions of Senate Bill five seventy one. It's been updated to clarify that the district standards of conduct and reporting requirements apply not only to employees but also to individuals acting as service providers for the district. The update also aligns with changes in law and complements the next policy,
FFF, which requires pre owned notification when allegations of misconduct involve either an employee or a service provider. And so then f f f f local, it says this is also informed by Senate Bill five seventy one. It's updated to ensure transparency and consistent communication with parents when allegations of an employee or a service provider of misconduct. It says the policy requires the district to notify parents as soon as feasible of any alleged misconduct and to disclose whether the employee resigned or was terminated following the investigation as well as whether the report was submitted to TEA or SBEC.
Thanks, Mr. Nickel. I don't think any of those were there is not any outliers that I don't think that you wanted to point to. They are all pretty much routine and in fact there are policies that we already pretty much Things that we've discussed. All eight today, right? And we're just formalizing them. That's correct. Yes. This puts us in compliance with the changes from the eighty ninth session. Okay. Any questions for Mr. Nickel? Okay. Mr. Nickel, you have 9.4 which is considered legislative changes from the eighty ninth Texas legislative session. You, Mr. Brady and, Ms. Parsons. We have a presentation on this.
We have a few bills that we're gonna present just, for consideration. The first one I'll talk about is senate bill 11. This has to do with daily prayer time. With the eighty ninth, this bill went in place and it allows for but does not require districts to adopt daily period of volunteer prayer time or the reading of religious text. It has to occur outside of any instructional time and it cannot occur over the PA. It requires that the board vote for policy adoption by 03/01/2026 if implemented. And some of the key provisions, if we were to do this, we have to get written consent as required of any employee or parent,
we have to get a liability waiver, and an agreement not to object to other speech. Only the students and employees who opt in may participate, which means you have to find another location for any student who says I don't want to be around that. You'd have to have secondary places for them to be. It must be completely voluntary, no pressure or implied endorsement and like I said we'd have to have a space for those not wanting to participate. Some considerations, we currently already observe a moment of silence during the time allotted for the pledge and this time gives an opportunity for students or staff to pray.
There's also nothing that precludes them from being able to look at religious texts on non structured time. If a student wanted to read their bible during lunch or something like that, they have that ability to do so as well. And mister Sorry. I was just gonna say I think that this, bill was probably written for school districts not like ours, because our students, if they wanted to, outside of class, can can pray all they want. They can read their bible. They can do all of that outside of class times, passing periods, that type of thing. Is that correct? That's correct. So I I don't understand why we would wanna adopt a daily period if if
students can do that throughout the day, on our campuses and we allow that to happen. I'm assuming that this is written because some districts, don't allow that. I I would agree with you. And I I think that the the law makes makes allowance for that, but I think that there's probably, a reason that does does not necessarily directly apply. And to confirm for everybody watching all 11 of our campuses say the American pledge, the Texas pledge and observe a moment of silence for prayer every day, correct? That is correct. Thank you. We do that already. Okay. Okay. The next one that I'm going to present is Senate Bill eight which has had a lot of traction lately.
It's the Texas Women's Privacy Act or it's also called the bathroom bill. This new law applies to it puts sex based restrictions on restrooms and changing rooms and public buildings, schools and universities. The key provisions, it provides a few exemptions in which people are allowed into restrooms not matching their sex assigned at birth and those provisions would be if you're going in to render emergency aid, if you have custodial workers or if you have maintenance workers going in to do things in those facilities, law enforcement purposes,
somebody who is accompanying someone who is in need of assistance in using that facility, or a child age nine or younger who is accompanied by an adult as in if a mother wanted to bring their five year old son into a public restroom. Those are some of the provisions that, allow somebody to bring someone of the opposite sex into one of these I thought there was one other one, doctor Glenn, you were mentioning to some of us the other day, and that is coaches, like at halftime or something like that. That is what I was going to talk about next is Oh, that's one of the one of the big considerations for us when this goes into effect is that we have situations where,
we may have a a coach or a director of the opposite gender that needs to go into a space for a pregame talk, a halftime talk, things of that nature. And so, this law, does not require us to build policy, but it does ask us to adopt practice to conform to this. And so some considerations here, some things that we're gonna recommend putting in place, to allow us to to fall within this and to make sure we're following the law. We have to designate private periods for dressing rooms, as in times when there's dressing, showering, using the restroom, things like that.
You can also designate non private times, and and say that this is a non private period of time when those things shouldn't be occurring. That would be things like pre game talks, halftime meetings, film sessions, some sort of instruction that that might be going on at that time. To do that, you're supposed to install install signage. That's something that we would recommend doing that designates when the space is a private space or when it, would not be a private period, time. And then, we would implement a locker room clearing practice where a same sex student or staff member would go in and make sure that the coast is clear,
that everybody knows that, we're moving into a time where it's not a, private period time. And then we would have a, knock and announce procedure, knock, announce, confirm where once that same sex, individual has gone through and made sure, yes, w's changing, you're good. They would knock, I'm coming in, is everybody good? And then once that's confirmed, they would then be able to enter and the signage will be changed so that's no longer a private setting, this is a non private, time. We would then make sure that we communicate and train our staff. We would have to annually go back and review that training with staff to make sure they all understand and know how that works and then establish procedures for when
we have visiting schools using our facilities to make sure they know what's expected. Yeah. So essentially Senate Bill eight is meant to protect our kids. Right? So we're gonna comply fully with Senate Bill eight, but there's some common sense procedures that we need to put in place. You think about a girls basketball team from Keller that is coached by a male coach that comes over here to play and so policy and practice needs to allow him an opportunity to go speak to his team at halftime, right? So UIL and TU actually put out some guidance procedures for us that we will
bring back to you guys for approval and then we'll drop them into our employee and student handbooks. Questions? Mr. Nickel, just one question. Nowhere here does it mention anything about cleaning. Should I assume that that's just allowed because we have to have That that is Oh, did I Yeah. The key provisions, that's one of the things. Okay. Sorry. Maintenance are clean. Yes, sir. That's a good question though. Thank you. Because those are the types of things that that made us go where our coaches fall into some of those situations or a a theater director or something that may need to enter one of those spaces. K. Thank you, Brian. President,
Brian, trustees, doctor Glenn, Jeff Brady, your director of communications. So now, up is house bill thirty five forty six as president Bryan alluded to earlier tonight. This actually in layman's terms allows this board to adjust, the date of the election for fellow officers. So the bill amends specifically education and the election code to grant independent school districts the authority, to change the date of the general election to align with November uniform election date, which was previously only allowed for other elected bodies.
So specifically, it allows the board of trustees to adopt a resolution to change the length of the term for the trustee to coincide with or overlap the canvassing of elections for the November date if this board chooses to do so. So that's what 3546 allows. This board now has that, ability to change the date. However, once the date is changed, it's fixed. So it's set for all subsequent elections. It has to be in November from from that time forward if, again, if this, board chooses to do so.
Another consideration which is not necessarily related to 3546 but worth considering at this time is that the state also allows school boards to adopt a resolution to require a majority vote for elections for officers on this panel which would mandate a runoff election of course if no individual candidate receives more than 50% of the votes. Currently, we have a plurality based election process which most North Texas school boards and Texas school boards in general provide for and that of course allows the candidate with the
most votes to win with no runoff required. So for your consideration, this panel is now allowed to change the date of all subsequent school board elections to coincide with the general election in November. So this is an interesting bill. Probably well over a decade ago, schools were afforded the opportunity to move off of the May date to the November date. That window subsequently closed and through this last session, it's been reopened for boards to consider again. And I think what the push is from the state is to try and get
all trustee elections pushed to November, all elections pushed to November. There was a date and time when, like VA TREs, the school could just set it whenever they wanted. In fact, when I was superintendent of Waxahachie, I believe we set our TRE, election date in August. There was no other election going on. And so what it is, is it's a push to make sure that we're getting the best turnout. And when you get the best turnout, you're ensuring that the will of the voters is heard. And so the state once again has reopened this, boards to consider moving, to a more uniform date with all of our other state elections. So, again,
this would not be an administrative recommendation, but a pleasure of the board and we're happy to answer any questions that you have. So if we were, to consider this, we'd have to take action probably next Monday, correct, because the application period for the May elections is mid January and we don't have a meeting to coincide prior to that. Is that correct? I would have to look. Typically, it's gonna be at the January or the February for a May, election date. But, we need to to look at you know,
ideally, you're talking about something that, you would wanna do sooner rather than later to make sure if if you were gonna move in that direction to, to give, everybody the most runway, possible as far as, advanced notice. So if we were to vote to move it to November, place one, two, and three that are up in May would now be up in November. Then places, four and five would be November '27. And then, places, six and seven would be November '28. Is that correct? And then that's the transition and then everybody from here on out,
remains at the three year November election cycle. Yeah. Essentially, everything would shift to November, of 2026, and then subsequently every election beyond that would be in November. In perpetuity, again, this is an irreversible decision, so it's binding for all future boards. So very few decisions you make are binding for all future boards, this would be one of them. Go ahead. I I did get a little insights into the why behind it. So one of the things is if you're off cycle, you pay for that election on your own. If you go in November, then you split that with other municipalities.
And then something that I think the public should know that this bill passed unanimously across the board. So in the house, there was a 146, yay, zero nay. In the senate, there was 31 yays, zero nay. So it was bipartisan. Everybody agreed across the board that this was the right thing to do. Trustee Biden, that's an interesting fact. Was it because of the savings, or other reasons in turnout? To encourage Yeah. The most amount of people to get to the election round. Yeah. It's nice, right? For those of us that have run-in May, the first thing you hear people is like,
what? You know, they're just not used to it and the numbers do seem to historically be low. So it is an interesting fact that you said that it's not a partisan wasn't a partisan bill at all. I didn't know that. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. Just on the cost factor, I was curious if anybody looked at what the potential cost savings is by not having to by being allowed to share it the cost in November versus it being more a local cost? I think it depends on a variety of factors. The first is the majority plurality,
right? Because obviously if you have a runoff you're going to pay more. But also with that payment you're ensuring that the person elected to the position is who the community wants, who the stakeholders want. So, I think you weigh those two things while you may be spending a little bit more. Keep in mind we're talking about $100,000,000 budget and so at the end of the day, you're making a decision that essentially is being made because you want to ensure the people that sit at this dais are representative of who the community wants. Thank you. Yes.
So, can we move on to majority versus plurality? That's true. I know that Grapevine, Colleyville, our next door neighbor, has majority, vote in place. And that is let's just say we've we haven't really had a a situation where we've had more than two, candidates, in recent history. I think the last one was, actually My Place Place four back, I think, trustee Landon ran against, Brian and, and and and Jordan. And I I think the winner, won by, what, a 100 votes or something like that. Yeah. That's true. And so, if that was to ever occur,
again, if we get more, people interested in serving these, types of positions, in my opinion, we don't want, somebody to win, just because they got one more vote than the other. It may be with 35% of the electorate. I think it's important that, we think ahead that, we possibly will have more than, two candidates in either place in the in the coming years and that, they need 50% of the vote. And then a runoff would be determined by whom what date what's the date of
the the runoff? Is that determined by us, by the governor? Yeah. Again, we would we would, seek guidance from the Tarrant County Elections Office, but ultimately you're and you would follow their cycles for runoffs. Okay. All right. Any other questions for Mr. Brady? Then I'm assuming that you guys will bring this to us for action on Monday the fifteenth. If this is something the Board wants to pursue, absolutely. So, yes, so the first set of policies in 09/2003, we were looking at legal policies that Tee recommended. These are local policies at the Board's discretion.
So as we look at Senate Bill 11, Senate Bill eight, House Bill 3,546, we would like for you guys to take action really before this year ends just to give the administrative team guidance on where we're at moving forward. All right. Thank you, Mr. Brady. Ms. Parsons. All right. Thank you, President Bryan, Doctor. Glenn and Board of Trustees. Let me get over. So I'm going to be talking about senate bill five sixty eight. This is the big special education bill that we had passed.
So the major components of this bill is this is the bill that updates the funding for special education. It allocates a thousand dollars for each, full and initial full and individual evaluation. It adds 13¢ per mile for special education transportation. Too bad, mister Bennett's not here to hear that. And it also allows students who only receive accommodations for dyslexia to get the dyslexia allotment. It also deals with the cameras in the classroom, room, and that's what we're gonna really talk about today.
So what it did is it changed the verbiage in what was previously. So it said previously self contained or other special education settings. Now it just says special education settings, or says special education classrooms and other settings. So what that means, the definition of the special education classroom or other special ed setting is a classroom setting, where the majority of the students spend less than 50% of their day in a
general ed setting. So how we have done it previously, as you know, is that we have had all self contained classrooms just have a camera installed. And we didn't have to have any kind of, parent request or staff request. They just the board had decided that's how we wanted to address that. With this new, senate bill five sixty eight, there could theoretically be what we call resource classrooms that could qualify for a camera.
So currently, the district has 32 classrooms with cameras. Three of those are new this year. We had a parent request for the dragon, Excel classrooms, the transition classrooms here to be, a camera placed in those, and we went we went ahead and did that. And there is one pending camera installation at Dawson Middle School. It's not a parent request. It's just they their one of their self contained classrooms took over another classroom, so we needed to get a camera in there.
So what my department did is we looked at all the resource classrooms to see which ones would qualify under this new, senate bill five sixty eight. And right now, there's five additional classrooms that would qualify, that when we looked at all the kids that were in that class, five of them, and they're all social studies and science resource classrooms, and the secondary level that had a majority of students that were in a self contained student setting for the majority of the day.
Have any, have any parents or teachers requested cameras to be solved by? Classrooms? No, sir. And and I'm assuming, this is another unfunded mandate that Yes. It is very much an unfunded mandate. One of the things that I I I need to let you guys know, policy EHBAF, which is our cameras in the classroom policy, will need to be revised, a little bit. There is current, wording says we will hold on to that footage for three months. This bill said we need to keep it for six months,
which will increase it'll cost more to keep that, camera footage for three extra months, and, of course, there's no funds to help pay for that extra. The let me do say that the the three cameras that we installed here, doctor Glenn, and the transition classrooms, that was a parent request. But for the five additional classrooms, we have gotten no family requests or teacher. No family requests from from families that are in those classrooms. Yes. In order to request a camera,
you can be a board member of the board can request it. An administrator can request it. A staff member, like a teacher, related service provider, para, or a parent of the student in those classrooms. That's who can request. So under the new law, there's five classrooms that qualify. If we if we chose to do that, they're all at one campus. They're all at CHS. Yes. And then every year, we would just have to reevaluate because kids move Yes. Obviously. And then another would that mean that, maybe a classroom that had one would not qualify Yes.
And another classroom would? Yes. And then we would have to pay to move that. So kinda just doing some, just easy math. If we if the classroom was set up that we could put one camera in each classroom, that would be about $10,000, to for the all five classrooms. If we have any classroom because of the way it's laid out that we would need two cameras, then, obviously, it's about $2,000 per camera. So Thank you, miss Parsons. Any questions further? I just wanna clarify. You said that there were five resource classrooms that could qualify.
Do qualify. They have Like they like they must have cameras? No. No. But they're eligible if we want them. Eligible. Yes. If they when I say they qualify, they have the amount of students in each classroom that would allow a camera. So even if a that we have a classroom and there it doesn't have the right the number of students that would need if someone said let's put a camera in that classroom, that that classroom can't have a camera. So these would qualify if the board wants to put them in there or a staff member or a
parent. And from your observations, do you have any concerns with any of the students or anything that's happening in those specific classrooms that that you would say, gosh, I really think this particular classroom needs a camera for these reasons. Nothing that has been brought to my attention as of this school year. No. I don't have any concerns. There is, you know, like I said, there was a camera that we were putting in in DMS, and there was a concern. So we did say, yes. We definitely need administration said, I want a camera,
and we agreed. Miss Parsh, is there would there be any reasons other than it's gonna cost us out of pocket, to not put these cameras in these classrooms? No. It is completely at the pleasure of the board on how you wanna proceed at this point. Evaluate. Every year. Every year. All If that if that classroom didn't qualify. So I'd be curious if we'd have to, move the cameras themselves or once we install them, are they Once you install them and it's really not it it the one of the biggest costs is in laying the cable.
And so you could take the and I I don't know. Randy's back there. Here he comes. Somewhere. I don't know how expensive that is to pull cable and move it somewhere else. There he is. He'll tell us. Have abandoned the cable and you move the device itself can be removed to another room. But then if that other room hadn't ever had cabling before, you'd have that cost of putting in the cabling and retest the cable. The camera and the licensing can move the cabling as that. So I think that,
yeah, the short answer is that it would require some maybe workarounds with the principal, maybe as they build out classrooms the next year, they would try and shuffle them so that it would work. But ultimately, what I'm hearing from you is that when a parent, when an administrator says, Hey, we have a need, we run to solve that need and put the cameras where they need to be. If we don't hear somebody saying, Hey, this is an issue, then we're not throwing money at a problem that doesn't exist. Yes,
sir. Sounds Okay. Anything else for Ms. Parsons? Okay. Thanks, Ms. Parsons. Thank you. Moving on to our discussion and action portion of the agenda, item number ten, ten point one, consider approval of fall twenty twenty five acquisition of instruction materials and elementary classroom library materials. Ms. Penny? Good evening. If you will recall, it has been over thirty days. I did send in a request from each of our campuses and from the district level for approval of EFA and EFB, which are our instructional materials and our classroom libraries. And I am here tonight to seek approval for that.
We have received zero feedback on the list that has been posted over thirty days. Questions for Ms. Petty? Okay. I move to approve the fall twenty twenty five acquisition of instruction materials and elementary classroom library materials as presented. Second. Thank you. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries five to zero. Thank you, Ms. Petty. Last item, agenda is item 10.2 which is the discussion and possible action including adoption of a resolution authorizing the sale of surplus real property together with any and all improvements described as approximately 2.07
acres, 1050 South Carroll Avenue, portion of the 16.086 Track situated in the JW Hale survey, abstract number 803, City Of Southlake, Tarrant County, Texas. Mister Mooney. Yeah. I'm asking the board to adopt a resolution authorizing the sale of surplus real, real property. Like you said, it's approximately 2.07 acres located at the west side of the 16.086 acres at Old Union Elementary. This property is currently zoned as residential and we do not intend to hire a
realtor for the sale of this property. And this is the property that's over the bridge. There's a big drainage on the area. It's on the west side of the drainage ditch. It's actually part of the development, the housing development. Is that how it's owned? And right now it's zoned residential, correct? It is zoned residential. And trustees, just so you know, your authorization tonight is authorizing us to post and go out for bids for the potential sale of this property. You're not obligated to sell the property. If we receive any bids that are in compliance with state law,
which meaning they have to be above the market value of the property, we can bring those back to you at a later date and you'll have the ability to accept a bid if you want to move forward with the sale of the property at that price, which is above market value again or you could reject all bids, even if the prices are above. So ultimately, it will be at the pleasure of the Board. This will allow us to move forward with the posting of that property and bring you back bids at a later date. Thank you, Doctor. Glenn. Any questions, comments? Okay. I move to authorize the sale as presented.
Second. Motion is second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Motion carries five-zero. Thank you. Mr. Mooney, if no objection, we will adjourn this meeting at 07:51PM. Thank you.