Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, Heat Heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hello. Heat. very heat. Good evening. The meeting is now
convened. It is 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. The quorum of the board is present in the boardroom in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551. They are Bobby Adier, Frost Po, Luis
Kindo, Courtney Lewis, Rosa Maria Berdea, Lorie George, and Jay Stigall. The time is now 50:01 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. We will now recess and reconvene for executive session as
authorized by chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code under sections 551.071, 071 0072 0074 and 0076. We'll now convene an ex Oh,
hey. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Yeah. To be an elevate principal is one that has a sense of urgency. The challenges that I have faced each and every day being in education for the past 24 years is what has prepared me for this role.
Our sense of urgency is what's going to drive achievement, drive our teachers, and drive our students to success. The staff can expect from me full transparency. Having high expectations from the beginning that do not waver. That means having our students being held accountable as well as staff and
teachers. There will be rigorous instruction within the classroom, but we will work as a team to get there. I'm excited for this adventure and where it will take the students, the staff, and the community of Hazel Harvey Peace. Success will be an overall TVA rating of
an A. Success. Good morning. >> Morning. >> Good morning, Victor. >> So, it starts here. >> Yes, it starts here in the morning. We greet our kids. >> Good morning, Caitlyn. to help them in and they get their day started. >> Good morning.
>> This is a good opportunity for us to kind of mingle with the parents as well, so they're used to seeing us every morning. Kids don't want to be late. They want to tell their parents, we want to be on time. We want We're missing school. >> Is being at school important for you? >> Yeah. >> How come? >> Cuz I study health um reading and and
writing. >> Good morning, girls. Are you ready to check attendance? >> Yes. >> Students are walking around with our community and partnerships, Miss Jenia Aila. >> We're going to make sure who's here and who's not. That way I can be able to call parents and see if we can get students to get there before 10:00 a.m. Okay.
>> Okay. I'm Collip and attendance matters to me. >> I'm Bridget and I'm serious about attendance. >> This year our kids were all about making sure that we are um exposing that attendance matters by either creating posters, even holding each other accountable and passing as hey don't
forget to be here tomorrow. Get here on time. >> Good morning Mr. Nva. >> Good morning. >> Is it a good time for attendance? >> Make it student driven. I think you need the kids buy in because teachers are teaching and absence bell doesn't ring until 10. So the kids are the ones kind of tracking that in the morning.
>> Hi Miss Sanchez. >> I'm here to check up who's absent. >> Okay. >> So I know something that's very popular with them is those social media platforms um after school hours where they're holding each other accountable and asking each other questions like where were you today? >> Hey have y'all seen Randy.
>> No. >> Um we try to text him in the group chat. >> Yeah. He hasn't responded. It keeps them accountable. They all know, oh, if we're not there on time, Kia is going to come and see that I'm not there on time. >> I think students, they know that if they're here, there's going to be incentives and so that's why they want to be here.
>> Oh, here we have a student here ready for a token. >> That is cool. What? So, what does that mean to you? >> That nobody is absent. >> You're going to see tokens outside their classroom and that means that the all the class is here and they were here on time. Who's absent today? >> Uh, in my group, nobody's absent.
>> Nobody. Okay, perfect. So, I'll call you right now. But, >> hi, good morning. I was calling to see why Salvador wasn't in school today. >> Attendance matters. Um, and not only to be here, but be here on time. Are you ready to start your day?
Wherever Pete has been, the kids win. Everywhere, every time, Pete's kids win. Under his leadership, our kids will win. Please join me in welcoming Pete Lacata,
one of our newest Texans, to Fort Worth, Texas. We're very excited for being here. There's no question about it. This is an opportunity. It's an honor, but it's a responsibility. It's children. You are not a public educator if
children aren't the first thing you think of when you address anything regarding school related activities, education, classrooms, personnel, HR, rules, buses, health, food. It means we
look at children as a whole person. Fort Worth ISD is honored to welcome our teacher candidates from across our pipeline programs to our spring 2026 signing day. All of these seniors here will sign letters of intent to launch their teaching careers right here in Fort Worth ISD. These candidates
represent the very best of our teacher residency program and our bilingual teacher assistant program, two of our district's most innovative and impactful ways into the profession. You have an opportunity to change the world. Change the future of the world. Give me another
profession that can do that. You can. You have the opportunity to see children in front of you every single day and make their future brighter. >> From Texas Tech University, we have Ana Boss and Cassandra Garcia. Ana and Cassandra, please sign your letter of
intent. Being in the classroom every day has allowed me to build connections with students, to learn from the teachers, and to truly understand what it means to show up for the kids, how important these programs are to our schools, to support our students, and for our own
personal growth. >> And now we have Vanessa Flores and Leslie Bharin from Texas Wesland University. Vanessa and Leslie, please sign your letter of intent. >> I really enjoy working with children. I love them. I think they bring so much joy, not just into the classroom, but
into our lives. You know, as educators, >> we want you to stay here. We need you to stay here. And I'm going to make it a little more guilt. The kids here need you to stay. Parents that are here, be proud of your children. They have chosen the best profession in the world.
>> We are proud of each of you and we are grateful that you have chosen Fort Worth ISD as a place where your journey begins. I am going to be the new principal here at Western Hills Elementary School. >> All right, we're going to start with problem one.
>> Students are going to be engaged in meaningful lessons throughout the day. We are going to be closing some of the gaps that our students have in order to ensure they leave elementary school on grade level ready for middle school. We have amazing futures ahead of you and
again I'm very excited to be your new principal. We believe that all students can and will achieve high levels of success here at Western Hills Elementary School. Elevate campus is a campus where the the environment gets an opportunity to
reset. I will uh be your new campus principal next school year. My first changes is to really listen uh listen to the community, listen to the staff and really try to ensure that I am embracing the culture that has already been built.
Hi. Yeah. You need help? The ultimate goal here is to ensure that we are producing students that can read on grade level, can write on grade level, have the mathematical skills to be able to compete and attend whatever college they desire years from now.
>> We are here to make sure that students continue growing and learning because that is the purpose of school. Division one, are y'all ready? >> Division two, are you ready? >> Today we're gathering um middle school
students all the way from sixth grade to 8th grade. They're coming in and competing. Um they're having a great time. They're doing five math events. So, it's just a great chance to get the kids to that love math to come in here and showcase it. It's their Super Bowl. >> Three, two,
begin. * 1 >> 8 + 2 * 1 = 10. >> There's geometry, space reasoning, algebra, uh problem solving skills, and probabilities. >> You can work individually or in groups,
your choice to solve the word problem. >> 1.25 >> 45 is the total. So 45 go at the bottom. In elementary school, I thought math would be boring and stuff, but after I learned like multiplication, division, um, cross multiplying, then it really
got fun for me. >> Make sure your team is ready to rock and roll. >> This is probably right. I think >> I am doing mathletics because I wanted to sharpen my math skills. First place division one goes to first place winner division two is
digger monosur. We love math. I am Marlette Martinez, the new principal at West Hanley Elementary. My vision uh as a principal in my career, it's at a point where we need to continue that servant leadership in
another pocket of Forth. This is definitely a challenge. I personally love challenges. Uh I am a big believer in it's not how good you are, it's how bad you want this. These challenges will be taken as opportunities so that we can continue growing and learning uh and you
know reaching the maximum capacities of all of our forthd kiddos. We have high expectations from everyone and everybody in our building. Once we have that culture established and and we get in routines of celebrating and uplifting one another uh you know the
possibilities are endless. We can together take the West Hamley community to a new level. We love this campus. We love our students. And I'm very excited about all the programs changes that are coming to allow for our students to get what they need to succeed.
>> If you don't have a board, just have a seat. I'll get you one. >> A lot of changes are going to come with Elevate and a lot of changes for the good. We are going to be every moment of every day is going to be student centered. Every moment of every day is going to be about teaching and learning and growing our students so that we can
close those gaps. What I have here is grade six, but this is the performance. We have too many students who are falling far behind. It's not good enough to grow them a year if we get sixth graders who are at a third grade reading level. We need to grow them three years. And Elevate is going to give us the tools that we need to make sure that
that happens. So, we have about a thousand third through fifth graders coming in today for the Battle of the Books. Let the battle begin. >> Battle of the Books is a two-day competition. The first day is elementary students, second day secondary.
>> In which book does a classmate purposely ruin another student's painting? >> We have a quiz show style competition where kids work in teams. They read five books and then they answer questions and every question begins with in which book? >> In which book does a student believe
that stickers are one of the most special things? >> So the answer to the question is going to be the title of whichever book they think is the best choice. >> Answers, please. >> Reading teaches empathy and it makes us better people when we can identify with
other characters that maybe are different from us. It's important that we have have books that kids can see themselves in. >> The correct answer is Jojo Mak. >> I love reading. It's one of my favorite things to do. It's so important to read
books because if you are always on a screen or something, it's not the best thing for you. But if you read, it's going to help you like step out of your comfort zone. You're going to get to learn new things. >> In which book does someone make night socks? >> I am participating in a bot of the book. cuz I wanted to challenge myself and I
wanted to read more books. >> They get so excited about reading and discussing the books. I love that that we are fostering a shared love of reading. >> The correct answer is >> when you get older and you get a job like you have to learn how to read your
bills and read like mortgage papers and you like have to learn how to read to be successful in life. I hope that they take away the love of reading, the love of love of literacy, the teamwork, you know, working with their teachers, the
librarian, community members. That's what I hope they take away from this experience. >> It is a proportional relationship. Then they create a graph. An elevate school means we're in school transformation. Our goal is to have a very structured curriculum, highly engaged students in
our classrooms. I see the colored pins. Tell me a little bit about the colored pins. A couple of our main focuses this year, of course, will be our students and staff, but we also want to build that partnership with our community partners and our families. Do you like writing?
>> Yes. Students will have teachers that are wellprepared, who have internalized their lessons, who build engaging classrooms, relationships are strong with the teachers. And so your graph is telling the answer to that question. Oh,
I love it. I love it. I love it. Hello volunteers and partners. I'm Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Dr. Peter Lacata. Today and every day, we honor you and we thank you. Every day you help our schools shine. Your generosity, kindness, and bright smiles show our
students and teachers that Fort Worth ISD is more than just a place to learn. It's a community metro >> that comes together to support one another and drive our shared success. So today, we thank you for being a light in our district. Whether you read to a
class, made a donation, helped teachers get the needed supplies, or worked on a campus, thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your commitment. And thank you for your generosity. >> You ready? >> Yeah. >> You got it. >> It takes a village to raise a child, and
there's no better village than ours. Thank you for your service and commitment to Fort Worth ISD. I am a servant leader who is coming with passion and resilience to impact the lives of our students in Fort Worth ISD. This represents one of the biggest challenges of my lives because we're
going to transform the lives of every single student enrolled. Students better get ready because we're going to maximize your greatest potential. And staff, I'm going to challenge you to grow and get better together. There cannot be impact on academic achievement
without a positive culture and we are going to build that together as we become William James. Learning is joy. Kids will be jumping on joy wanting to give the right answer wanting to learn. Uh teachers will be giving each other feedback. We will become the premier
campus in the whole district. Good morning. I love all these outfits. So nice. The motto here at Diamond Hill Elementary is excellence everywhere, whatever it takes. And that's exactly what's going to happen. We have teachers everywhere they need to be. Going to
make sure that every student, every classroom, every teacher is set up for success. >> Students are going to be building the capacity that we know that they can reach. They might >> my ultimate goal is for us to be an a campus. We have so many great systems
and procedures and routines in place already and it's definitely just looking at where can we really prioritize what needs to be different so that we can make sure that we can get to that a that our community, our students, our staff deserve. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
If the box method is easier for you, then that's what you're going to write. >> Being an Elevate principal means accelerating student learning. So, as a leader, the staff should expect for me to be seen, greeting the kids, um, looking at the work that they are doing,
making sure that they are being exposed to grade level materials, and just making sure that doing lots of coaching for our our teachers, and making sure that we're all prepared. >> Always one was our standard algorithm. >> Success for my campus looks like really
100% of of our kids achieving on grade level. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. What is 4 * 64
>> principal and elevate school WJ Turner means to me it's a privilege and bringing in the best of the best >> staff, teachers, and communities should expect high quality instruction.
>> In 6 months, the school will look absolutely different. >> I'm excited to see all of our students challenged. >> There is a an amazing team joining uh WJ Turner for the next school year. I think the parents are going to be excited. Y Welcome to the 2026
campus teacher of the year celebration. Today it is one of the most exciting days of the year. I believe every opportunity that we have to highlight and celebrate the work that each and every one of you do in our classrooms, we are here to celebrate and honor you on tonight. Some of our hardest workers
in Fort Worth ISD. >> It is one of the only professions that can change the future. Think about that. It is one of the only professions that can actually impact the future and it can impact the future of each child in their classroom.
>> And good evening campus teachers of the year. My name is Denise Carpenter >> and my name is Angelica Navaro >> and it is our pleasure to be here with you this evening to announce our finalist starting with elementary. The
finalist is Jacqueline Bender. Our next elementary finalist is Alandre de Leon Tjo Alice Contes Elementary. Our third elementary finalist is Rachel
Flores, West Cliff Elementary. >> Our next elementary finalist is Marina MJ Minvieta, West Hanley Elementary. And our final elementary finalist is
Louise Ortiz at South High Mount Elementary. And now our secondary finalist. Our first finalist is Don Bronze of Pascal High School. >> Our next secondary finalist is Gina
Fiadino, TCC South FWIS Collegiate High School. >> Our third secondary finalist is Francisco Rodriguez, Stripling Middle School. >> Our next secondary finalist is Katherine Smith, Monik Middle School. Our final
secondary finalist is Kaitlyn York at the Leadership Academy at Leonard Middle School. >> You all are a shining example of what takes place in our classrooms each and every day and the impact that you have on our students across the district.
Elevator is just about rising, rising to the occasion, taking students higher. And that's what it's all about with instruction. >> Being able to think and to analyze and to make sure we're applying those specific skills to all different practices that they have.
>> All right, everyone, please help me. What is the number on the board? The message and the expectations or the outcomes are still the same. Already have high expectations here for our kids at George Clark. However, we want to take them to the next level. When
students win, we all win. >> Excellente. I am the principal at Rafina Mendoza which is now an elevate campus and that means that we center instruction on student success and performance immediately.
>> We want to make sure that the moment the students walk in that they are learning and they are in the optimal learning environment. We are making sure that our teachers have a very clear understanding of exactly what instruction should look like at a rigorous level from the
beginning of the day to the end of the day. >> We want them to know that we believe in them and they can do anything that they want to dream to do and that we are going to give them the superpower of their education to do those dreams.
Congratulations. >> Hello, my name is Jacqueline Bender. I am >> I teach at Woodway Elementary School. I teach kindergarten. This is my fourth year. Hi, I'm Rachel Flores, a special education teacher at Westcliffe Elementary for 17 years.
>> Congratulations. >> My name is Marina Mendetta. I'm a third grade dual language teacher at West Hanley Elementary for approximately 10 years. >> My name is Luis Ortiz. I work at South High Elementary and I teach second grade reading and social studies completing my
sixth year. >> My name is Salandra Deontrejo. I teach reading and writing in Spanish and in English at Alis Contraas Elementary. This is my sixth year. >> I was very surprised uh to be named a finalist. I was I just taken a back in
the best way possible. I just sat there and finally my principal, she pushed me from behind and I' I've become famous for this. No, I was not surprised. I am a leader on my campus and I worked really hard. The my mouth opened so wide
when they said my name. I showed up late because I was preparing for star. I felt really bad cuz I almost missed the hall of fame. I feel like I am a strong candidate. So I kind of in my head they I they they named the first person and then the second person in my head I was
like and they did. It's an honor. >> A district teacher of the year should exemplify >> a willingness to adapt but at the same time it's a huge responsibility. >> We have amazing teachers and I want to
shout it from the top of the Pier One building. I do the work for these children and I want to be the best and I want my children to be the best. >> Just always be there for them and just do the best that you can for them >> because the students deserve the best and I am a product of ISD.
>> I know these kids. I feel like I come from this neighborhood. >> I went to ANA first and then I went to 6X high school and during that time I had like amazing teachers. >> What drew me to becoming a teacher? Oh, so many things. school was the first place where I felt believed in.
>> This wasn't my degree. This I got alternative certification. >> Well, um I actually kind of fell into teaching. Now here I am at, you know, Fort Worth ISD. >> I just wanted to be with children and to teach. >> When they are getting the material that
I'm presenting to them, >> the excitement just I can't continue. >> That is the most exciting part of my day. That is why I'm here. I need to make it exciting. So, I'm the one that's got a lot of body movement. I'm not shy. And no one would be surprised about
that. I'll go back way back that I was a beekeeper in the Peace Corp. >> I have taught here at West Coast Elementary for my entire career. >> If I weren't a teacher, I would uh be interviewing celebrities on the red carpet. >> Cooking is my love language. My students
think I'm a little crazy. their mom. Nice and understanding. >> Try when the toilet flush. >> My secret sauce in the classroom would have to be making silly faces or >> breaking out into a dance. Being just
super fabulous. My Ink charts. >> I love connecting with the kids. That is my favorite thing. They surprise me every day with what they can do and what they have to struggle with outside of school. Because once your students know
that you love them and that you care about them, they will give you everything they have. >> The reason that they're doing that is because they feel in their heart that they are cared for, that they are protected. The thing that has stayed the same regardless of the school year is my
love for teaching and my students. This was my calling. So otherwise, I would be interviewing celebrities. I'd be on the other side of this camera. >> I love to come to work every day. I want to be here. I'm one of the first ones in the parking lot. >> So I have so much to say.
>> What was the question? >> How many more do you have? >> Okay. It's the best job you could ever have. And it's the hardest job you could ever have. But Fort Worth is my town, my city, and I love it. Here we're finished.
>> We're finished. >> Give me your feedback. >> So today we are comparing fractions. >> We have an expectation where our students and our teachers and our staff are high performers. >> Vincent Van Go Sunflowers has paint. >> Instruction is taking place every single
day from bail to bail. The teachers are being supported. students are being supported. Y'all look really cool today. How was school field day? My main responsibility is to ensure that our students are getting everything they need in order to support the whole child. The expectation is high. It does
not come without support. There are no losers when it comes to providing education or supporting our students. We are winners here at Tat. Did everyone say alphabet knowledge? >> Alphabet knowledge. >> A principle of an elevate campus means
that we are supporting our campus to the fullest so that we can make sure our students are able to hit their targets. >> This is letter F. >> This is letter F. >> The teachers have to prepare for rigorous instruction.
>> The sound is O. The song is >> every student is walking away being able to read, write, and complete math word problems than their grade level expectations. So, what y'all think? I think what sets our school apart is our
ability to hone in on the needs of our students. >> Now, everything I go to is the teacher learning center. My name is Gina Paladino. I'm a high school math teacher and I teach at TCC South Collegic High School, my 11th year.
>> My name is Don Bruns. I teach economics at Pascal High School, my 11th year. My name is Katherine Smith. I teach English language arts at Monty Middle School. I have been a teacher in Fort Worth ISD for the past 11 years. >> My name is Francisco Rodriguez and I'm
the director of dance at Strickland Middle School at the start of year 8. >> My name is Caitlyn York. I teach at the leadership academy at Leonard Middle School and I teach seventh grade English. This is my first year. >> Just for someone to recognize the effort, the commitment, the consistency
that it takes to do this job was very surprising cuz that's just not something that we get quite often. >> I was very surprised to be named a finalist. >> I was literally shocked. I think if there's a video of it somewhere, it would be really funny. >> I did not expect it. I'm very fortunate and very blessed for the opportunity.
>> Our district has a plethora of highly qualified teachers. When I heard my name, I was in shock and awe. >> The district teacher of the year should reflect what we want to see in our students. >> Accountability and dependability. >> Someone who truly cares about learning.
>> Just willing to put everybody's needs sometimes before their own. >> Like our superintendent said, we have the ability to change the lives of many, many people. One of my first memories at the beginning of my career was when my students taught me everything not to do as a teacher. >> The students videoed me doing the
running man and it became a thing on TikTok. >> Teaching in a portable with like 45 freshmen in world geography. >> I was so uncertain and I was so unsure. Um but I really had great support and
those teachers kind of helped push me through. my first year with teaching sixth grade band, getting all ones um and seeing the kids jump with lots of joy and laughter. >> What I love about being a teacher is helping kids want to learn. >> I get an opportunity every single day to
come and help a student be prepared for what happens outside of the classroom. >> I get to interact with different groups of kids and share my passion for math with them. >> Their self-esteem is up. Their confidence is up. They feel like they can go take on the world. That's what makes it work.
>> I love the relationships I build with my colleagues and the students. Um, I just love the environment here. I can't imagine doing anything else. >> My students think I'm the best. Nice. I suppose >> I'm a goofball. If students are not practicing, we always say it's time to
go hit the gym. >> Always making them do their work or wearing their IDs in the hallway. I'm extra. My students think I'm crazy, you know? I'm like, "Okay, guys. We're getting our papers out. We're going to have so much fun.
>> My secret sauce in the classroom is all about relationships through instruction. I teach bell-to-bell instruction in this classroom. >> It is math all day, every day. When it comes to being in Paladino's classroom, >> getting to know my students. We have a
lot of fun uh even when we're learning tough things. >> Making music is like having a superpower, you know? It's cuz you can impact the world. that my kids never know my next move. I always keep them on their toes because they never know what's going to happen next. I think that's why I'm a good teacher now because they can't get away with
anything. I know all their tricks. >> I think people might be surprised to know I went to college for religion. Outside of school, I don't need to use a lot of technology. >> Possibly could have been an NBA player. No, I'm totally kidding. >> I think people would be very surprised to know that I was not the best student.
But what do you mean, Miss York? We have to do work at school. Maybe people would be surprised to know that at one point I was the lunch lady and the bus driver before I became a teacher. >> The reason I wanted to become a teacher was because I have a love of acquiring
knowledge. I got that from my parents. My mom drew me into the teaching field and so I grew up in a classroom. It felt very familiar. >> What drew me to teaching was my curiosity about the world. Teaching was the perfect fit. >> My teachers didn't wear capes but were
the heroes in my life. And so I want to make have that same impact on my students >> because I had influential teachers when I was growing up. Those teachers believed in me. Um I knew early on that this was my life's work. >> Whether it was my first year or my 11th year, the students never love doing math
homework. >> They tell me all the time, I hate your class, but I love you. >> You know, obviously their first couple notes, and I always warn the parents are not the prettiest. >> Teaching in Fort Worth ISD is worth it because of the outcome. feel like they
can go take on the world. That's what makes it worth it for sure >> because you get to meet kids from all walks of life. >> They deserve the best opportunities and we as teachers need to give them to them. >> Teaching in Fort Worth ISD is worth it because if not us, who
role as an elevate principal, it means that we have to move with a sense of urgency. Um, our students need high quality tier one instruction in order to have high levels of student achievement and growth. At W Green, we have a high performance culture. So, the whole community, staff, all stakeholders are
working towards the same common goal, and that is high student outcomes for our kids. My time in turnaround schools has really prepared me for this challenge. As the elevate principal, I know working in turnaround schools is hard work, but when we all work together, um, we can achieve those results. we can have high student
achievement and high growth and give students the learning opportunities that they deserve. >> Tonight, we get to shine a spotlight on those who go above and beyond. >> Tonight, we get to praise you. We definitely get to praise you because
there's so many great teachers out there. You've come to be the last 10 that we came down to. And now our 2025 26 elementary teacher of the year winner is Alandre de Leontjo
Alis Conceras Elementary. I want to share a moment I will always remember. This past week after math test one of my students wrote a card for me. She said, "Mrs. De Leon, you have
inspired my future to believe in myself the way you do. And she also shared that she wants to become a teacher. That sentence lives in my heart. If there is one thing I hope every child takes away from my classroom is this.
You can. You always could. And I will always believe in you until you believe in yourself. And now our 20252 26 secondary teacher of the year winner is Caitlyn York from Leadership Academy at
Leonard Middle School. To every teacher here, please hear me when I say this. You matter. Your work matters. Your effort matters. And your heart matters. Public education is stronger because you are in it. Children are better because you teach them. And the future is
brighter because of the countless unseen moments you choose to give. Keep showing up. Keep loving kids. And keep being the teacher you needed when you were younger. The world may not always see what you're caring, but your students do. And they learn resilience, hope, and
belief from you every single day. And this year we also have the pleasure of celebrating the volunteers and the community partners who give us their time and resources to better support teachers and students. >> And our teachers here, our principles
here, you know better than anybody how important volunteers are. >> Please join me in welcoming our volunteer of the year, Heather Smith, to the stage. Clifford Davis is a special place, bringing together families from all over the world. For some students,
this is the first opportunity anyone in their family has ever had to have a formal education. They are paving the way for their family and their new life here in America. It is an honor to be a part of that story. >> And for the final recognition of the
evening, please welcome our partner of the year, Trinity Metro. I also want to thank the forward ISD and your leadership collaboration and the shared commitment that you have the purpose of uplifting our communities, our students
and our our families. I graduated as a Eagle and now I'm returning as a Eagle and Eagles fly high. We're going to make sure that the kids elevate to the level that they need to be. >> No matter what classroom they go into,
they're going to get the best of what their teacher has to offer. >> Anyone who is in the program already have their degree. I really want a teacher focused group so that they know that this is their work. I'm just here to support them. >> Make sure you're listening and paying attention, guys. When you come to
Harlemville, you're going to need some sunglasses because the students are going to be brighter, the staff is going to be brighter. You're going to feel elevated when you walk into the building. >> Let's start here. It has been an honor to be selected as the principal here at
Vanzant Gwyn for the first year of Elevate. Now that we know that we need to make sure our units are all the same. >> We're looking for people that care about education and are ready to move the needle. >> How many inches are in one yard? >> And you're going to see students engaged
100% of the time. >> The work is going to be intense, but it's going to mean student achievement. >> Keep working. I'm coming to check my other groups and then I will come back to you. Okay. Regardless of the zip code, our kids are going to make the movement that they deserve.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Building all for you. Oh. Heat. Heat. It's a million stars. Heat. Heat. N.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Ladies and gentlemen, in accordance with the Open Meetings Act, the board opened this meeting at
5:00 p.m. with a quorum present, recessed open session, convened executive session, adjourned executive session, and now convenes open session at 6 p.m. with a quorum present. Ask that everyone please silence their cell
phones or any other electronic devices. And please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance and pledge to the Texas flag. But first, welcome Charlotte Woods from Pascal High School is who's going to sing our national anthem. Charlotte, thanking you for being with
us tonight. Oh, say can you see by the dawn early light, what so proudly we held
at the twilight last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight.
Or the ramparts we watched were so gallently streaming. And the rockets red glare.
The bombs bursting in gave proof through the night. That our flag was still there.
For say does that star spangled b or the land of the free and the home
of the brave. 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. Horiance to the Texas one state under God one and indivisible. >> Thank you. Please be seated. Our next agenda item is public comment. We truly value hearing from our
community and want to thank everyone for taking the time to be here. We appreciate that you come here and share your perspectives, your opinions, and your observations with us. As many of you know, the board has begun listening sessions throughout out the community
and we'll be doing that over the next several months, next three months, and we hope that you'll also join us there. We had our first one last night at North Side High School to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to speak. Public comment is conducted in accordance with
forth ISD board policy in the Texas Open Meetings Act and must be managed in an orderly and consistent manner. Speakers must sign up in advance through our determined process, will be called in order, and will have up to three minutes to speak with no one receiving less than
one minute. The presiding officer may make adjustments when needed to help manage time and ensure everyone is heard. At regular meetings such as we have tonight, actually we have a special budget meeting and regular meeting, but regular meetings, speakers may address
any topic. At special meetings, comments are limited to items on the board agenda. The board listens to all public comments but does not engage in discussion during this portion of the meeting. When appropriate, responses are limited to factual information or
existing policy. We ask that speakers be mindful of student privacy and refrain from identifying students by name as student information is protected by law. However, a parent or guardian may identify his or her own child if they choose.
Speakers are also encouraged to avoid naming individual employees or volunteers and instead address concerns at the campus program at district level. We also ask that concerns about individual employees, students, or other confidential matters be directed through the appropriate district processes
rather than during public comment as those procedures are designed to ensure concerns are handled respectful of privacy. appropriately and fairly. Please respect the procedures in place as well as other speakers and audience
members. I ask that all of us treat every one of us with the dignity and respect that we would all expect ourselves. Thank you for your engagement and for being a part of this process.
Uh before I turn to public comment, I would I'd like to make a make a few remarks. Um this is the first budget of the board of managers appointed
um by TEA with a superintendent appointed by TEA. And we bring to this effort a sense of urgency. And I want to talk for a moment about this budget in general and then
we'll talk about it in detail as we get further in. But I first want to begin with ask everyone in the audience to raise your hand if if you believe reading is a civil right. Those who believe reading is a civil
right are going to like this budget. We've regularly heard from people who want to defend the status quo and I I understand that status quo has deep roots. Status quo uh has a lot of
gravity associated with it and you don't repudiate the status quo lightly but and and change is hard. When you think about civil rights in education, the first, at least in my
lifetime, the first issue that comes to mind is Brown v. Brown versus Board of Education 1954. And in that decision, the Supreme Court ruled that um segregation was illegal,
illegal in the entire United States. And the Supreme Court said, "You move with all deliberate speed." Martin Luther King famously spoke of the fierce urgency of now. He said, 'We now faced with the fact that tomorrow is
today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. There's no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive
action. This budget we're going to present tonight and the approach of this board and this superintendent and this staff, I can tell you it's not going to be all deliberate speed as the Supreme Court ruled in 1954.
I graduated from Arlington Heights High School in 1970, 16 years after Brown versus Board of Education. And I can tell you, you won't see many people of color in this 1970
annual. That's all deliberate speed. This budget and this board believes in fierce urgency of now. And that's what this budget is. This is a fierce
urgency of now. Kids only in the third grade once. We only have four out of 10 of our kids reading at grade level. Four out of 10. The fierce urgency of now. So this is a fierce urgency of now board. This is a fierce urgency of now
superintendent and staff and this is a fierce urgency of now budget and we look forward to presenting it to you later tonight. Reading is a civil right. Thank you.
I'd like to now turn to our speakers. Uh we have, pardon me, 68 signed up tonight. Our first speaker is David Hayer and Mr. Hayer will be followed by Bob Willoughby.
On November 6th, in the first community meeting after the announcement of the takeover of Fort Worth ISD, TEA Deputy Commissioner for Governance, Steve Lechelop made one of the most audacious, condescending, and offensive statements I've ever heard from a government
official when he said that the appointed board of managers would quote recondition Fort Worth ISD voters to know what good governance looks looks like unquote. I was insensed. Immediately I sprung up from my seat and
joined the line at the microphone to tell him that we do not need to be reconditioned. There's a reason why most government bodies have staggered terms so there'll be some continuity and the whole governing body doesn't turn over at once. But all of you were dropped in
at one time. After a month, about a month after you were handpicked by Mike Morath and installed and with very little time to get acclimated to the position, you made very consequential decisions that will adversely affect many Fort Worth ISD students for a long
time. When over 130 offered comments in the April meeting, the consequential decisions you made unanimous and without deliberation gave the appearance of a predetermined outcome. And you did that without any goals or guard rails that are one of the first things the Lonear
governance training calls a board of managers to establish. Good governance? Not hardly. At your regular meeting last month, I mentioned that in decisions made in many public organizations, the process is as important in the result as the result. Then I watched this board
fumble its way through deciding on renaming a school. I think the name selected by the community and proved by the board was a very good choice. But the board was not prepared adequately by staff to make the decision. The staff didn't provide information on why the community chose Espironza or what Espironza means.
One board member pointed out that the name didn't comply with existing board policy. Staff should have provided that information to the board ahead of time with a process to suspend the rule if the board chose to. During the consideration of that agenda item, one board member moved to table the motion.
It was seconded and passed with a 63 vote. District legal council offered some confusing and contradictory information about it being an alternate motion that replaced the main motion. Not true. In Robert's rules, a motion to table a motion ends discussion once the
motion the table is passed. The only way to resume discussion on the motion is to is to make a take a vote to remove the motion from the table. After tableabling the motion, the board continued to deliberate the issue. Quibbling over a misunderstanding and mislication of
parliamentary procedure in a meeting is the only time I've seen this board deliberate on anything and take a vote that was not unanimous. Sorry, that's not what good governance looks like. And so you're just now beginning to work on the goals and guards district based on the vision and
values of the community by having listening sessions that were announced last week. >> Our next speaker is Bob Willoughby. And Bob Willoughby will be followed by Jackson Whitaker. >> You'll need to unlock your iPhone first. >> Hey. Okay. Let's start off with uh I
hate to be negative here but um start off with this. I've tried to rent a school and some policies change or something again. I used to rent schools all the time with the insurance. So I'm trying to find out who sets the policies. So I could be easy phone call and find out. Two weeks I not heard from
Mike not him at all. And this is this is a past thing with him anyway. It's normal. He doesn't return calls. Uh I called the manager's office and they were great. They went to him and Mike sent me an email. I went back. Mike's not answering again. And I went back to the manager's office. I said, "I'll go
to open records. Take me two more weeks to get an answer, but something should be really kind of simple, I think." But so I got a problem with not answering with the I'd like to rent a school and I need someone to talk to me the policies. So, we need to address them on neighborhood association. We need these to use. Okay. I used to use them all the
time. Okay. Now, that's good. Got that out of the way. Uh local voter education and schools. I've been yelling about that. We need this big time starting at elementary really start at I have a meeting tomorrow with Nicole caller my representative and once I have that meeting and talk to her and uh they said
in high school they done something but elementary we got to get to it's too late done you know let's get to them earlier okay we need it okay so I have a meeting about that tomorrow and uh we'll see how that goes if it doesn't go good or whatever then we'll go to you to go to our representatives to happen because
you'll have more voice than we do as a people but nevertheless I'm not really going to hold you accountable. If I got this right, I understand. I think this next May during the general election is when we we vote for schoolboard members. I think that's what I understand. I'm not sure if I got that right, but I think it's during the next general
election in May is when we vote for school board members. That's when I'm really going to start holding you're kind of holding down the port until then. So, I'm not going to hold you for much of anything right now. But when we get to vote for those people, talk to them and put them in here and see if they do what they say, then we got something to go with. So, until then,
I'll just ride with it. Also, I think I got time to do this. I'm suing the ISD for money loss when I rent a school. The ISD takes responsibility for the mistake, but do not want to take responsibility for the damages caused by the mistake. I don't think that's right.
You know, when you make it, you take responsibility. Anyway, we had to go to small claims court five times. Three times the court made a mistake. I don't think that's happened to anybody in the whole US of A. Three times they made a mistake. We made a mistake. We went one more time because ISD's lawyers filed
for a hearing. A small claims court is nothing but a hearing. They don't make a ruling that's a hearing. So, we had a hearing to go to a hearing. It's costing more money than to settle this case from way back three years ago, but we're in the district court now. And it's ridiculous. It's costing you a lot more money. So, if you want to talk to your
lawyers to talk to us, if the chair would have talked to us the old one, I would never had to go to court. Thank you. And I mean, I may write you in for mayor. You're out of here. Okay. I think you're doing a good job. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Wilby. >> Our next speaker is Jackson Whitaker.
And Mr. Whitaker will be followed by Delhan Ecombo. Hope I pronounced the name correctly. Apologize if I didn't. Could you pull the microphone a little closer to you? Pull it down a little bit. >> Yeah. Great. Thank you. >> Okay.
Hello everyone. My name is Jackson Whitaker. I'm a eighth grade student at Applied Learning Academy and I'll be a future student at Western Hills High School. And I was thrilled that Miss Alzubi would be the new principal there. Her impressive background as a top
student at TCU and well experienced assistant principal at Southwest High School was enough to make anyone excited about the future at Western Hills. However, just a few days later, I heard concerning news that Miss Azubi had been reassigned and her social media account was under investigation. This situation
left me speechless. People commented on her post about her Islamic faith and her other beliefs negatively. Their opinions should not have an impact on her role in the district because Miss Alzub's posts aren't rude and don't target any single person. Her post just simply doesn't
change who she is as a teacher. I worked with my school principal through the second semester and saw how hard their job is. It's important to remember who Miss Alzubi truly is. She's dedicated. She is a dedicated educator and a compassionate individual who has
already changed the lives of many. Her former colleague Ryan Higgins shared how she would stay late to clean up the gym and work with Mr. Higgins because she genuinely cared. He also mentioned how she would support her students by attending their football games, staying
long after the final whistle to congratulate them and cheer them on. Miss Alzubi was uh made the chemistry Miss Alzubi made the chemistry department a fun and engaging place for students, a change that Western Hills really needs. We must not forget the
positive impact that she has made on our community. Miss Alzub's commitment to her students and her career as a principal uh who works hard her students so that way they get the proper education that they need and deserve. Don't let what a few bullies say about uh her over social media decide her role
in our community. Please reinstate her as the Western Hills principal and allow her to do the job he she was selected to do so she can improve the lives of her students. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Whitaker. And it's it's great to have our students here, and I
hope you can encourage um more of your your fellow students to come join us at these meetings. It it adds a lot. Thank you for being here. Next speaker is, again, I may mispronounce the name, Delhi Ecombo. and
um Missy Combo will be followed by Noradi. My name is Delhi. I'm a resident in DFW in the DFW Metroplex. I along with others here are calling for the reinstatement of Sheam al- Zubi to her post post as principal of Western Hills
High School, a post she rightfully earned but sadly has been unjustly removed from due to an online mob of Islamophobes. Principal Alzubi, like every other resident of the United States, has the right of free speech on any issue of her choosing, regardless of if one agrees
with her or not. Having an opinion on an issue that one may not agree with is not grounds for anyone to lose their position in employment or otherwise. In addition, Miss Alzub's faith should not should have no bearing on whether she is principal or not. Since principal Alzubi
has been reassigned by the district, Care Texas has filed a lawsuit on her behalf under the grounds that her first amendment rights have been violated. I agree. The district because of its unwillingness to rightfully reinstate Alzubi to her position as principal now
must spend local taxpayer dollars to defend a case that should have never been in the first place. It will take the focus away from what is most important which are the students of forth ISD and the funding of their education. I ask you, is it worth it? Regardless, we will stand with Miss
Alzubi until she's reinstated no matter how long or how far. The First Amendment is the cornerstone of American democracy. Whether it is here in this chamber, anywhere else in the state of Texas, or if necessary, all the way to the Supreme Court of this land, we will
defend her right to exercise it. I ask you to do the right thing and reinstate Miss Alzi to her position as principal. Thank you. >> Thank you for your remark. Next speaker is Nor Wadi and Miss Wadi
will be followed by Carrie Fryinger. Kathy Fishinger, I beg your pardon. Um, could we restart the clock? >> Okay, please proceed. Sorry. >> Thank you.
Wikipedia defines a keyboard warrior as a person who makes abusive or aggressive posts on the internet, typically while concealing their true identity. Miam Webster defines an internet troll as a person who intentionally antagonizes others online by posting inflammatory,
irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content. I'm here because Fort Worth ISD defines both of these terms as people who should make staffing decisions for our schools. Online anti-Muslim hate is not new. I
grew up reading it. I argued in the comment sections on YouTube. I've seen the same old dribble. What's new and shocking is seeing the Fort Worth ISD administration give these people legitimacy. What's new is the erosion of civil rights that this board started the
meeting saying that we care deeply about. What's new is that a lifelong educator like Sheam Alzabi being reassigned in less than 24 hours of an internet troll campaign and then 27 days later her school still doesn't have its principal back. Thankfully, where administrators are
choosing to disregard the Constitution, the federal courts will not. And I know that because I practice in federal court. Where administrators quote MLK but completely are fumbling on the core principles that he fought for. The community is here today to remind you of your responsibility and the duty that
you undertook when you took this role. Like many of us here today, I'm here on behalf of the Faith Power Alliance and here to renew the demand that you've received over 51,000 emails about to reinstate Shima Alzabi immediately. A 21
a 27-day delay is enough. It is time to act. Reinstate Principal Elzabi tonight. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Kathy Fryinger and Miss Fryinger will be followed by Bethlell
and Mclofflin. When I was a freshman in high school, I was one of two Jewish students in my school. A teacher came up to me and asked me if I would speak at the winter assembly about Hanukkah. Well, as a very shy 13-year-old, the last thing in the
world I wanted to do was stand in front of an auditorium full of people and tell them why I was different. I did that though because it was the right thing to do. We are all different in some way. Every single one of us, all of you,
everyone here, everyone is different in some way. Whether it's having a sibling who was born with a birth defect, whether it's having an extraordinary talent, whether it's having a black sheep relative,
everyone has something that makes us different. Now, I want to take a little side step and talk about soccer. It has been so wonderful this week watching the World Cup, seeing all these people from all
over the world here in the United States here in Tarant County celebrating to see the Dutch team with their side to side uh little dance at the right by the old Rangers Stadium. to see the
Norwegians with their Viking pool, Japanese fans pulling out bags to pick up trash, uh, Sundance Square filled with people. It's been a joy to have people from all
over the world, all different cultures here with us this week. Shea Alzuba earned her appointment as principal at Western Hills High School. Please do not
take it away from her because some people are uncomfortable with difference. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Christinger. Next speaker, Beth Llewellyn Mclofflin, and she'll be followed by Conor Moore.
Good evening. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you tonight. Um, I am a 29-year veteran of Southwest High School where I taught. I still live in the neighborhood and I am here on the behalf of teachers at Southwest High
School who are not comfortable coming forward to speak to you and I have some messages from them. Shea Alzubi is an incredible educator who is so qualified to lead a school. Beyond missing out on
quality leadership, Fort Worth ISD reassigning Alzubi sends a dangerous message about who belongs in our schools and who does not. Alzubi was always willing to support me
in any way and whenever I needed it. I have had the pleasure of working with her as an assistant principal and she consistently demonstrates professionalism, compassion, and strong commitment to
supporting both teacher growth and student success. I will add to this that several have said to me that the kids at Southwest loved her, that she never talked about
politics, she never talked about religion, she was completely professional in everything she did, and she was a fantastic role model for our students who are different.
And as a world language teacher myself and someone who worked with immigrant children and first generation Americans at Southwest, I think that is some that is a quality that we need to nurture and demonstrate
and support in our community. Diversity is important. Diversity is not a bad thing and it's time that we take a firm stand in Fort
Worth for every student of every color, creed, nationality and make them feel safe in our schools. Thank you. Thank you. Our
next speaker is Connor Moore followed by Dr. Melody Doy Munoz. Hello, my name is Kana Moore and I'm a resident of Fort Worth, Texas. I am here to advocate for the reinstatement of principal Alubi. Last week, we learned that Fort Worth ISD made modest gains on
the star exam during the last school year. However, one campus stood out as an outlier with significant improvement. Southwest High School, where Miss Zubie served as an assistant principal for three years. We've been told that TEA Takeover is about approving test scores
and students performance. So if it is truly the goal, why are we reassigning a campus leader who has demonstrated clear success in driving student outcomes? Was it what is it about her social media activity that now outweighs her proven effectiveness as an instructional
leader? If it was truly a concern, why was it not addressed as the time at the time? Miss Alzubi remained in her role for 5 years after the original post and promoted to principal following a January post. If it was truly disqualifying, why is she being reassigned instead of terminated? The
truth is the s social media posts are not the real issue. What we are seeing is Fort Worth ISD yielding to outside pressures and misinformation that undermines public education. This sets a dangerous precedent. Our responsibilities as leader and as a
community is to stand up to bullying, not yielding to it. I stand with Miss Alzi and I urge you to reinstate her. >> Thank you for your remarks. Dr. Melody Todd Munoz and you got your partner with you.
>> Good evening board. My name is Dr. Melanie Dy Munoz and I'm a Fort Worth native, a mother, um, and someone deeply invested in the future of public education in my city. I am here tonight to call on this board to reinstate Miss Alzubi as principal of Western Hills.
Quite frankly, I am disappointed that we're even having this conversation. Um, at a time where public education faces unprecedented challenges, our responsibility should be really simple. Hire, support, and retain the best qualified people for the job.
And yet, we have to watch highly qualified leaders be removed after a campaign shaped by fear, misinformation, and bias. I feel like we've seen this somewhere else before. Let me put it in terms that everyone hopefully can understand. If you need surgery, you want the best surgeon available. You
would not reject the most qualified surgeon because someone is sitting in the waiting room or and uncomfortable with the name, the religion, or ethnicity of the surgeon that you chose. You would not allow the prejudice of the waiting room racist to determine who enters your operating room. If you were in an operating room, you would not
debate the surgeon while the patient is bleeding out. You choose the most qualified person that is capable of saving the patient. But that is exactly what appears to be happening. The latest results show that only one in four black third graders in this district can read that grading level. One in four, 25%.
That should stop everyone here in its tracks. Education of in Fort Worth ISD is lying on that operating table. Our students of color are in academic distress and bleeding out. They are not just struggling, they are flatlining. They are being failed by a system that continues to produce unacceptable
outcomes year after year and unacceptable choices when it comes to leadership. We are advocating for to support a leader who helped put AP chemistry in Carter Riverside. While it's also important to a note that there were teachers at that same school during that time tweeting the president asking them to remove undocumented students at
that school. She was putting in AP chemistry. It's important that decisions about school leadership remain grounded in what's best uh what's best for the students. people who actually understand our schools, our neighborhoods, our families, our communities, our lived experiences of Fort Worth. Effective
leadership is not only about credentials. It's about the ability to serve students with specific context. Remember, racism does not always arrive in a white hood. Sometimes it's disguised as concern, a whisper, or a social media post. Sometimes it gets showed up. It shows up in who gets trusted, who gets questioned, who gets
second chances, and who gets pushed out when things get uncomfortable. And when institutions like this bend to that pressure and ignore student data and live school realities, our children pay the price and white supremacy is upheld. Tonight, I'm asking you to choose courage over comfort, choose excellence over prejudice, and choose student
outcomes over any political pressure. Because when our children are struggling to read, struggling to succeed, struggling to compete, and flatlining academically, we cannot afford to lose, focus on people and practices that help them thrive. Miss Alzubi is our master surgeon, and we need her on that operating table.
Thank you, Dr. Daddy Munoz. Next speaker is Kathleen Hall and speaker after that is Arab Seli Chavez. I'm here to discuss uh the board's reaction to the trolls on Facebook
regarding Sharia law for the righteous life and for Shea Alzi and remind you that our constitution nationally guarantees us freedom of religion or in my view sometimes freedom from religion and uh Texas amendments also guarantee
that um our right to a religion and prohibits religious discrimination which I think can be described as what happened to Miss Alsui. So I went nosediving looking for um
information about Sharia law. Shariah being a word that means path. So Shariah law for a righteous life. The first thing that they're supposed to do is they're supposed to say the five daily prayers and they're supposed to fast during Ramadan.
And I get this information from the Council on Foreign Relations. Uh the second is to recommend spiritually beneficial things and if you perform them, you get rewarded. If you omit them, you're not punished. And they're things like giving to charity, giving
money, giving time. Also, smiling at a fellow Muslim can be considered a good thing, a charitable act. The things that are permitted, you can choose your career. You can choose to eat certain foods. If you want to read the eat the food that are required by the religion,
you do that. If you choose not to, you're not punished. And where you live, things that are forbidden is stealing, consuming alcohol, gambling, and murder. Ours on the commandments are, "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet." If you are the things that are discouraged is things they don't like for it to happen, but it's also not forbidden. If you do it, great. If you don't, we're okay with you, too. Wasting
water sounds like a thing for all of us to be aware of. Eating pungent food before you go to a gathering or you get divorced for no reason. Our ten commandments, I noticed, were all negative except for honor thy father and thy mother. The rest of them are, thou shalt not do this, thou shalt not do
that, thou shalt not do this. And then Jesus came around and said, 'I have two commandments for you. You love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and you love your neighbor as yourself and all the law and all the prophets hang on these
two commandments. I would like to see this board do the same thing to Sheam Alzubi and reinstate her. Um, you need to make her a principal again because we have qualified people. I've worked with I've worked 26 years in Fort Worth. Some
of the principles were wonderful and some of them they needed a lot of help to get by. And so when you let someone go who is as qualified as she was and she still is, then it makes you look stupid. I hope
you'll choose to be smart. >> Thank you for your remark. Next speaker is RSI Chavez and speaker following Chavez will be Melissa Coner. >> Good evening. My name is Melissa Connor.
I'm a resident of Fort Worth with a recent Fort Worth ISD graduate and an incoming sophomore. There are moments in life of a community when absurdity of a situation becomes so plain and so naked that it demands to be spoken aloud. Today is one of those moments. The
Forworth ISD, an institution built by the community, funded by this community, and entrusted to serve the children of this community, has been taken over by the state. And now under this state installed board of managers, we find ourselves watching a spectacle that would make even Thomas Payne shake his
head. A principal, an educator with more than a decade of service praised by colleagues and students alike, has been reassigned because old social media posts dredged up by online agitators. Not because of misconduct, not because of harm to students, but because a
handful of bloggers decided to target a visibly Muslim woman and the stateappointed leadership bowed to that pressure. That is not governance. That is not accountability. That is capitulation. Common sense tells us that when more than a dozen of community groups, faith
leaders, teachers, and parents stand up and say that this reassignment reeks of discrimination, we should listen to them before we listen to online agitators. Common sense tells us that a district cannot claim to value diversity while punishing a visibly Muslim woman the mo
the moment extremists decide to target her. That is not neutrality. That is not policy. That is fear masquerading as governance. Payne wrote that a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives us its superficial appearance of being right and that that is exactly the
danger before us. If we accept a system where anonymous influencers can dictate personal decisions. If we accept a system where educators can be removed not for their actions but for their identity. If we accept a system where local voices are silenced while distant
authorities pull the strings. Then we have surrendered the very idea of self-government. Common sense tells us this that a district cannot be run by fear. A community cannot be governed by outsiders and a public school system cannot thrive when its leaders answer first to the political winds uh first to
the political winds and only second to the people that they serve. The state takeover was sold as a path to stability. Instead, we have chaos, distrust, and decisions that undermine the very educators that are doing the hard work. That is not reform. That is not stewardish stewardship. It's an
absurdity, plain and simple. I stand here today to say what many across Fort Worth already feel. Return the district to its people. Restore local control. And stop allowing fear-mongering and online harassment to dictate the future of our school. Our children deserve
better. Our educators deserve better. And Fort Worth deserves better. I stand with Mrs. Zubie and ask that you reinstate her. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next speaker is Mindia Whittier and Mindia Whittier will be followed by
Ernesto Moran. Folks may question why Fort Worth ISD allowed official district business to be driven by a MAGA influencer who posts inflammatory content to monetize his social media platforms. Why you reassigned Sheam Alzubi within 48 hours
of a McCarthy style attack without conducting due diligence first. That's not how principled, competent, independent, well-governed school districts conduct business. I had a hunch. So, I filed public information requests to obtain your voter history records. I'm still waiting for three,
but of the six obtained, six managers voted exclusively, predominantly, or recently in Republican primary elections. Universal GOP alignment. Dr. Lacata's records don't include party affiliation, but you were selected for your job by the Republicanappointed
Texas Education Commissioner, which makes you a political GOP appointee, too. So, it's not surprising that you collectively capitulated to a MAGA provocator, to a terrorist who was a lead organizer of Stop the Steel rallies that helped lay the groundwork for the
January 6 in insurrection. because you are not the TEA board of managers. You are the GOP board of managers. Your voting record documents it and now your actions reflect it, too. You politicized our schools and participated in the vilification of a qualified principal.
As a Fort Worth ISD parent, I call on you to reinstate Miss Alzubia as principal of Western Hills High School immediately and apologize for your complicity in allowing her character to be maligned by an unscrupulous extremist. I also want to address I an
exchange I had with one of you. When I challenged your narrative on a public post, you asked that we connect for a phone call. Respectfully, I decline. Public officials who respond to public criticism by requesting private conversations are undermining transparency. That is not good
governance. I don't owe you my phone number and time so you can give the appearance of responsiveness without public accountability. Instead, I will speak to all of you here where it belongs. Shame on you for giving heir to Islamophobia. Your actions sent a message that Muslim educators and
students are not safe or valued in this district. That kind of fear and distrust will damage student outcomes. Now, I've got a few seconds left, so I'm going to add one more thing because I heard your speech at the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Garen. And um I just have to say
that if you have to come in here and justify a budget before it's even presented, that's suspiciously defensive. And what it tells me is that you all already know you're going into this process with a lack of integrity. Our next speaker is Ernesto Moran.
and Ernesto Moran will be followed by Edy Mayfield. >> I want to acknowledge that we are in land seated and shared by the Toakani Kikapu Jumanos Witchah and Comanche nations. Superintendent Lata, members of the board, my name is Ernie Muran. I'm a
parent, teacher, and coach in Fort Worth ISD. In fact, I'm a teacher at Western Hills High School, and I am damn proud of it. Despite the efforts of some in Austin and locally to dismantle that campus and destroy public education, when you took those seats after the TEA ousted our elected board of trustees, we
were told it was in the name of improving student outcomes. The same reasoning was given for appointing a new superintendent. Last week, we found out that Fort Worth ISD made gains across the board and end of course exams, mostly on par with the state's average improvement rate. And in all that data, one campus stood out. Southwest High
School showed more growth than any other Fort Worth campus. And the improvement was across the board in all five tested subjects. So it would follow that leadership at that campus would be tapped to help others improve. And that's exactly what happened last month when you named Miss Alzub to be the new
principal at Western Hills High School. Clearly, she knows something about educating students in Fort Worth ISD. She's been in this district for more than a decade. Right now, she should be interviewing candidates for the more than 30 teaching positions currently open at Western Hills. Instead, she's in
limbo because of some false equivalency. Because, let's get one thing straight. No one is arguing that she should get the promotion because of her faith. But one side is arguing that she should be denied her duly earned position because of how she worships. And because that side has allies at the TEA and the state
board of education, it's the side that was listened to. Every second that she is kept from her job, it is the students of Western Hills who are being punished. And that's why you're seeing and hearing such an outpouring of support from for her from here from across the district
because if you truly want to do what's best for kids, you'll reinstate her immediately. Thank you. I say peace be to you if you want to fight for it. >> Thank you, Mr. Moran. Next speaker is Edie Mayfield and Edie Mayfield will be followed by
Waffa Ismael. >> I have just listened to some wonderful speakers. So basically I have a very short story to tell to you closer. How's that? All right. following wonderful speakers that have just uh preceded me.
Um I have a very small story to tell. Uh my name is Eddie Lou Mayfield. I work as a substitute in Fort Worth ISD and I am definitely here to ask you to reinstate Miss Alzubi as principal of Western Hills High School. Uh during one of my
sub jobs at Southwest High School, Miss Alzubi was the administrator who responded to my request for help. Uh once she walked in uh she immediately helped me solve my problem, took care of that and then she stayed for a while,
walked around the room and quietly talk to students. She did all this in a very calm professional manner. The people who you closely who work closely with her see that same
professionalism. I'm just a substitute, but it means a lot. The information you were given confirms that professionalism and it raised no red flags. You correctly
selected Miss Alzubi as the principal for Western Hills. Reinstating her based on her qualifications to be a principal will again be a correct decision. Please reinstate Miss Alzubi and her
substitutes will appreciate it. Thank you, Miss Mfield. Next speaker is Waffa Ismael and followed by Lon Burnham. Oops. Good evening. I'm not used to being on the forefront. I work behind the scenes. Uh so I
appreciate your time. Um I'm not going to share how close I am to Sheamat, but I'm going to speak a little bit to why I am here in front of you. I've been in your shoes plenty of times. I too sit on a governing board. I also sit on a
national executive team. I know what it's like to be on the receiving end end and hearing from con constituents. It's hard work. It's exhausting. It's repetitive. But I could relate. And it's because I can relate that I urge you to understand
that when I say it's not too late. I'm not talking about the time of day. I am talking about how it's not too late to reinstate shame at Zabi. They say that when someone makes a mistake, the hardest thing to do is admit it.
When my children make a bad choice and then dig in their heels, I know what they're thinking. They're thinking it's too late. The damage is done. They need to hold their ground. This is that is what I see is happening
here. This is what I see happening here. This is what is happening here. You have dug in your heels and in doing so you have wasted time. You have wasted your time. You have
wasted my time. You have wasted Sheamat's time. And you have wasted the community's time. But it's not too late. It is not too late to acknowledge a lapse in judgment. It is not too late to say a decision was
made too quickly. It is not too late to admit an error. In fact, the strength of leadership is not in never making mistakes. It is in having the courage to correct them. So tonight I ask you to do just that.
Allow sheet to do the job she was trained to do. She's qualified to do the job she has longed to do and the job she was hired to do. She went through all the steps necessary to be hired for this position.
It's not too late. Please reinstate Shemat Zabi immediately. Thank you. >> Thank you for your remarks. Our next speaker is Lon Burnham. Representative Burnham will be followed
by Arch Mayfield. Good evening. I'm a proud graduate of Western Hills High School. And back in those days, it was widely rumored that in order to advance in the Fort Worth ISD administration, you had to be a member of the Church of Christ.
We haven't progressed much in 50 odd years. Um, it's really a sad and pathetic thing that we're dealing with tonight, but it's true. I want to thank those of you that were at the listening post, the first one yesterday evening. I
didn't like the structure at all because what you told us is we want to hear what we want to hear, not what you want to say. That's a fundamental flaw in that listening process. I like some other aspects of the evening, but the fact of
the matter is it's kind of like in racing and swimming when you have a false start and you go off the diving board and boop, the whistle hasn't been blown yet. you have to get back up and start over.
You guys have already messed up on a number of points. Now, one of the things I realize is a lot of you are just complicit to a conspiracy to undermine our public schools.
Governor Abbott crammed vouchers down the throats of people that knew better. It's always about the money. It goes back to the first public education uh legislation in 48 or 47 or whatever when
we underfunded public schools. We have continuously underfunded school underfunded public schools in the entire postw World War II period, but we're radically undermining them with funding charter
schools that directly has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Fort Worth ISD. the vouchers are taking money. It is always about the money. And this particular issue that everybody before me tonight has spoken to is
almost a side issue other than it's so fundamental. It's about our First Amendment rights. That's one of the reasons Jefferson said we needed an educated public in order to defend the republic. The republic is under assault.
And one of the biggest culprits in Texas is the head of the TEA. And you guys apparently are willing to be complicit. So make all the apologies you want about the budget. But if there are 30 teacher positions open at Western Hills High
School and it's almost July 1st, you are complicit in undermining my alma mater. Thank you for your time. Next speaker is Arch Mayfield. Following Mr. Mayfield be Eddie Isa.
My name is Arch Mayfield. I'm a proud product of the Texas public school system. I grew up in a small West Texas town where the school was the lifeblood of the community. I've been a professional educator for over 50 years. I currently have two part-time
instructional related jobs and I'm here tonight requesting that the board of managers reinstate fellow educator Shama Alzubi as principal of Western Hill High School. I don't have the firsthand experience my wife described earlier,
but just two weeks ago I heard a young former colleague of Miss Alzubi speak glowing of glowingly of her commitment to her students and her dedication to the teaching profession. By allowing the focus to shift to Miss
Alzub's faith and away from her credentials and her commitment to education, the managers seem to have invited litigation. Win, lose, or draw on that score, the managers are diluting the time and energy that should be devoted to
educating Fort Worth ISD students. I respectfully urge the reinstatement of Shama Alzubi. Thank you, Mr. Mayfield. Next speaker is Eddie Isa, followed by Courtney Henson. >> Eddie Isa present.
If not, Courtney Henson, please come forward. And she'll be followed by Ambika Sharma. I'm here tonight as a parent of an incoming sixth grade student. I have serious concerns about the proposed middle school math changes and the decision to place virtually all students
into advanced pathways without preserving meaningful parent choice. If a student lacks strong foundational skills, placing that student into a faster-paced course does not automatically create mastery. In many cases, it simply causes the student to
fall further behind since math builds upon previously taught concepts. Sixth grade math already contains one of the largest and most demanding sets of teaks in middle school. Now additional content is being added. My questions are simple
and as a stakeholder I would like answers. Which standards will receive less instructional time? Which standards will be condensed or taught with less depth? And how were those decisions made? The current instructional pacing already
moves very quickly. There is limited flexibility to stop or slow down when students struggle. So I ask, where will that time come from to help struggling students? How will teachers differentiate instruction when classrooms contain students entering with vastly different levels of
readiness? On many campuses, performance differences between advanced and on-level students are substantial. At one middle school campus, advanced sixth grade math was at 93% approaches versus on-level students at 38%
approaches. Those gaps represent real children with real learning needs. The answer to those gaps cannot simply be moving everyone into the same advanced course and just hoping that those gaps disappear. I fully support advanced pathways for
students who are ready. What I do not support is removing parent choice and assuming one pathway is appropriate for every child. Tonight, I ask the board to carefully consider whether this proposal is truly being driven by what is best for
students or whether it is being driven by a desire to increase participation and advanced coursework on paper in order to appear that performance has gone up. Our children are more than data points. They are individuals with unique
strengths, challenges, and needs. My concern is for the student who lacks confidence in math, needs additional support, or is building foundational skills. I think about the student who may begin to believe that they are bad at math simply because they were placed
in a course that they were not ready for. Advanced math should be available to every student who wants the opportunity, who demonstrates readiness, and whose parents support that choice. I respectfully ask that you slow this process down, provide greater
transparency regarding implementation, and preserve meaningful options for families. The last question I leave you with is this. If the state of Texas had felt that it was prudent to condense TEACS and remove a math curriculum, would they not have already done so?
Thank you, Miss Henson. Next speaker is Miss Chararma, who will be followed by Reed Bills. Hello, good evening. This happened really fast. Um, my name is Ambaka Sharma and I'll start with the positive. So, Dr. Lacata, thank you for going to
Breakthrough Forward today. I hear you had a wonderful time. This is the um program that took that takes place at the country day school. Um and thank you to Dr. Kushner. So you know I want to hear say when you know when they put out a call for community listening session I
reached out and I wanted Dr. Licato to go and learn about a program that's very near and dear to my heart and he did go today. So it was very they were very responsive and they followed through. So I hope you enjoyed it. Um with them I was a teacher for four years. three years here in Fort Worth
and one year in Miami. And you may not know, but actually a lot of people in the in the audience today, they have been students. They were teachers like me and then also some administrators. So I'll just remind the audience here what breakthrough stands for. And our creed is we are young people who choose to
make a difference pursuing academic success and excellence in all areas of life. We work hard as a family and as a team we're breakthrough. Um so next I'll move to the area of opportunity for this DAS. Yesterday I met some of you guys at the North Side High School listening
session. Uh that's my alma mater. Um and I there was one question Jay that you asked and that's the question I had spoken about which is you had asked what are two characteristics that comes to my mind when I think of a fourth ISD student. There are many but of the most
that two that come to my mind are critical inquiry but also from a tactical prop perspective our graduates even register to vote. So those that's those are the two that I had spoken about and voting is important to me. Um and you know I'm a volunteer deputy
registar with Taran County and also I serve as a presiding judge during election day which is just a fancy way of saying election worker. But your question and my answer prompted me to look into the voting history of this dis because you know you all should be a
democratically elected body but you're not. So I wanted to see how many of y'all actually vote. Um, in May 2026, this was the bond election and only 3% of us voted in the city. So, best voting record goes to Mr. Garin. I think you have a flawless record. I need to strive
to be like you. Uh, Dr. Lacata, you're not registered. I hope I know you're new, so I hope you vote and take part. Uh, Miss Lewis, you did vote in May, but you did not vote in the primaries. You did not vote. Um, so yeah, you only voted in May 2026. Uh, Tennessee, you
did not vote in May. You also have not voted for municipality elections in 10 years. Jay, you voted only for Democratic primaries in 2026. You did not vote in the May election. Lori did not vote in May. In fact, you didn't vote in primaries either. Frost did not
vote in May. Um, voted in Republican primaries in March. Louise did not vote in 2026 at all. Voted in 2025, sometimes Democratic, sometimes Republican primaries. Rosa, miss point of order, you don't even live in ISD. you live in municipality ISD. So,
>> thanks Mura. Appreciate your comments. >> Next speaker is Reed Bills and she'll be followed by Charles Bills. In my opinion, we are wasting our time appearing before this board to complain about decisions that you had no role in
making. Instead, it appears that your role is limited to supporting whatever the superintendent brings before you to vote. But our criticism should not be directed solely at the administration for
proposing these ill-advised actions. It should also be directed at this board for approving them and allowing the resulting harm to fall upon students and their families. The administration bears
responsibility through action. The board bears responsibility through inaction. My concern is compounded by the fact that members of this board rarely question the superintendent, propose alternatives, request
modifications, or engage in meaningful discussion about the merits and drawbacks of the proposals before you. We see only unanimous and unquestioning approval. If you were led to believe that you
would have the authority to improve Fort Worth ISD and advocate for better student outcomes and you are as troubled by these proposals and actions as many parents and community members are, then
I urge you to speak up or consider whether you can continue to serve effectively in your position. No amount of expensive training, listening sessions, or attempts to reshape public perception will absolve
you of responsibility for failing to meet the trust that parents are forced to place in you. They depend on you to ex exercise independent judgment and provide meaningful oversight. The public
appearance has been one of compliance rather than accountability. Your passive role in these decisions and your failure to act raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of the oversight that this community expects
and deserves. >> Thank you, Miss Bills. Next speaker is Charles Bills. And Mr. Bills will be followed by Ashley Lden. We'll start with a history lesson since I'm not sure if you people know. Back in 1787 when they wrote the Constitution,
our founding fathers after they were done, they realized they maybe need to add some specific u rights and protection for people. And after freedom of speech, the first the next thing they did was establish freedom of religion.
Now at the time I'm sure the country was overwhelmingly Christian various Christian sects but they did not write the uh an amendment to say that we shall not uh establish a specific Christian
sect as the state religion. It said we shall establish no state religion. Now Islam had been around for a thousand years. Other religions have been around many years. So they had to they any anybody who claims that
United States is Christian only and is founded as a Christian nation is stupid. And anybody who capitulates to people who think that like the people like you capitulating to
uh you know not instating this woman as the principal of Western Hills. I'm sorry I don't know her name, but uh you know you can correct this mistake and don't listen to idiots. Thank you, M. Mr. Bills.
Next speaker is Ashley Lden, followed by Kevin SM. Good evening board. My name is Ashley Lden. I first would like to thank our local law enforcement for being here this evening and thank you board for holding this meeting as well. And also
thank you for the decision you made to reassign this principle after her post came to light. I am asking you tonight to hold firm. They're trying to turn this into Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hysteria. But that's not what this is
about. This is not about her religion. This is not about Palestine. This is about a public school employee who used her platform to advocate for Sharia law, a political and legal system that is fundamentally incompatible with the United States Constitution. As a Navy
veteran, yes, you have free speech. However, I fought for freedom for this country. And when someone is in a position of authority over our children, publicly promotes ideas that are unconstitutional and a threat to that to
that same freedom, stating stating she wants some form of Sharia law in public schools. This board has every right to be concerned. By screaming Islamophobia, they're hoping we won't discuss the real issue. whether someone entrusted with
educating our children should publicly promote or defend an ideology that conflicts with the principles of equal protection, equal justice, and one law for all. Now, CARE is suing you and demanding her reinstatement. Let me
remind this board, Governor Abbott has designated CARE a foreign terrorist organization and a transnational criminal organization under Texas law. when seen we've seen in other western countries how accusations of Islamophob
Islamophobia are increasingly used to shut down legitimate debate and criticism. We should not import that mindset into our schools. Parents must remain free to question public officials and public policies without being smeared for raising concerns. We do not
ask anyone to abandon their faith. We ask public officials to uphold the constitution while serving in positions of authority over our children. Our kids are not experiments. Parents expect schools to teach reading, writing, science, and history, not competing
systems of governance. I am not here to debate the uh theology. I'm here to defend to defend the republic and to defend the American people. The question before you is simple. Will Fort Worth ISD stand by the decision it already
made? Or will it retreat under pressure and place this principal back in authority over a public school? Fort Worth ISD, hold firm. You are setting the stage for how public schools should stand for parents, for our children, and for the United States Constitution. God
bless you. God bless Texas, and God bless the United States of America. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss L. Next speaker is Kevin Smant. >> Sir, what number are we on?
>> 25. >> And Mr. SM will be followed by Joan Vermeier. >> Well, so I have something very different to say than the last speaker. So a lot of people talking about difference
tonight. So I'm a good example of difference. As anyone can see, I look different and I sound different. And that's because I was born with an unusual
physical condition. And it leaves you with partial facial paralysis and it means you look different and you sound different. Um, my wife has the same thing.
We are however proud Fort withd parents. We have two kids who uh we've been in for since 2013. They don't have what we have.
So it's an unusual thing. I'm so proud of the fact, however, of all the schools we've been, Alex Carlson, ALA, and now Pascal High School where my son just graduated. My daughter's about to
to start. We've always been accepted. There's an inclusion. There's uh there's been diversity. But you know what? We're losing that now. We're losing that now. When you do what
you do to Miss Al Judy, we're losing it badly. What are you doing? What are you doing?
Back to my question to you. You know what? I used to do yoga publishing. And then I came down here to Texas. If what you guys are doing, what the Texas GOP is all about, well then I am
all for Gina, let me tell you. And I want to talk to everyone watching on YouTube right now and everyone in this hall. It is hard to speak up. But do you know what Gina Hosa said two
weeks ago? She said, "What do you do about stuff like this? Resist. Speak up. Resist." And more and more people are going to do it to you. Get ready.
Thank you, Mr. SM. Next speaker is Joan Vermeier, followed by Caroline James. >> Good evening. My name is Joan Vermeier and I am a volunteer with Literacy Roundup. I'm not wearing my t-shirt tonight, giving you a break from that,
but I'm a lifelong um believer in public education. And first of all, I want to take thank Dr. Dr. Lacata for taking time yesterday to meet with volunteers and advocates from literacy roundup at the Eugene McCrae Community Center. And by the way, we did get to see him swoosh
a basketball through the hoop in the gym before we left. So, he has some other interests. We definitely appreciated his willingness to listen to our concerns about the challenges faced by students with dyslexia in Fort Worth ISD. We were
encouraged by his openness, his thoughtful questions, and his genuine interest in understanding the experience of parents, students, and advocates. During our discussion, we shared concerns about a system that can take months before a student receives
services after reading difficulties were identified. We also discussed how the process, while it's well-intentioned, can feel overwhelming to families because of the many acronyms, unfamiliar terminology, and procedures that often leave parents feeling like outsiders
rather than partners. At As Fort Worth continues to grow and prosper, we must ensure that every child has access to the opportunities that come with strong literacy skills. Dyslexia affects students and children in every
neighborhood of our community. While some families can afford private educa evaluations and tutoring, many students depend on the public school system for identification, intervention, and support. Too often, struggling readers
encounter a wait approach. A child falls behind in kindergarten or first grade, concerns are raised, and but intervention is delayed while they're waiting for more evidence. For students with dyslexia, every year of waiting can widen achievement gaps, diminish
confidence, and make future success even more difficult. Literacy is not simply an educational issue. It affects the workforce readiness, economic mobility, public safety, and the long-term prosperity of our city. Fort Worth leaders have repeatedly said that our
city's future depends on excellent schools. If we truly believe that, then early literacy and dyslexia intervention must become an urgent priority for Fort Worth ISD. So, my hope is that the district will take a stronger stance on
early identification, faster access to services, and a clearer communication with families. No child should have to fail before receiving the help they need to learn to read. I want to just add to this quickly. I'm a This is personal to me. I'm a great-g
grandandmother who attended p public schools in Michigan. My kids went to public schools in Colorado Springs and my grandkids graduated from Pascal High School. Public education changes lives. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Our next speaker is Caroline James followed by Dallas Mackey. >> Good afternoon. Joan stole a little bit of my thunder, but my name is Caroline James. I have the tremendous privilege of coordinating the Literacy Roundup Initiative. Literacy Roundup is an initiative with the city of Fort Worth
to screen students with dyslexia. We are in 13 community centers and five libraries this year and we are screening students um partnering with their parents so that they get the help they need. This week we're testing students at Eugene McCrae, Hanley Metobrook, Atiana Carr Jefferson, and Atiana Carr
Jefferson. We've screened 184 students so far. and identified 60 of them who are at risk for dyslexia. Like Joan, I'd like to thank Dr. Lacata and Dr. Kushner for meeting with us at Eugene McCrae. It was so important that you hear directly from parents um and hear their stories
of what the art process looks like from their side of the table. Special education testing and services is confusing and the procedures are complicated. The literacy roundup team has screened. Sorry. I guess our big question is, will you be ready to serve
the students that we've identified? Will you respond to their request for testing in a timely manner and explain testing in a way that parents can understand? Will you develop a plan of service for each of these students that will help them to read? Will you provide parents with regular updates on progress? And if there's a lack of progress, will you
return to the parents with an updated plan? When I look at students with dyslexia, I see my son. I see a boy hanging his head, dreading going to school, afraid to be called on to read in class. That's unacceptable. Literacy Roundup will find
students at risk for dyslexia this summer, and we need you to be ready to serve them. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss James. Next speaker is Dallas Mackey, followed by Paige Charban. Good evening and thank you for the
opportunity to speak. Um, I'm going to try to keep this short because y'all have a lot of people to listen to tonight. When I first got the opportunity to speak in front of the U Fort Worth ISD school board, I called my friend Jamie Sullins who was on the Arlington ISD school board and I asked
her, "What could I possibly say that would make an impact that they will hear that they will understand?" And she paused for a minute and she said, "You know, I always liked it when we had sock puppets to explain people's
point of view. I did not bring sock puppets tonight. After she told me that, she did say that the thing they like to hear that they needed to hear, what got their attention was were the words safe and secure for your children. And I do
understand that. I'm in a position as a school nurse to talk to a lot of parents. And I've talked to a lot of parents that have gone through the ARG process, excuse me, with Fort Worth ISD and they have nothing good to say about it. It's
they use words like nightmare. And I remember when my sister went through it back, it's been 35 years ago when my nephew went through it and I thought she was going to lose her mind trying to do it. It hasn't changed much and that's what we haven't learned from our
mistakes. I'm here to ask you to make this a better, easier process for parents. One that doesn't take two years to get through. I talked to a lady that was was willing to move her entire family to another state to get better
services for their kids. I talked to another lady that was that took two years because she applied for services in kindergarten not knowing that most of the time services are denied to people in kindergarten. I don't understand
that, but I'm sure you have a good reason. I I I believe that there are a lot of children that can be easily identified in kindergarten and probably should receive services and couldn't get services, couldn't apply again because they didn't get
testing until February and was denied in March. In March and had to wait a year from when she was denied and not a year from when she originally applied. So, not only did he not get services in kindergarten, he didn't get services in
first grade. So, they applied and tested again in second grade, and he finally got services. This is putting those kids so far behind. So far behind, crucial time that is wasted on on red tape and a lot of other nonsense that I think could
be cut in half. I think it's ridiculous that they have to wait so long. I think it's ridiculous that it's so hard for the parents. I thank God that we have some advocates that come in and help. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments.
>> Sure. >> I want to take point of privilege quickly. We use so many acronyms in this industry and I'm catching up to the Texas ones, but art is our process for identifying students with disabilities and you've heard that acronym multiple times. I just want to make sure the audience understands that that is the
process that these folks are referring to. It's a process we'll be working on, but it is our process for identifying children with disabilities. >> Thanks, Dr. Lana. Next speaker is Paige Charbanet and Miss Charbanet will be followed by Barry Schllectner.
>> Good evening, president, board members, and superintendent. My name is Paige Charbanet and I'm here tonight to respectfully invite you to host one of the district's community listening sessions in Las Vegas Trail, ideally LBT Rise. I understand these listening
sessions are intended to increase transparency, strengthen community involvement, and ensure that district decisions are informed by the people they impact most. If that's the goal, I believe Las Vegas Trail is one of the most important communities you will hear from. Las Vegas Trail is often discussed
through the lens of our challenges, but that is only part of our story. It is also a community of resilient families, engaged residents, dedicated partners, and people who care deeply about the success of their children and their neighborhood. At LVT Rise, listening to
the community has always been at the center of our work. We have learned that lasting change happens when residents are not simply recipients of services, but active participants in creating solutions. Through partnerships with organizations like Cook Children's, JPS,
the Boys and Girls Club, and many others, we have worked alongside residents to increase SA safety, expand programming, improve food security, and strengthen access to health care and other critical resources. Those successes were not created for the
community. They were created with the community. I believe education can benefit from the same approach. Of the top 20 most chronically absent apartment communities in Fort Worth ISD, approximately 35% are in Las Vegas
Trail. That statistic is not simply a measure of challenge. It's a reminder that this community has important experiences, perspectives, and insights that deserve to be part of the conversation. Too often we try to solve problems before we fully understand
them. The families I work with care deeply about education. They want their children in school. They want them to succeed. They want opportunities to thrive. But they also face barriers that are not always visible from the outside. By bringing a listening session directly into the community, we remove one of
those barriers, transportation, and create and create an opportunity to for families to share their experiences firsthand. And what you may hear could help form meaningful change. Some solutions may require significant investment, while others may be relatively simple operational
adjustments such as improving transportation and bus stop accessibility or other practical changes that make it easier for students and families to engage with their schools. The people closest to the challenge are often closest to the solution. It is not
simply about absenteeism. It's about understanding a community, building trust, strengthening relationships, and creating a process where residents can shape the decisions that affect their children and their future. This is simply uh an invitation. Las Vegas Trail has de demonstrated what is possible
when community voices are heard. We have seen real progress in safety, health, and food access because residents were invited to be part of the solution. Not enough. >> Thanks, Mr. Har. Next speaker is Barry Schllectre and Mr. Schllecter will be followed by Aaron James.
>> Thank you. I'd like to address the board of managers, especially board president Pete Garin. Mr. Garin, you've spent decades building a reputation as one of forward's most respected public servants, congressman, secretary of the army, civic leader, a man known for
judgment and fairness. That is why what happened to Shea Alzi and Ernie Moran is so disappointing. The question many educators are asking tonight is simple. What exactly is this board here to do? Are you leaders or are you a rubber stamp? Because when loud
voices on social media target a principal or teacher, the board's job is not to panic. The board's job is to examine facts, review policy, and protect due process. Instead, many people see educators publicly sidelined
after campaigns fueled by activists whose stock and trade is outrage. What message does that send to thousands of teachers, principles, and staff members? It tells them that if enough people yell
online, their careers can be destroyed. It tells them that district leadership doesn't have their backs. I wasn't going to speak about Sharia law, but it was brought up. I lived two years under an Islamic military
dictatorship in Pakistan that imposed Sharia. Being Jewish and having a Christian Indian wife didn't help matters. But that is not how Sharia is practiced in the United States. And anyone with a computer can easily find that
out. It's as different as modern Catholic cannon law is to the Spanish Inquisition. During 18 years as a journalist in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, I watched institutions weaken, when leaders became
more concerned with appeasing loud factions than defending fairness and due process. I saw what happens when fear replaces principle and when public servants stop standing up for the people. They are supposed to protect
those societies paid a price for it. Fort Worth should not. We expect our institutions and those entrusted to lead them to be stronger than the mob. The board's responsibility is to protect facts, policy, and due process, not to
surrender, not surrender them to the outrage of the moment. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Slacker. Next speaker is Aaron James and Mr. James will be followed by Michael Cohen.
Good evening, board superintendent. School districts need to carefully vet leadership roles involving students, especially where there may be connections to violent extremism or efforts to indoctrinate minors.
I appreciate that Fort Worth ISD took action regarding Sheam al- Zubie and I encourage the district to continue using clear standards to protect students from coercive or hateful influences. If there is credible evidence that a
person's beliefs is or activities involve promoting violence or recruiting st students for extremist causes, then the district has a responsibility to intervene and to safeguard students well-being,
safety, and academic environment. Students deserve to learn in a setting that respects all families rights while firmly rejecting intimidation. propaganda or any ideology that encourages harm. Y'all are the last line
of defense for American students. Please keep enforcing those standards consistently and transparently. >> Thank you, Mr. James. Our next speaker is Michael Cohen and Mr. Coin will be followed by Mindy Tack.
Evening. An organized campaign is demanding the reinstatement of a principle whose social media history shows a consistent pattern of political and ideological activism. These are not private musings.
They are public posts and are on record. She shared content stating Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine with flag imagery. She posted in support of Black Lives Matter. She back she backed Dhaka, praised mass mandates during COVID and
reposted material defending Sharia Sharia law as a moral framework comparable to biblical principles. Sharia is not is not personal piety. It is a comprehensive legal and political
system that includes had punishments such as amputation and stoning, unequal legal status for women and non-Muslims, and restrictions on religious freedom and apostasy. Placing someone who has publicly defended this framework in a
leadership position over children's education raises serious questions about impartiality. The push, this push reflects the convergence of radical left-wing activism and is islamist interests. The
Red and Green Alliance, the lead indivisible activist and Taran County Democrat figure, has organized student ICE out walkouts in Fort Worth ISD and pushed transgender and queer ideology
into classrooms and libraries, including books such as gender queer that present contested theories as settled fact. Both frameworks clash with biological reality, disregard our laws and parental rights, and undermine the district's
core mission of academic instruction. When leadership sign s signals sympathy for one, while activist networks advance the other, child centered education suffers. Public schools exist to teach every child under one consistent set of
American constitutional values, not to serve as platforms for imported religious legal systems, foreign policy activism, or cons contested social theories. A principal's record of repeated signaling on Sharia, BLM,
immigration, and Middle East conflicts undermines public confidence in neutral leadership. Fort Worth ISD remains under state oversight for academic performance. Board members must uphold the district's social media and conduct
policies. Do not yield to coordinated pressure campaigns. Parents and taxpayer paying citizens keep showing up. Demand that school leadership focus on reading, math, and critical thinking and the founding principles of the of this
country. Free from religious law. partisan causes or gender ideology. Note, it wasn't long ago that a Fort Mr. Cohen, your time is expired. Concern about overcrowding by illegal Mr. Cohen.
>> Mr. Cohen is >> your time is next speaker is Mindy Tacket. microphone. >> Okay, pardon me. We're going to adjust the microphone and Mr. Tech is going to be followed by Samuel Hall.
>> I'm here to speak about Miss Alzubie, about children here in Fort Worth, and about the political moment we are all living through. Miss Alzubie earned a promotion to principal. She was qualified, selected, and then that promotion was rescended because Republican extremists decided a Muslim
woman did not belong in school leadership. She is fighting to get back what she earned, and this board should be fighting alongside her. What happened to Miss Alzubi did not happen in a vacuum. I grew up among blue dog Democrats, mostly homogeneous,
church-going, socially and fiscally conservative, community-minded people, but many of them have since been absorbed into Greg Abbott and Donald Trump's Republican party, a party that has traded neighborliness for grievance and exclusion. I've lived long enough to
recognize what connection the old politics are to the new, a social order that centers white Christians, and left everyone else to prove they belonged. What m what happened to Mrs. Alzubi is one of the is one more expression of that tradition. Look at the racial
gerrymandering of Texas congressional map drawn to dilute black and brown voting power and preserve white political control. Look at the recent Republican convention where Muslim delegates were harassed and told to convert or leave the country. What happened to Miss Alzubi and what
happened in that convention hall come from the same impulse. Look at the destruction of public education through the voucher program. A policy your brother Charlie sold out and voted for. Pete, public dollars are being diverted from neighborhood schools into private
institutions while districts like ours are asked to do more with less. We saw the consequences at Brisco Elementary. When that school closed, a vulnerable community lost more than a campus. It lost summer lunches and volunteer food pantry. This summer, many of that
school's children are struggling to access a basic meal. Today's Republican policy is a hungry child without a neighborhood school. To the board of me to the board members tonight who do not fit the white Christian category, the
same machine targeting Miss Alzubie, leaving children hungry, undermining public schools, and erasing black and brown political power does not see you as a partner. It sees you as useful until you are not. History is unambiguous on this point. This is white
Christian nationalism and it does not negotiate. This board has a choice. You can administer a system that grinds down the most vulnerable among us or you can stand up and fight for something better. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Mr. Tek. Next speaker is Samuel Hall. and Mr. Hall be followed by Kyle Sims. Good evening, board. I don't uh envy your position. I thank you for what you
do. I appreciate the sacrifice that you make. Mr. Stagal, you look uh like you want to box someone over there most of the night. And uh well, Mrs. or they you probably just died like three times. You know, you got to listen to everybody's
opinion and uh you got to sit there and you got to take it. I applaud what you did. I'm going to read a scripture. It's out of Matthew and it says, "But as the days of Noah,
so shall it be in the coming of the son of man. For as in the days of Noah, before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying, giving a marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark. And they knew not until the flood came
and took them all away. So shall it be in the coming of the son of man. Listen, we live in a crazy world. I don't believe that this is about Islamophobia whatsoever. Uh I think that some people might have that fear but just to squel to that in that at least in the United
States you know Muslims will not even catch up to Christianity until 2050. They won't surpass Christianity until 2070. I submit that the real danger is the grooming of our children in the public school system by a system that wants to
indoctrinate them and and categorize them in genders that they don't understand because their frontal lobe has not fully developed. I run an organization. It's a 508c18 nonprofit. We help rescue children out of sex trafficking. We have for years.
I look at facts. The fact is I'm a constitutionalist that believes in the right to free speech and you have a right to that. What you don't have is you don't have the right to be free of the consequence of that. and
your political ideology, especially as a leader in this public school system where we've had a massive loss of faith uh in trust with, you know, administration and staff that don't properly vet teachers. Uh or maybe
they do and they just have a very failed process, you know, where almost 300 teachers uh just last year alone were indicted for messing with kids and that was just in Texas and most of that was in North Texas. So where we're losing the faith, I drove an hour and a half one way to say thank
you because in a world of crazy, >> in a world of crazy, you stood up for something righteous. We need to keep the classrooms free of political ideology. Get back to reading, writing, and arithmetic,
and get this clown world back on the right track. This is has nothing to do with being a Muslim. Listen, be a Muslim. Be a Christian, but be real. Be real about the facts. >> Thank you, sir.
Next speaker is Kyle Sims, and Mr. Sims will be followed by Angela Lynch. >> Boy, thank y'all. Y'all do have a a daunting task. I spent 32 years in the Texas school system, so I know where
you're coming from and I know the task at hand. Listen, I'm not here about whether you reinstate somebody or not, but people have to start doing critical thinking and understand that we're celebrating 250 years this year. That's
what this pen is. This is a republic that we're going to defend come hell or high water. We're going to protect our kids. And as a fellow speaker just said, we have been screaming from the rooftops for years at schoolboard meetings,
get the DEI out, get the political ideology out, get back to basic education. >> We are failing these kids and we're failing them horribly. I have family members, like Sam said that have been groomed. I know victims
that have been trafficked. I kind of work hand in hand with Sam. We are losing the vision of protecting these kids and worried about all this other BS minutia name calling going on. If somebody wants to call me stupid, dumb,
white, nationalist, homophobic, llamophobic, I could really care less. The fact is, I don't know how many seen the Texas uh school board uh state board of education meeting yesterday, but there was a lady speaking yesterday, and
somebody asked her what her main thought was about Sharia. And she said jihad war. >> I've got the clip. And there wasn't just one of them. So when we come to these schoolboard meetings that speak all across North
Texas, we're speaking on facts. We're not speaking on fear. We're not speaking on political realms. I have friends from all nationalities from all over the world. >> I don't care if you're Muslim, Indian, white, black, yellow, brown. I don't
care. >> What I care about is your character. >> Amen. and your ability to teach kids in a environment to where they're not subjected to the crap that we're seeing going on in public schools.
>> So if if somebody wants to get mad at me for being a Christian, yeah, I'm a native Texan, been here all my life. I'm in my 60s and I'm a proud Christian, but I'm also a proud Texan that's going to speak up when it comes time to speak up for these kids.
I commend you all for what you're doing, for stepping up. It's not an easy task, but please stay focused and remember the end goal is to teach these kids an education where they can continue to be productive when they get out of school. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Mr. Sim. Our next speaker is Angela Len Jose. >> Hate to have to follow that. I'm here tonight because I'm concerned about the curriculum and instruction department's decision to eliminate onle
middle school math courses and place all middle school students into advanced math classes whether they're ready or not. Mr. Garin, you said earlier that four out of 10 of our third graders read on grade level on or above grade level. This would be this is the math
equivalent of putting those four out of 10 and the other six who don't read on grade level up a grade in English and then having them take that that test. I believe in high expectations and challenging students, but challenge only
works when students have the foundation that they need to succeed. And putting every student into advanced mathematics without that support could actually make achievement gaps bigger instead of smaller. I want to do something that Mr. Garren did too. Could you raise your
hand if if in this audience if you attended public school? >> Now, will you please keep your hand up if you think everyone in your school should have been in only in advanced courses? >> Thank you.
I'm also concerned that such a significant change was made without meaningful parent notification or involvement. Decisions that have major impact on our children's education should be made with transparency and community input.
Parents are partners in education. We deserve clear communication and the opportunity to give feedback before major curriculum and placement changes are implemented. I asked the district to reconsider the curriculum and instruction department's elimination of
onle ma middle school math courses and make sure that all students have access to pathways that meet their individual needs to set them up for long-term success. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Linda.
Next speaker is Father William Winston. And Father Winston will be followed by Randy Wheeler. 37. >> What number? >> 37. >> Oh, thank you. >> Well, my predecessors have have taken
care of page one of my notes, so I'll go straight to page two. I'm a native Texan, too. I'm not 60. I'm 80. Back to the INA. I've been very surprised over the past few weeks how many people have come up to me and said,
"Thanks for speaking up. We have some real uh grief over the way the INA was destroyed. This is not a civil rights issue." That was a misstatement. This was not segregation.
That was a misstatement. I was one of those kids. When I was six years old, the US government snatched me and my family out of my home in central Texas and shipped us literally on a ship to western Japan
to Totoen. If you know, you know. I was put into a a school of mainly English speakers where we were taught to read and write, speak and understand Japanese
as well as the rest of the curriculum. We were segregated to use your work from the bullying that is part and parcel of the Japanese public education system as it is here in Fort Worth. I know that
from being a parish priest here in town. We were segregated from the xenophobia that you've heard on full display tonight. The particular xenophobia in Japan is that of island nations um
and Galveastston. They believe that you're if you're not bo on the island, you're an irreversible knuckle dragging mouth breather. And that's the attitude that I heard tonight about people who are not
native Texans like Davy Crockett and Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin, but I want you to know that we need a welcoming place. You've destroyed the
the environment. One of your tasks is to re-establish an environment in which we can reintroduce the INA so that people who are new here, immigrants mainly refugees can have a safe place
segregated from our ills to support each other. I used to be a dosent at the Japanese garden. I led tours of INA students. I saw how they helped each other like we did back in Japan 74 years ago. It was wonderful watching
these kids here in town do great things. Please reconsider. >> Thank you, Father Winston. >> Next speaker is Randy Wheeler. And Randy Wheeler will be followed by Marcus
Lopez. Let's talk curriculum and instruction. Removal of onle sixth and seventh grade math courses in middle schools. On paper, it sounds like opportunity. Quote, shifting from a selective acceleration model to a district-wide access model. That means all sixth grade
students taking advanced or accelerated classes. Again, you guys all agree. Good idea or bad idea? >> All seventh grade students will be enrolled in seventh grade advanced math where seventh and eighth curriculum are combined. It sounds like a win.
A win for who? Whom is the question for the adults celebrating maybe a couple growth points on a spreadsheet or the children spending years believing they're bad at math because of the decisions made by the adults in this room. So, the next question I ask myself
is why? Why would the curriculum and instruction department make this decision? Why would they decide to remove an onlevel seventh grade pathway? Is it to consolidate pathways to accommodate projected staffing losses,
simplify master schedules for administrators, or to simplify their scripted curriculum? Or by removing beyond level seventh grade pathway? This removes our historically lowest achievement scores. Guess which star test continues to show
the lowest amount of growth over the last nine years. According to the forworth report with a singledigit achievement for 2026 7th grade on level math h good questions to ask. If students are
not performing on an onle course what makes you think they can perform advanced coursework? If the goal is to improve student learning, then there are questions this community needs answers to. Are students being ba are students being placed based on readiness or based on the need to
improve district performance data? How will students receive these prerequisite instructions they need to be successful? Uh, where can the community find the plan to support our most vulnerable students are ones with IEPs, 504s or ELLs? I looked online. I did not see a
support plan. And what evidence does the curriculum and instruction department have that eliminating these on-level pathways will narrow our achievement gaps rather than widening them. When you remove appropriate pathways and force students
into courses, regardless of readiness, prerequisites, or parent consent, you are no longer meeting students where they're at. You are asking students to serve the system rather than the system serving the students. Access to advanced content is only meaningful when students are prepared to succeed in it. So what
is the plan to ensure students are prepared? For students, the consequences of instructional decisions are not temporary. They are cumulative. And when pathways are removed without clear communications, scaffolds, and targeted support systems already in place before the first day of school, the cost is
carried by the comm community long after the decision makers have moved on. >> Thank you, Miss Wheeler. Next speaker is Marcos Lopez followed by Sarah Boyd. >> Good evening, guys. Um I'm a na
neighboring um ISD where we've had a lot of consequences at our ISD. Most people come in just to um say all the negative stuff, but I'm here to support y'all. And like I said, I'm not from Fort Worth, but I am from an ISD where we've
had a lot of consequences. And consequences are facts. They're not feelings. About 90% of the people who already spoke are all saying all feelings. The fact is is that the principal
has already put something out there years before in our ISD. We had one principal resign. We had another one who got arrested, bailed out, and rearrested by the FBI. So consequences are real. Doesn't matter if it was two weeks ago,
two years ago, 20 years ago. We're here to support you. I'm here to support you guys. And the way that I'm going to support you is by a small prayer. >> Heavenly Father, I lift up Fort Worth
trustees to you today. Grant them divine wisdom, discernment, and integrity so they could lead with a humble and understanding heart. Protect their mind and spirit from the heavy
burdens of leadership and surround them with godly counsel to guide their decisions. Give them the strength to st to stand firm in truth and courage to do the right thing and the grace to serve
others in moments of difficult to be refuge and renew their energy in Jesus' name. Amen. >> Thank you for what you do guys. Thank you Mr. Lopez. Our next speaker is Sarah Boyd followed
by Michelle Williams. I'm actually a resident of Fort Worth ISD. I have four children in Fort Worth ISD. I will be in Fort Worth Fort Worth ISD a long time. I'm here to comment on the accelerated mathematics requirements for
middle school, specifically when applied to schools of choice. Schools of choice have been offered to families for well over 25 years. So, can I >> start over? >> Yeah.
>> Thank you. >> I'll read the exact same thing if I could just start over. >> You know, the speaker was interrupted. I asked that the clock be reset and give her an opportunity to
>> Thank you. I'm here to comment on the accelerated mathematic requirements for middle school, specifically when applied to schools of choice. Schools of choice have been offered to families for well
over 25 years. The idea is all children of Fort Worth, not just the ones in private or charter schools, should have access to curriculums that best fit their needs. Historically, they have been granted a level of autonomy to
implement these curriculums and are proving annually that various philosophies and teaching techniques are valuable and can be measured using TEA standards. When looking at the schools of choices test scores, they are all
rated overall A and B. These schools should in fact be models of how to models that shape how we teach kids. The middle school math curriculum as it currently stands at schools of choice
offers both on level and accelerated and advanced classes. The kids at these schools are already receiving access to the advanced classes. Onle classes are a valuable stepping stone. The end goal
for all kids is to set them up for success in high school, specifically algebra 1, whether it be taken in middle school or high school. My own children are an example. My twins will be taking algebra 1 in 8th grade. Based on my trust in the teachers expertise in our
school's philosophy and their previous test scores, they will receive a meats. My oldest needed the pace of the onle eighth grade class before algebra 1. She went on to take algebra in high school at I am
Terrell and met the standards. My request of the board of managers is to continue to grant the schools of choice the level of autonomy they have proven they should have and offer both level on level and advanced mathematics. They
know their specialized teaching techniques. the data. They know the kids' previous experience. They know what the kids need in regards to the level of mathematics that will help them succeed the most, whether it is on level
or advanced. It is hard for me to see sometimes that my kids are not part of a numbers game. It's exhausting to feel like your children are always just pawns in a
game. in a numbers game. I would really appreciate if the board would prove me wrong. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Williams. >> Next speaker is Michelle Williams and Miss Williams will be followed by Nelson Cardinas.
>> Um, good evening, appointed superintendent and appointed board me board of managers. My name is Michelle Williams. I'm a teacher and candidate for state representative in House District 127 in North Harris County. and I'm also the teacher who filed two
substantiated Texas Education Educ Agency special education complaints against the Houston ISD. I'm here today because like Houston ISD, Fort Worth ISD has been hostily taken over by the Texas Education Agency through an undemocratic
process under the authority of Governor Greg Abbott and Commissioner Morath. Teachers in Fort Worth ISD are being terminated and administrators are fleeing to nearby district all while you are
taking away people's first amendment rights. What's happening to this principle is egregious. Public educators have protected rights and you're going to lose this case. This is not a coincidence because you're
implementing the same failed Mike Miles playbook that drove 10,000 teachers to resign from Houston ISD. Mike Miles is a man who is so obsessed with terminating teachers that he unsuccessfully tried to terminate me twice.
Mr. Garren asked the audience to raise their hands if reading is a civil right. That question is a form of gaslighting and it's offensive. The question should have been, is having a qualified teacher who can think independently a civil right?
>> I want to leave you all with this. I'm watching Fort Worth ISD. Houston ISD is watching Fort Worth ISD. And the voters are watching Houston watching Fort Worth ISD. And in November, the voters will
return all of our school districts back to their rightful owners, the parents, the community, and the teachers. And because I have 59 minutes, which I'm not afforded that, 59 50 seconds, which I'm
not afforded that in Houston, I want to leave you all with this. And Dr. Solis, you're looking very well tonight. Um, you all are terminating teachers. You're violating their constitutional rights. We are watching. The same things are
happening in Houston ISD. We're litigating. Houston ISD in the s last 6 months spent $485,000 on litigation. That's it. Your district will be the same. That's what's taking
place. You don't like hearing this. We've been through this for the last three years. What I can tell you, we are here to stay. We're going to push back and we're going to take our schools back. Thank you, Miss Williams.
Next speaker is Nelson Cardinis, followed by Christine Traml. >> Good evening. Um, I want to start by saying good job on the TSI 2 course because I know the impact uh of not meeting TSI criteria on students uh
attending public colleges is in te in Texas how it affects them negatively. Uh I have been involved with Fworth ISD for many years and have witnessed the leadership of several superintendent. Let's begin with Dr. Toko's tenure which ended amid the loss of millions of
dollars from a bond program. Forward citizens came before the board during public comment sessions to raise concerns, but they were ignored. Those community members looked just like many of us do today, and their warnings went unheeded. Eventually, the district
learned a difficult lesson and began implementing bond citizen oversight committees for each bond. Unfortunately, that lesson cost millions of dollars to the district and diverted resources that should have been should have benefited
our students. And I'm talking about over $10 million. Now, the state has taken control of our elected board and hired a superintendent with no experience leading Texas public schools. Decisions are being made that could cost taxpayers hundreds of
thousands, if not millions of dollars while taking valuable resources away from our students. I urge you to stop making decisions that unfairly, unjustly, or discriminatorily remove or reassign employees such as
Miss Alzubi. Her record of service and success with students, teachers, and families is outstanding. And that is what made you assign her as a principal in the first place. The decision to reassign her despite her proven contributions to the district
raises serious concerns and sends a troubling message to employees and the community. The lawsuit she has rightfully filed highlights the potential consequences of these actions and the significant financial risk they
create for the district and its taxpayers. It's also why you're losing many principles and other administrators and other employees. I hope you recognize that decisions such as these can have serious and costly consequences.
I ask you to reinstate Miss Zubie and put an end to decisions that expose the district to costly litigation and further drain the resources that are already super limited that should be invested in our students. Our students,
our families, our tax, us as taxpayers deserve leadership that prioritizes educational outcomes, fiscal responsibility, fairness and respect for all employees and as a Christian is good stewards of money and you are not being
good stewards of our money. >> Thank you, Mr. Cardinz. Next speaker is Christine Traml who will be followed by EJ Kerrion. Okay. Well, I'm going to pivot a little bit. Um, good evening, Dr. Lacata, Mr.
Garren, the board of managers, and audience members. Many of you know me in this room. I will begin my Traml TED talk on the state of funding and book selection for our school libraries. I apologize for reading this off my
iPad, but I'm way too add to wing it. And like I normally do when someone is brave enough to ask me my opinion. As a former district lead librarian, I act as a voice for many people. Sorry, I'm going to get emotional.
Since mathematically I'm working way past retirement, I seem to be asked, you know, Traml, you do it because you're closer to retirement. what I can say except that I am my father's daughter full of his voice and personal
sorry but my voice cannot be silenced when I took phone calls from six librarians this week concerned and crying in frustration that we have not been able to order new books because of a delay
in the process of the slack committee. First and foremost, thank you all for approving the first two title lists from January for May from the May 19th meeting. There is more lists pending. I am not placing blame on individuals, but rather
the process for which we approve lists. We are supposed to have nine members, voting members on the Slack committee. We only have seven. These people were appointed prior to you with the previous school board.
Please take note that no new library books were ordered with copyright dates past probably 2025 because they were not approved yet. It is in my opinion that the process is taking way too long. Therefore, I'm
respectfully asking that this board consider following DISISD's DI DISISD's DOI procedures and apply for an exemption for the approval of title list to add to our collections. Students come to us with self- selected
reading choices, a self- selected title that provides enrichment beyond the curriculum. We have a district-driven data district, but the type of reading that keeps you up all night to see your favorite character fares how they fare in a novel
and not knowing as a reader that you are also increasing your fluency, which increases your vocabulary, comprehension, and the writing process. Please consider changes in policy so I can get the books in kids' hands faster.
Thank you for your time and I encourage you to come by Southwest for another one of my Traml TED talks. >> Thank you, Miss Traml. >> EJ Kerrion will be followed by Elena Montalva. All right. I'm here to talk to you guys
today how you're getting abused. All right. So, Governor Abbott is looking for a Secretary of State. Jane Nelson is stepping down as Texas top election officer later this summer after more than three years at the helm. What does
the state secretary of Texas does? They oversee elections, maintain business filings, publish state rules and regulations. According to Scott Bradock, editor of the Quorum Report, quote, best source journalists at the Capitol, Per Texas
Monthly on June 2nd said that there is chatter out of Governor Abbott's office that he will appoint former Rep. Nate Scatsline to succeed Secretary of State Jane Nelson. Now, for those of you who don't know who
Nate's Scats line is, he is the same people for liberty and justice pack that brings all these whackados to you to talk to you and get you all riled up about Islamification. So, your same boss that you're obeying is looking at an individual who's
actually praying on your communities and schools. Think about how twisted and sick that is that you guys have to navigate a world like that. But since I have a minute and 40 seconds, I can talk about the present since Governor Abbott's trying to make history. Tarant
County is the largest swing county in America. It's bigger than 16 states. And Governor Abbott sees Fort Worth as his little big city on a hill. Tells all his people how Fort Worth is a Republicanled city and more cities if they were ran by Republicans will look like ours. And so
what this is about is that control. And for everyone watching online, for everyone who stays up late, we know we're not doing this for clicks. What we know, what we're doing this for, this conviction you hear from all of us, is that if Tarant County is the battleground of our democracy, and Fort
Worth is 47% of that population, that means we are the front lines. And the people of Fort Worth are no longer asleep like the sleeping panthers your propaganda wants to push. We are loud and we are awake. And Pete Garin, it is
leaders like you who still believe we live in the inches. Abbott controls you and this board. Abbott controls Mattie Parker as he allows for data center corruption, steamroll through our communities. Abbott controls Manny Ramirez as he votes to allow ICE to
capture people who look like him. extremists now control you rather than you believing for the last 30 years of life you were protecting us from them. You have failed us and you have to get out of this abusive relationship immediately.
>> Thank you, Mr. Perry. Next speaker is Elena Montalvo and she'll be followed by Amanda Na. Sanchez right there. >> Good evening. I wanted to start by sharing something that I forgot to mention when I first introduced myself
to this board. I want to acknowledge the impact of an important community that has played a part in shaping the person I am today. Throughout my middle school and high school career, I was a student of the Breakthrough Fort Worth program.
I am now an alumni of the program and have also worked as a teaching fellow for two years. Dr. Lacata, I heard that you went to forth country day this morning to visit the breakthrough community. I hope you enjoyed your time there, seeing the students absorbed in
their learning. Maybe you noticed the sense of community that nurtures these students to feel safe and loved. But if only those students realized that all those same qualities and opportunities that exist at Breakthrough
are being eliminated in their schools by you and this board. If only they knew how many of their teachers and principles left their schools because of the distrust they now feel towards this board. If only they knew you were part
of a collective that stripped away the title of a beloved educator who is qualified and deserving of the role as principal as Western at Western Hills High School. This board has continually taken actions to silence speakers and threaten removal when they are here to
voice their concerns over the changes being made and hold you accountable for the illegal punishment Miss Alzubi received. Yet on June 1st, when Jake Lang walked in here and verbally harassed the Muslim community that was
present, this board did nothing. A recess was called and the entire board just walked away, disappearing quickly while people's safety was at risk. A man was intentionally disrupting the meeting to harm a community and you did nothing.
I can't think of a more perfect example that shows the true apathetic nature that exists on this day is this board has shown that they lack the empathy, respect, and humility that is needed to lead this district. Those are breakthrough core values, by the way.
They are quick to instill fear, but hesitant to lead with care. When true leadership is needed, there is only an empty void. a void just as empty as those seats were when this community's safety was threatened.
>> Thank you, Miss Monthal. Next speaker is Amanda Na, followed by Kimberly Leonard. Good evening. My name is Amanda Ana. I'm a proud parent and taxpayer here in Fort Worth ISD. I want to first talk to you about why I
left and why my son will no longer my youngest son will no longer be attending this district curriculum. We pay millions millions of dollars for curriculum and teachers only get to teach a piece of that in reading. They pick the most what they think is the
highest teak and that's all we get to teach. Not grammar, not morphology, not vocabulary, not writing really. And um as a devout reading teacher um that's not teaching. So I'm going somewhere where I can teach reading and where my
son can receive the adequate educational instruction that he needs. Now on to this next thing that's super important to me. I taught at Brisco Elementary. I had the wonderful privilege to teach there this past year. And my students in that
campus there are 21 languages spoken. 21 21 79% of my students met their MAP growth goal in reading this year. 79 70% of them met their star growth goal
21 languages in that classroom were precious Muslim students. And I would never think to withhold my love or my educational knowledge or my
support of those students in every way possible to help them be successful. And they were successful, very successful. I'm a believer. Most people in this room know that about me because they follow me on social media. So I too I'm going
to read a scripture tonight because it's of my faith. The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all you have. This means prioritizing God with your deepest devotions. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. He didn't say
love people that look like you, act like you, talk like you. He said love everybody. That's what he said. He was a Jew, by the way. I think we all know that. And it was only by his death that I was allowed to have the faith that I have today that I walk and stand in when I come here to talk to people that seem
to be oblivious to what I'm saying. So, I need you to reinstate Miss Alazubi because she has an impeccable record as a teacher, as an AP, and you are doing an injustice to
the children of Western Hills High School because you are allowing that kind of hate to be projected. The kind of hate that I would be fired for if I did in my classroom. So, I would suggest you get to it. Thank you.
Thank you. Next speaker is Kimberly Leonard, followed by Patrick Leonard. Good evening. I am here this evening at the urging of my moral conscience and an undying devotion to God and not any God, the one
true living God under whom our nation was founded and to whom we still pledge allegiance in America and in Texas. I am here tonight because the weight of the lawsuit announced on June 18th between the Council on American Islamic Relations Care and Fort Worth ISD cannot
be ignored. This is an opportunity to stand and protect our children or to shrink back in cowardice and bow to the narrative of Islam and leftist ideologies that are bent on destroying America and our children's future. To make sure that the board and Fort Worth
ISD are aware of the gravity of their actions involving Miss Sheam Alzubi, I want to point out two issues. These issues reach far beyond the career of one woman. This is about the ideologies that she and others who share her beliefs are not only sharing publicly
but demanding that Americans accept as their own. And they're not compatible with the American school system or Texas law. The first ideology, free Palestine, as promoted on Miss Al- Zubie's social media, is inherently genocidal. From the
river to the sea, Palestine will be free has been used by well-known terrorist organizations such as Hamas to cry for violent expulsion and even extermination of Israel. This is genocide and its promotion will not be tolerated among leaders who have the privilege of shaping the minds and education of our
nation's children. The second ideology, Sharia law, is absolutely incompatible with Western law and illegal in Texas. Miss Alzubi's social media has indicated support for Sharia law, which cannot be allowed to influence our school systems,
much less our children. On November 18th, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American Islamic Relations, the very organization that is currently suing Fort Worth ISD, as terrorist organizations. This
designation authorizes heightened enforcement against both organizations. The Muslim Brotherhood and CARE have long made their goals clear. To forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam's mastership of the world, said Governor Abbott. The actions taken by the Muslim
Brotherhood and CARE to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable. He designated the Muslim Brotherhood and Care as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal
organizations. These radical extremists are not welcome in our state and are now prohibited from acquiring any real property interest in Texas. As quoted from Governor Abbott, I implore you in this case to look at whom Miss Salubi has partnered with and take the
responsibility and the legal authority afforded you by the governor of Texas and hold the line by keeping anyone who promotes Sharia law, violence, and terrorism out of our schools. Thank you.
Thank you, Miss Leonard. Miss Leonard will be followed by Patrick Leonard and Mr. Leonard will be followed by Patrice Jones. >> Hello. Thank you for having me. I'll keep this very quick. Um,
those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Those who don't know, many know about the Crusades throughout Europe, but many people don't know that they were in response to Sharia law and Muslims taking all the way through Spain.
The very ma uh where Muhammad is buried is in Barcelona. It is something that we have to be aware of. We can pretend all we want that by being nice and accepting
everything and all that that our Judeo-Christian values are not going to be attacked. But at the end of the day, it contradicts it. So, thank you for holding upholding the law. Have a great
day. Thank you, Mr. Leonard. Our next speaker is Patrice Jones. And Miss Jones will be followed by Lena Nesserin. The amount of people that stood up here
and hid their racism behind Christianity is crazy. It really should be studied. My name is Patrice Jones. I'm a Fororth resident and community activist addressing food apartide in the zip code with the lowest life expectancy in Texas. When the Texas Education Agency
took over Fororth ISD, we were told it was about student achievement. We were told it was to fix our schools. We were told it would be good for children. Instead, we witnessed a pattern that education advocates have been warning us about for years. During the 2023
session, state leaders tried to scare families with lies about critical race theory and non-existent pornography in libraries. The Texas State Teachers Association noted that these mean-spirited attacks were designed to undermine confidence in public schools
and pave the way for private school vouchers. This year, IDRA described how lawmakers kept a promised school funding bill hostage until a voucher bill passed and then trumpeted a so-called Texas three-step to defund,
demonize, and privatize our schools. The result is school closures, layoffs, and programs cut in districts from Austin to Fort Worth. While the state goes after our schools, TEA takeovers are spreading. According to the Texas Observer, the agency has taken over 13
districts in the last 15 years with mixed results. Rarely any of those districts have saw any improvements, but others are severely failing more than before the takeover. In Houston ISD, the takeover has produced tech test prep
factories, libraries turned into discipline centers, essay writing replaced by multiplechoice worksheets, and 177 principles, and 5600 teachers have left. Enrollment has fallen by 10% and a quarter of the teachers are now
left uncertified. That's the model that we're supposed to be celebrating. Now, Fort Worth is being marched down the same road. Southwest High School made significant gains on STAR. Miss Alzubi helped lead those gains. Yet instead of
celebrating success, you fired her under political pressure. If this takeover is really about outcomes, why are we punishing success? If this takeover is really about our kids, why are you letting adults culture war fantasies
drive policy? Our community sees the bigger picture. Governor Abbott and the TEA aren't just making one mistake. They are executing a long-term plan to dismantle public education. The same officials who push vouchers and charter
expansions were the ones who lied about critical race theory. The Texas three-step defund, demonize, and privatize isn't a dance our kids should be forced to learn. In fact, the only dance our students need at prom is at
prom. Not a budget cutting line dance. Your time's expired. >> Next speaker is Lena Naseredin and next speaker after that is Barara Aladra. >> Good evening. My name is Lena Naseradin
and I live in Fort Worth within the district 2 of Fort Worth ISD. Since the state takeover, two words have been the answer to why the appointed board of managers has made certain decisions. Student outcomes. I'd like to believe that this was truly the reason behind all the decisions that have been made so
far. But who knows? If it's all about student outcomes, then why is someone with 13 years of combined experience as a teacher and assistant principal in the district, someone with a proven track record of raising student outcomes and supporting teachers to deliver the best
instruction. Someone who went through a rigorous interview process and has proved herself time and again to be the best candidate for the job. and she was selected for the principal position of Western Hills uh Western Hills High School. The board of managers and the district did not stand by her. They did
not stand by these two words and instead listened and succumbed to the demands of an angry mob who wouldn't accept Miss Elzubie as a leader in our district. Not only am I concerned as a Fort Worth community member, but also as a parent as well. My Palestinian Muslim children attend Fort Worth ISD schools. Growing
up in Arizona, I never saw a teacher or administrator that looked like me. That's not the case here in North Texas. North Texas has a very diverse population in regards to ethnic groups and religion religious backgrounds as well. How long will this be the case if you've been to every viral social media post calling for good teachers and good
administrators to be removed? How many positions are you currently trying to fill from the mass exodus of principles and teachers in our district within the last three weeks alone who will now be making beneficial impact at other districts in the metroplex? How will you attract and retain quality and quality
candidates to increase student outcomes when this is how you've treated our current educator educators and administrators? Reinstate Sha Sheamat Alzubi as principal of Western Hills High School now and allow her to do what she does best increase student outcomes. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Miss Azerin. Next speaker is Barra Aladra, who will be followed by Kimberly Lawrence. Alam allayikum. I greet you all with peace. My name is Bal. I'm 16 and a senior in a few months. I'm an organizer
with the faith power alliance and I'm here to speak in support of the first amendment rights of principal she alori about the freedom of religion and the freedom to practice your religion in peace about the freedom of holding expressing and exploring personal opinions that our government has long interpreted under the first amendment's
freedom of speech clause. Principal Elzori has been serving the school district with her time, love, and passion without discrimination for over 13 years just for her to be quote reassigned from her rightfully earned position as principal of Western Hills High School for that exact reason.
Because you, as Fort Worth ISD, take racist, hateful, and discriminatory internet trolls as your HR. because you couldn't stand seeing a visibly Muslim woman with a Palestinian name be appointed to a job where she can better the situation that our state takeover
and with your complacency has brought our education systems to. I must ask you now, where have our First Amendment's rights gone? Why is it that a Palestinian-American educator can't post on their social media page about the truth about their own homeland that has
been and still is undergoing daily genocide, occupation, and ethnic cleansing for longer than any of you could remember? What is it that's different about her than any other educator? Is it that she's a Muslim woman that wears a hijab? Is it that she
sees the truth for what it is and calls it out? Is this what you're afraid of the next generation learning? For them to be woken up and start to call out propaganda and fuel added to the fire of anti-Muslim hate. >> You have the power to change history.
Pick the right side. I call on you as the board of Fort Worth ISD demanding that you reinstate principal Sha Zorby as a principal of Western Hills High School now and put an end to this anti-Muslim hate within your organization and within your power. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Alra. Next speaker is Kimberly Lawrence, and Kimberly Lawrence will be followed by Frank Gaffne. Good evening. I'm a native Texan. I'm a mother of three Fort Worth ISD graduates and a senior at Pascal High School. I'm
here to speak to you about your knee-jerk decision to remove Principal Alzubi. She should be reinstated immediately as she's an extremely well-qualified and experienced school administrator with a record of student excellence who also brings cultural diversity and representation to her
school and to our district. 51,678 people have written to you to say the same. My remarks are normally put together to be respectful and persuasive, but I know that won't work here. You don't care what we have to say because you don't answer to us. And your
votes make that clear. You are here to carry out Abbott's wishes to dismantle public education because you all benefit financially from charter schools. So, I won't talk about how Principal Alzubi is considerably more qualified than Superintendent Lacata or the fact that y'all didn't
practice any due diligence expected of a professional leadership team, but rather immediately capitulated to a rando imbecile with a social media account. Instead, I'll talk to you about how your dismissal of Principal Alzubi will lose you money and power since that's all y'all care about. Y'all seem to think white Christian nationalists are the
only people with money. And when you start cowtowing to them explicitly, you send a message to all the other people that aren't KKK, oops, I mean pretend Christians, who also have money and might be interested in investing it in Fort Worth. In other words, the decision to remove Principal Alzubi does not
benefit Fort Worth financially. We've seen a max mass exodus of administrators and students. And while y'all count that as a win, the truth is they aren't all staying here and moving to charters to make you money. They're moving away with their money. The money that you hope to
get from them. Never mind your moral failure. You've also failed fiscally. The money will leave and you will be standing on the wrong side of history and without your jobs in January when Governor Henosa takes power. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Lawrence. Next speaker
is Frank Gaffne. And Mr. Gaffne will be followed by Diana Deodor. Good evening, Mr. Secretary. It's good to see you. I'm um someone who has worked for roughly five
decades in and out of government on national security matters. Um specifically with the task of exposing, challenging and countering totalitarian enemies of our country
pursuing her destruction. Currently, those forces include such adversaries, foreign and domestic, as Chinese communists and their allies, Sharia supremacists
and global elitists. I call it the red, green, blue axis. One line of attack common to such enemies is influencing and wherever possible indoctrinating our children.
The methods are well honed and insidious, destroy the family, irradiate religion, and extinguish pride in and loyalty to our constitution. In the last century, this campaign
manifested itself in the long march through the institutions resulted in faculties and campuses that became incubators of radical ideologies and initiatives. Today, this access is pursuing every opportunity to insinuate their agenda
inside our educational systems. I commend this board for acting when presented with information that suggested a personal affinity with groups and policies that are aligned with those set on fundamentally
transforming our country which frankly is code for destroying it from within. That issue is not whether a Shariah Muslim named Shea al- Zubi has the right to espouse Palestinian calls for
genocide of Jews with the phrase from the river to the sea or endorse the subversion of Marxist Black Lives Matter movement or dissemble about the sedicious totalitarian
Islamic strategy for conquest known as Sharia. She has that freedom under the first amendment to our constitution. It is simply whether a person with such views should have a leading role in
educating American kids. And ultimately this decision is about whether since the answer I believe clearly should be no similarly minded individuals in a position to indoctrinate our children
should also be precluded from doing so. >> Thank you Mr. G. Appreciate you all. Next speaker is Miss Dearorf. >> And she'll be followed by David Martinez. Good evening. Thank you again for allowing us this time to share our
public comments with you. My name is Da Derdorf. I'm a parent to four current students in Fort Worth ISD um and one graduate in 2025. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of Fort. Fort was formed to advocate for every student in this
district, ensuring our community has a meaningful voice during this intervention period. I have said this many times from this podium. We have far more in common than we differ. I do believe that we are all genuinely united in the goal of improving student
outcomes for every single student in Fort Worth ISD. I commend you for sitting through these meetings and the insults that are hurled at you. Um, I commend you for putting in probably a lot more hours and emotional input than
you ever imagined possible. I want to sincerely thank you for the work that has been done so far by you both and I'm speaking to both you, the administration and the board. I appreciate your efforts that you've
made to increase transparency and to better engage our community in developing the goals and guard rails that will guide this intervention. And I want to speak to both our community and to district leadership and board leadership tonight. To our community, we must be willing to show up and to engage
with the district and board leadership in positive, constructive ways. That means being open-minded even when changes feel uncomfortable. That means being willing to engage in district leadership to find out the why, the hows, to to tell them our perspectives
of what supports are needed when changes are announced. And to the board and ad and administration, we ask that you honor us as true partners in our children's ed education. That means seeking meaningful input from us, the teachers, the parents before major
decisions are made. It means I know you've made strides, but it means being even more transparent. Um, not just announcing changes, but sharing the why behind them. I actually do trust that the decisions you are making are in your best efforts to
radically improve our district. And I know that those changes have to be radical and uncomfortable at times. But hearing the why engages us as partners instead of just telling us that this is what we're going to do. Um, we also need
to hear clearly and proactively what supports will be in place for our most vulnerable students whenever significant changes are announced. Um, we're counting on you to give us that reassurance and to be radically transparent. As radical as you are in implementing new changes, we want that
same radicalness in your transparency. So today I'm asking the community to stay engaged. If you want to reach out to Fort with help in engaging the administrators or the board, we are here to do that. And I'm asking you to
continue improving and seeking community input and being transparent. >> Thank you, Mr. Deodor. Next speaker is David Martinez, and Mr. Martinez will be followed by Michael Ralron. Good evening
is high. I say that as an Apache Chakawa Apache. This is my homeland. I am indigenous to America and Israel. There is no such thing as Palestine. As they would have you believe that
Palestine exists, it is Gaza. It is inside Israel, my homeland. Besides America, America is my first homeland. It is foremost my most important place that I teach my children who are from
different countries. I would tell you this, there's no racism in me. There's no hate. Because I was taught by my grandmother who escaped the Holocaust and also escaped the KKK. She told me, "Do not hate them. That's a weak man's thing. You're not a weak
man." So, I do not hate the Muslims. I do not hate them cuz I'm not a weak man. But I'm here to tell you, I know I know some of you will say, "Well, this that it's okay." No, it's not okay because I have we have to ask ourselves, would I
trust my child to be with that person? When I when when Jews go to their hospital, get medication, we have to wonder, are we what's going to happen to us next? Who's going to hide us at the next Holocaust? Because there's only a few of us. There's not many of us. But
I'm here to speak for them because so many of them do not want to be here. They're afraid. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. You know, I may be I may have concerns, things like that for my children, but the safety I threw that
out the window a long time ago when I spoke against at city hall when I spoke against the child molesters that were being the pedophiles are being allowed in our city. the thing if you can go on YouTube and and fact check me there. I'm the only one that stood up and we went up there and some of the people that are
here today, the socialists were on the sides of the the pedophiles. We extended it from 1,000 ft to 2,000 ft for be around children. And then so we create that safety zone. It was Councilwoman Beck and Councilman Councilman Larsdorf
and they promoted it. We we we pushed it through the city and they said they were going to sue us for it. Now today some of the people I was friends with some of the people that came and spoke before but then after October 7th you see things they were they were pro- Hamas.
They were saying things about anti-semitism around all of them and you see them who they're here with today. Now I want to say you know growing up you know who you who you are by the company you keep. That's why I come up here by myself
because I they say, "Well, I vote I vote Democrat. I vote Republican." So, I'm hated by both, I guess. But I'm here to tell you I've had experiences with my own children in the forest where we went to a Holocaust museum.
>> Thank you, Mr. Martinez. Next speaker is Maker Rollers and he'll be followed by Norma Garcia Lopez. I apologize if I butchered your last name.
>> Oh, good. It's just Michael Rollers. Okay. I just come here today to express my disgust for the school board removing uh Sharma Alzubi from the principal of Western Hills High School. It's
disgusting that they're doing this. And all I've been seeing from the state of Texas is just weaponizing just their attacks on free speech. Whether it's with the state of Texas cracking down on anti-boycott devestments from Israel, what they're doing with Corpus Christi,
or what they're doing with the Prairieland trial, where they're directly trying to um criminalize people that did no crime. They're sending people to jail for 25 years, 30 years for just being at a protest. It's disgusting that this can happen in Fort
Worth. And all Azubi was doing was she was posting a Palestinian flag and she was being Palestinian in Fort Worth. That's not a crime. I might be an incredibly, you know, white person and I'm might be ignorant to a lot of like
other people's beliefs, but the difference between people like me and people like y'all is I actually take time to learn about other people. If people mention Sharia, I don't just assume, oh my god, it's a scary word. I should be afraid of it and we should get them out of our school system. I go,
"Oh, what exactly is that?" They're telling me it's essentially, you know, their practices that they try to use to become a better person. That's essentially just like the ten commandments. Like what what y'all are doing is essentially like the equivalent of people in the Middle East saying, "Oh, these people, these Christians are
coming out here preaching their ten commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not whatever." Like it's it's disgusting that y'all can weaponize other people's religions to get them out of here and like do all this just to silence free speech. It It's just like it's beyond the pale. Like she seems to
be doing a great job. She seemed to be doing a great job as principal. She seemed to be doing a great job as a teacher. And it is just disgusting that y'all can weaponize this in a way that directly hurts the students all at the same time that the budgets being cut by both a national government. My mom is a
Fort Worth uh occupational therapist in Fort Worth ISD. And they're directly having their their budgets cut by the federal government right now. and y'all are directly doing all this where you're trying to get these Palestinian people, Muslim people out of the school district. I just find it
disgusting. And even if you're not directly, you know, racist yourself, you're still catering to people that are directly racist. And I'm just going to call it out. It like what's happening in Palestine is a genocide. And all you're doing right now is you're just allowing these people to out their hateful
rhetoric. It's just disgusting. It's disgusting. Shame on anyone that voted on removing her, but you can still make it right. Bring her back. Thank you, Mr. Rollers. Next speaker is Norma Garcia Lopez, followed by Casey
Marfeld. Sure. Good evening. Um, Norma Garcia Lopez. I am a Fort Worth resident and I do pay Fort Worth ISD taxes. Um, people that don't live in our district or our city are irrelevant uh to be here. Miss
Alzubi is not just a personnel decision. It's a statement about what this Fort Worth stateappointed board of managers chooses to value and who it chooses to protect. Many of you are sitting up there that are new to our district and don't know our communities. You were
stay appointed. Parents, students, and advocates continue to feel unheard. Listening cannot be limited to tightly controlled meeting schedule. At times, working families cannot attend. Listening means showing up. It means meeting people where they are. It means
valuing their voices, especially when their voices are critical. Miss Azubi has been more than an educator. She has been a lifeline, a mentor, a fierce advocate for students and families who are often overlooked or dismissed,
especially students who represent who need uh belonging, who need to feel belonging. She represents safety, represents possibility. So I have to ask all of you, what message are you sending by removing her from her position? What message are you sending to our students,
our diverse body of students, to our Muslim students, our newcomer students? What message are you show are you sending? Some of you need to take a good look in the mirror and remember where you come from because your privilege was fought for. And to the administrative
leaders that we paid thousands for for you to do your job, look in the mirror, too. We cannot pretend this happened in a vacuum. Public attacks against educators have consequences. They create fear. They invite harassment. They
embolden threats that can be deadly. And when a district appears to respond to that pressure instead of standing firmly behind its educators, it sends a dangerous message. I was told by Miss Bera that the board of managers will listen. I was told that Dr. Lata would listen. But when families spoke out
against the closure of Newcomer Academy, we were ignored. So if you de dismiss us again tonight, will that make a liar? That would that make Miss Bha a liar? Because I do not take lightly when people pretend to care about our students while making decisions that
harm them. If Fort Worth ISD truly values diversity, inclusion, and in student success, then it must stand with the educators who pour their lives into our children, not to bend to bigot individuals who profit from outrage and division. Our students are watching. Our
families are watching and the community will remember who stood up and who stood silent. Immigrant lives matter. Black lives matter. I Palest. My shirt says DEI matters. Diversity, equity, inclusion. It matters all the time for
forth ISD. Look at the students who you're serving. >> Thank you, Miss Garcia Lopez. The next speaker is Casey Maryfield who will be followed by Stefan Sanchez. Okay. Hi there. My name is Casey. I
don't speak very often, but I'd like to share a parallel story from my life regarding the removal of Miss Alzubi in hopes that you won't repeat the same unjust ending that I have seen play out before. I recently graduated from Texas A&M University. While I was there, we
had several acting university presidents come in and out. There was one overwhelming favorite for students and faculty. He was wellqualified and committed to doing his job well. Does that sound familiar? Campus loved him. Students came out in hordes to his
events and jumped at the chance to hear him speak. It was hands down the most engaged I've ever seen the student body. Faculty raved about him and his support. That is the life and energy that happens in a learning environment where people are confident that their leadership cares about them and the academic
environment. You've heard numerous accounts of Miss Alzubi infusing the same energy through her roles. One day, angry people on the internet got a hold of some video clips of a professor at my school and some class content that they didn't agree with. The internet started demanding that the professor be fired.
Our beloved president tried to navigate the situation, but the public hate quickly turned his direction and calls began for his resignation. Does that sound familiar? Our president and several other administrators did end up getting pushed out of their positions over this situation. Valued administrators saw
their careers ended and cease being able to serve their students in a hasty response to internet outrage. That sounds familiar to me. Our president's resignation was nothing short of a tragedy. I attended his goodbye ceremony with hundreds of other students, many in tears. We were all gutted. Campus
quickly suffered and has continued to suffer ever since. Academic rigor and accountability has dropped off. Student engagement and enthusiasm that he inspired has disappeared. That's what happens when you unfairly rip administrators away from the campuses that they love and serve. Students suffer. Teacher support and confidence
suffers. The whole system suffers. After our president's resignation, the community cried out. Hundreds signed petitions. Student leaders and alumni appealed repeatedly for a reinstatement. They didn't listen to us. And the hole that his removal left still stings the campus to this day. This community is
here right now crying out in the same way. Miss Azubi is a beloved administrator and this is unfair. Listen to this community. Let teachers and administrators do the job that they love. Do not let a hasty response to internet outrage control your supposedly independent board. Do not repeat the
same ending to this story. reinstate Miss Alzubi or pay the price. With the remaining time that I have, I would also like to say they thought that cultural discourse and cultural diversity classes were so important at my school that they made me take four of them. Um, the whole point is to teach you how to recognize
other points of view and be able to engage in conversations that you may or may not agree with without doing crazy stuff like this on the internet. So, I think that we should have more of that going on and less swift decisions. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments, Mr. American.
Next speaker, Stephan Sanchez. Mr. Sanchez will be followed by Alexander Montalbao. Good evening. I attended the first sess listening session and it didn't seem like it was for us. It was a guided question and answer. And I think you can do better and I think these parents and
teachers deserve better. On paper, our Monasuri campus is not on the elevate list. We are told this school is untouched. Our mon our monator programs will quietly fight for their survival. Kushner said that they have failed to assure parents that they while they
state mandates the the content content specifically the newly adopted blue bonnet curriculum our schools get to keep their monastery teaching method. It is a bureaucratic loophole that sounds perfectly reasonable in a boardroom but on the ground it forces our teachers to
fit a square peg into a round hole. Forward ISD adopted the blue bonnet curriculum for the financial incentive, but the true cost is being paid by our teachers and our students. Let's be clear about what force what is forcing this curriculum into the monatory classroom. It actually does. Blue Bonnet
relies on strict calendar-based pacing guides. The binder dictates on week four, day two, teach this specific concept to the whole class. But the foundational rule of the Monatory method is to follow the child. You cannot let a a child master a concept at their own pace if a pacing guide demands you move
on. You cannot run an uninterrupted independent work cycle if the state requires synchronized direct instruction every morning. You cannot replace the tactile brilliance of moving objects in space to learn long division with 2D work sheets and scripted call and
response drills. Because of this, our highly trained specialized monatory educators are doing impossible double duty. They are spending their evenings reverse engineering rigid textbook heavy lesson plans so they can vaguely resemble hands-on monatory work. Houston ISD is the example where we see where
this road ends. When the state imposed these exact same rigid mandates in Houston, their monatory programs were crushed under the weight of micromanagement. The veteran teachers who spend years earning expensive learning expensive earning expensive and a specialized certification simply left. We cannot let
that happen in Fort Worth. You've already let that happen in some cases. We must demand that our district administr administrators acknowledge the unique structure of these types of campuses and give our monatory teachers the actual autonomy they need to teach. Again, some of you were there on my
first listening on the first listening session. Remember, I I don't learn the same way that other students I graduated with in college, high school, middle school, and most evidently in monastery. um to keep Monasuri autonomous uh and
remove its and I call on this uh board to keep Monasury autonomous and remove its shackles and if anything you should invest more in more ways to get monatory programs back into the district and I would love to see more schools uh apply
the monatory concept. Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Sanchez. Next speaker is Alexander Montalvo who will be followed by Nydia Cardinis. All right. I had to listen online, Pete, when you try to quote or reference MLK
in the position that you have right now as this TEA takeover causes so much harm to black and brown students. So, I thought I'd read a little bit from the Birmingham jail letter where people like you would have put him in jail for
his direct actions in the community. First, so this is MLK from here on. First, I must confess that over the past few years, I've been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great
stumbling block in this strive toward freedom is not the white citizens counselor, I think we've heard from some of them, or the Ku Klux Clanner there in the blue jacket, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice. Who prefers a negative peace,
which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence presence of justice. who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action, who believes he can set the timetable
for another man's freedom, who lives by a mythical concept of time, and who constantly advises the negro to wait for a more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of
ill will, like we've heard tonight. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. Just like this lukewarm acceptance of Sheam Alzub's reassignment that y'all have been taking on. I had hoped that
the white moderate and I think we can include brown and black moderates as well would understand the law and order exists for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the
white moderate would understand that the present tension in the south is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace in which the negro passively accepted his unjust plight to a substantive and positive peace in which all men will respect the
dignity and dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the service the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open where
it can be seen and dealt with. So point of orders aren't going to stop us. Rosa like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be open with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light. Injustice must be exposed with all the
tensions its exposure creates to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured. >> Thank you, Mr. >> M. Cardinis will be followed by Saya. Good evening. Um, when I first saw the picture of Miss Alzubie, it wasn't her
hijab that stood out to me. It was her smile. It was the joy she exudes even through a camera. I imagine that the joy and comfort that she makes is a big difference in the school district with 80% students from families with low incomes who navigate food and housing
insecurity on a daily basis. I see the hatemonger that started this whole thing in the blue jacket as act mentioned, but I won't um disrespect the space with his actual name and also Mr. Moran. Uh, and I wonder if his research also included this. If you look on Facebook, there's a video of Miss
Alzubi, and I'll quote her directly. She was talking about the AP chemistry class she started. Because a lot of our students from title one schools, they get to college and college is too tough. They don't know how to ask questions or what to do when they struggle for material. They don't know where to where to go look for resources. And so I
wanted these students to have that experience in high school so when they get to college they are more likely to succeed and they are not dropping out after their first year. I think the most important thing as educators is to put the students and their needs first. To put the students and their needs first.
She wasn't just teaching chemistry. She was teaching her students how to survive in a world that wasn't built for them. She was showing solidarity with our young people on Dhaka and with our black communities who are consistently criminalized by police. So I ask you to reinstate Miss Alzi
immediately and publicly apologize for making her miss her students graduation. That is absolut when I heard that I was I was heartbroken for her and the strain that this experience has put on her and her community. And I want to go back to at the um conversation y'all were having
um about defining community for these community listening sessions. Um somebody suggested to narrow the scope to tax to taxpayers which would equal homeowners and 43% of um Fort Fworth housing is occupied by renters. So you would be leaving out 43% of our
community. You should have narrowed the scope to people who actually live in Footworth unlike the hateful people who came today. Um and the other thing is I don't know if you saw today that uh people fired over the Charlie Kirk post they got big payouts for their first amendment retaliation. That was news
today. So, I feel like that's the path that we're on here with Miss Alzubi, and you have a chance to stop us from getting there by actually uh reinstating her. And I also want to say that I find um Mr. Garin, you I feel like there's this trend to use things like this is
for kids and let me quote MLK, so whatever I say next is okay. But you're disrespecting the fierce urgency of now that Dr. King was actually referring to because that's about overhauling the economic and political structures that say putting people in cages is normal. that says having all the poverty that we
have amongst our students and children being hungry is normal and those things are not normal. So I wonder do you even know what the now is in this fierce urgency of now? You haven't demonstrated it throughout this time. >> Thank you Miss Cardinus and next speaker
is Saya Sed followed by Jessica Praau. Good evening. I'm Siad Sayad and I'm here to talk about appraisal district and forward ISD as well. During the April 30th, 2026 entity meeting, chief appraiser reportedly reportedly stated
that nearly 204,000 properties received valuation reduction in 2025 tax year because they filed the protest. This raised serious concern about the accuracy and fairness of the original appraisals. If approximately 204,000 protest values were reduced and
195,000 residential properties remained overvalued, it suggests that 400,000 out of 720,000 properties, more than half of the residential accounts were in were initially overvalued in the tax year
2025. 195,000 property owners, especially those with the property value $500,000 or less, still paid taxes based on inflated values. This effectively shifted the burden of proof from appraisal district to taxpayer, focusing
homeowners to spend time and resources, correcting valuation errors that should not have occurred in the first place. Ted's decision to freeze residential values while market values change has also created concern about unequal and non-uniform appraisals across the taran
county especially the neighborhood of colors. A frozen value does not automatically means a fair value. Taxing entity quarterly paid the appraisal district with the taxpayer dollars to perform accurate and equitable appraisal. Taxpayer deserve the transparency, accountability and equal
treatment under the property tax law. The growing number of protests suggest that the current reappraisal strategy has failed. Many homeowner risk pushing Ted close to state scrutiny and possible intervention if systematic issues are not addressed. And I would like to add
that if TAD is taken over by the state, it would be the first appraisal district out of 254 appraisal districts in the state of Texas. And we are just one step away. If they are not fixing the appraisals,
creating this problem, we will see more problems here. But I don't know if you guys care about or not, but please tell the state the governor that the plan to keep the appraisal for 5 years is failed. The
same governor was our governor back in 2020. And when it was time to take action, an appraisal district requested not to appraise. That governor denied that executive order and said no,
he's not going to sign it because we have to appraise the property every year. That was the decision done by Greg Abbott back in 2020 during the co time when values were going up. Now values are going down and he is trying to keep it on the same level
people are get overvalued. >> Thanks for your comments. Next speaker Jessica Praau will be followed by Carlos Tersios. Good evening board members, superintendent, and fellow community members. My name is Jessica Praau, and I
am proud to stand before you as a true member of the Fort Worth ISD community. as an educator in this district, as a parent whose children have graduated or continue to walk the halls in our schools, and as a local taxpayer who is
deeply invested in having highquality leaders who know our community. Tonight, I want to express my strong support for the reinstatement of Sheam Alzubi to principal. I have had the opportunity to work with and be supervised by Miss Alzubi.
There have been a lot of changes this school year. Sometimes we got some of these directives and changes from administration on a daily basis. Miss Elzubie was instrumental in helping teachers manage the changes suggested by
the board and by the commissioner of education. If there were questions about these changes, she knew the best teaching practices to support the new arrangements. and she was positive and professional and supportive in making those changes
in our classrooms. So, it was gratifying in May to see the district and board recognize her hard work in bridging between administration and teachers and in the success of our students and our scores.
And then the non-comm community entities took to social media and the board reacted. As a member of the Fort Worth ISD community, I only want to work with those involved to rectify our situation.
I want to um echo as another speaker said um the increased transparency that we are seeing. During the last board meeting, you had um the coach from the greater uh school cities council speaking to you and I stayed through some of that
because as an educator, I kind of like the coaching and the inservice. I know that makes me a little crazy, but that's also what makes me an educator. Um and I noticed that he g gave you those recommendations to have those listening sessions. And I'm very glad
that you are having those listening sessions. I missed the first one that was at Southwest High School. So, I made sure that I was speaking here today. But I do appreciate that those things are happening. I also, one of the biggest things that I took from that was surprising to hear him say was that your community is the
number one people that you should listen to. It does not matter how big the political pressure is. And he said, dare I quote him, the governor himself, that is not your most important people to listen to. Your community members are the most important people to listen to
and I do sincerely hope that you have the strength to take that coaching to heart. >> Thank you very much for your comments. Appreciate it. >> Next speaker is Carlos Churchillos who will be followed by Baze Meo.
>> He good evening board of managers. Uh I am a resident of Fort Worth ISD and I just want to thank the board for their leadership during this time and implementing the necessary reform to help for ISD to ensure that educators
are in compliance with state law so we can focus on topics of actual education. Today I'd like to speak I'd like to speak a prayer or the board in the district if I could.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And that thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits to prowl about
the world, seeking the ruins of souls. Um, I want to encourage the board. Um, keep doing a good job, keep listening to the community. Um, and we'll be here for you. Thank you. Thank you. The me next speaker is Baze
Meo who will be followed by Luam Earles to get your friends. >> Officer, would you please remove this person who's disrupting the meeting? >> You should have done that with Jake Lane, buddy. And you didn't do that with Jake Lane. Colin County did it.
Colin County did it. Thank you. >> Next speaker is Bass Mego followed by Lu Pearls. Good evening everyone. Thank you for taking the time to be here to talk about the children.
I am a product of Does this raise up? This is if you want to hold. >> Thank you. >> So, I'm a I'm a product of Texas higher education um Baylor alum
uh Fort Worth owned health science center uh retired now. >> Would you please address the board? >> Thank you. I no longer identify as a health professional. I'm retired now. So, uh I spent my time as an educator. I spent all day today at uh the Reach
>> uh >> disability center downtown. That's I'm at. So, I'm an educator in a different capacity. And so, I'm here to support the educators and and focus on the children. And I I'm
here to support Shama Azobi, others like her who are going through the similar situation. Uh whether it's different religion, different color skin, we're all different. Uh I have to just focus on the children. Are they getting what they need? Are they getting
the life skills so they can become uh contributing adults to to our community? So that that's the first uh that that's the first topic I wanted to address is is supporting her.
Second of all, I want to address the listening uh last night at the North Side High School. uh the listening last night the format uh I I concur agree with some previous
speakers about about their view about the format last night. Last night it was recording meeting and the all I saw it wasn't a welcoming environment there. I just saw a wall of
laptops and there was supposed to be a discussion with the community and with the educational leaders and the board. So, uh the unwelcoming environment that that
was offputting and then tonight a similar type of off-putting unwelcoming feeling you know I had to check my bottle my water bottle and and I see you all been offered water. I've been here four hours, haven't been offered water. It's just a very
unwelcoming environment. So, that's uh I I just uh that was my comment on the format last night. And then more of a personal note, um the American College of Healthcare Executives at Health Science Center. Uh
as a student, we have a student chapter. There's national professional chapter. We would go to Risky's. Oh, thank you. Thank you for your comments. >> Next speakers, Mr. Earls. And Mr. Earles will be followed by Luca
Z. Hello. Good evening. My name is Luam Earles. I am the computer science teacher at Pascal High School. Um, I'm here for the kids. First up, it the IT specialist certification.
Get rid of it. Oracle Java funded for all students. The IT specialist CER certification. Get rid of it. The Oracle Java is industry is is the the way to go. And I'm not just speaking on my behalf. I'm speaking
on for all of my colleagues at some of the other schools as well. Um, also add in the Linux plus certification. These are all program of choice. Computer science. You talking
about computer science AI. This is my third year in there. I'm having a hard time getting this stuff. Okay. It's already TEA approved. Two or my second point. Um, anthropic.
They have a program coming right now. Claude Core, look into that program. You can become a host. We could get a co-teer in the classroom possibly and they can pay them. They pay them.
You don't even pay. Look into it. I mean, it's new. The deadline July 17th. Okay. So maybe you can get a co- teacher, possibly TCU, maybe they already have an internship already. Maybe they're a junior. Come check it
out. Come check out how what teaching is like. Get in the classroom. Okay. Um the device policy. Kids have MacBooks. Do you all know what the command line is? Command line. Using the command line, like when you type the
code in, when you type your prompts in the machine, it's pretty much just running command line. They need to know how to read that command line. They need to know how to read commands and type them in themselves. So the mobile device management policy on the machines, it's
got to be different from for us CS instructors and the uh students CST students. Okay, VS Code has been a mess. We we don't have VS Code. It's always on, it's off. Like you can get a version of VS Code that is open source without
all the telemetry sending things out. I know you have furer requirements. You can get that. You can get that. There's plenty of plenty of that stuff is there. Also, I have a list of vendors you need to add to the vendor list for competitions, cyber security security
competitions and competitive CS competitions. And finally, most finally, I want to raise my base pay to $95,000. We all want it. It's not just me. Go to any of the CS teachers. I've already talked to all of them. I've already
talked to him. You hear me? Justice Bashain. Thank you, Mr. Earles. And next speaker is Lucas Z, who will be followed by Keith Annis. Good evening. My name is Luca and I'm a university student speaking today against the termination of Miss Sheam
al- Zubi. It seems to me that the forces of American fascism and Zionism have united in this attack against a visibly Palestinian Muslim educator. American fascism being the politics of
the Epstein class designed to scapegoat minorities for economic and societal wos that they themselves have caused. Zionism being the ethnationalist movement to build an exclusive Jewish state in Palestine through settler colonialism and genocide of the
Palestinians. In the wake of the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, executed by the Zionists and backed by the political establishment of this country as well as the imperialist war of aggression against Iran, as well as the exposure of the epsene files, the American people
have begun to stir from their long slumber. No longer can we sit here and pretend that such flagrant actions like this one like this witch hunt is spontaneous. The forces of American fascism and
Zionism engage in these deliberate actions while our inflation and gas prices spike. Our schools and students fail. Thousands of immigrants are herded into concentration camps and data centers consume entire neighborhoods to align the pockets of a few tech oligarchs.
This board by doing the bidding of online fascist agitators walks in lock step with the Epstein regime. And the monster you serve, the pedophile rapist war criminal screeching the loudest for these kind of actions is Donald J. Trump.
Resist fascism, reject Zionism, and reinstate Miss Alzubi. Thank you, Mr. Z. Our last speaker is Keith Annis. Hey y'all, I'm back. Same six questions. First, is there any scenario in this turnaround plan that
ends with Fort Worth ISD becoming a charterrun or privately managed district? Second, what specific, measurable, and unmendable benchmarks must be met for local control to be restored to our elected board?
Third, do you intend to expand charter schools inside Fort Worth ISD boundaries as part of this turnaround or is your plan strictly to strengthen districtrun schools? Fourth, I moved the order around here,
so be ready. What specific guard rails will you advocate for to prevent neighborhood schools from being further destabilized during this turnaround? Fifth, does the term student outcomes only relate to testing results? Sixth,
who ultimately decides the final governance structure of Fort Worth ISD and the fate of its public assets, district administration, Commissioner Morath, or Governor Abbott? Now, I did have a wonderful meeting with
Dr. Kushner and I appreciated that and I heard and believed what he said. The problem is is that he has a certain level and there are levels above him that I'm not so sure about. So, while I appreciate his time, I do not consider
that to be an answered question. That is what I wanted to share with you on behalf of Fort on behalf of myself. I'm from a small town in East Tennessee that is hardcore Bible belt. I know
these people. I grew up with those people. My question to you is whose side are you going to be on? Are you going to be on their side or are you going to be on the right side? There's a saying, a very old one by
Pastor Neil Mohler back in the late 30s that begins with they came for the communists and I said nothing because I was not a communist and it ends with then they came for me and there was no one to speak for me.
So, I'm going to ask you, who are you going to speak for and speak with? And whose side do you wish to be on? I don't know. I still have some hope that you guys want to be on the correct side of things, the side that you've heard about here, but I fear that you
may be influenced by the other side. I have two girls in Fort Worth ISD and I would rather they spend time with Shea Shea Alzubi than any of those people. Period. Thank you for your time.
That concludes our hearing of speakers for this meeting. want to thank all the speakers and I also want to thank everyone for maintaining dignity and respect for everyone in in a in a challenging
challenging meeting. We now call the public hearing to order. Public hearing to discuss the 2026 2027 budgets for the general fund, debt service fund, and child nutrition services fund.
The next item, the meeting is now called to order. Dr. Lacata, I will turn it over to you. >> Good evening. As we move through into this budget uh special meeting, uh I want to uh make a few incredibly
accurate statements to discern that we are on children's side. The new leadership Fort Worth ISD, and yes, I wrote this down, is tasked with making important decisions to support enhanced student achievement and ensure
every student has the opportunity to thrive. We are here because past outcomes have not met expectations of our community or the potential of our students. Those are
still they still feel this way and we were fine that some of our students could read on grade level and continue with the status quo. That's not acceptable. Those that have difficulty with institutional change and with our student outcomes that we're currently
struggling with are okay with status quo. I am not I am on children's side. The bar graph comparing Fort Worth ISD student achievement to other large urban
districts is permanently imprinted on my mind and my heart. We owe our students more and this budget reflects a different way of thinking about how resources should be spent. The data last week makes it clear that
we still have significant work ahead of us. Fort Worth ISD continues to perform below all other urban districts. We perform 11% behind our neighbors in Dallas, 14% behind Houston.
And too many of our students, particularly those facing economic challenges, are not experiencing the outcomes they deserve. Even with recent improvements, only 40% of our students are reading on grade level. For a child who struggles to
read, every subject becomes more difficult. Every year of delay compounds the challenge, and every missed opportunity narrows future possibilities. We cannot accept mediocrity and expect
mediocrity from our students. We hold them to a high standard. Those realities create an obligation to act with urgency. It would be irresponsible to be comfortable with our current data or postpone changes our students need.
Every school year matters. Every instructional day matters. Rather than continuing the historical spending patterns, we are aligning resources to the strategies that evidence shows have greatest impact on student achievement.
Outstanding teachers, strong school leaders that remain committed to ex excellence, committed to our students, consistent with instructional practice and experiences, and targeted support for students who need it the most. I'm
proud of this budget because it supports student achievement and it's at the core of every decision. What is best for students, not adults? When we arrived, we inherited declining enrollment, a structural deficit, a
significant ac academic challenges. In response, we have identified opportunities to re redirect our resources toward the strategies that research consistently shows have the greatest impact on student outcomes. The first question this new leadership team
asked was not what could we cut. The first question was what do our students need to be successful? most important inschool factor affecting student achievement is an effective teacher. This budget reflects my
proclamation that included a 5% increase for classroom teachers, the ones that have the biggest impact on student achievement, bigger than most any district in the entire state.
that is positioning Fort Worth among the most competitive districts and it strengthens our ability to recruit and retain committed leaders and teachers to our students here. We are investing in committed principles
as full-time instructional leaders because school leadership is second only to the classroom teaching in its impact on student achievement. By providing additional operational support and regional leadership structures, principles can spend more time in classrooms coaching teachers, analyzing
student data, and improving instruction. We are investing in our most academically challenged schools through the Elevate network. Elevate is not a program purchase. It's an investment in students. We are invested in highly effective teachers, teacher residents,
learning facilities, instructional coaching, campus leadership support, classroom technology, and additional adults who can provide small groupoup intervention and acceleration while paying teachers upwards to 100,000 plus because they're so important.
We are ensuring every student has access to a unified curriculum and instructional framework so a change in address does not become a barrier to academic success. We are strengthening support for students with disabilities by expanding specialized staffing, improving service delivery. We are
strengthening supports for emergent bilingual students by providing grade level instruction, language development, and multilingual support at their home campuses. We are investing in professional learning and embedded coaching and highquality instructional material so
teachers spend less time creating lessons that might not be aligned with standards and more time teaching students. At the same time, we are reducing low impact expenditures, eliminating vacant positions, reducing central office spending, and moving more
resources directly into schools. Enrollment declines creates difficult financial realities. All large districts across the country are going through enrollment declines. It is not unique to Fort Worth. How we respond is far different than the other ones scrambling
in $200 million deficits with no fund balance. We are being responsible. These are new budget strategies. I am very confident they will make a meaningful difference in our students, our staff, and our community. I turn now
to our CFO for a deeper dive in our second reading of the budget. as it was presented two weeks ago. So, this isn't new and we made some subtle changes that we had talked about and she will go into those. This is not a surprise to the
community, nor is it new tonight. Miss Darlamos. >> Thank you, Dr. Lacata. Good evening, President Garin and board of managers. Tonight's public hearing is being held pursuant to Texas Education Code Chapter
44. The budget proposed to the board was posted on the district website on June the 18th. The budget is required to be proposed by June 19th for any district with the July 1st, June 30 fiscal year. The following slides will provide
information on the proposed tax rate and the proposed budgets to be approved by the board and an action item later tonight. This proposed budget includes expenditures based on the district's five pillars as listed on this slide.
Excellent academic performance for all students. Excellent instruction delivering high quality and focused curriculum. Excellent talent incentivized to empower students. Excellent CCMR pathways for graduates.
And excellent service to students, families, and staff. This timeline shows the requirements leading up to the budget adoption. The notice was published in the Fort Worth Star Telegram on June the 12th, 2026. It
was posted at the front of the district service center and it's posted on the district website. The proposed budget was posted on the district website on June 18th, 2026. And the public hearing is being held tonight along with an action item for
board consideration of the budget approval for the 2627 fiscal year. As previously shared, the tax rate adoption will be presented at the board me for the board approval at the September board meeting.
This slide just shows a sample of the post-it notice with required required information and it is accept accessible on the district website. This slide just shows a copy of the taxpayer impact statement. This is
pursuant to section Texas government code section 551.043. The taxpayer impact statement was provided along with a notice and it's posted on the district website. The three budgets that require approval from the board of managers are the
general operating fund, the debt service fund, and the food service fund. We are proposing a $49.8 million deficit for the general fund, which includes, as Dr. Lacata stated a 5% increase for
classroom teachers and a 2% increase for all other employees excluding directors and above. It also includes a $25 million vacancy factor as discussed at the last board workshop meeting. The team continues to work on budget
reduction strategies to reduce this deficit. Budget amendments will be brought to the board of managers for approval as these adjustments are identified. We are proposing a balanced budget for both the food service fund and the debt service fund.
We shared this slide a couple of weeks ago as well. Our general operating fund proposed revenue of 854 million and expenditures of 94 million leave a deficit of just under $50 million. If
the deficit is realized, it would leave approximately three months of operating dollars in the fund balance. If action is not taken to align the staffing to student enrollment and rightsize the district budget, then the district fund
balance will continue to decrease. This is just a picture of the um budget that we're asking you to adopt during the action item tonight. You're required to adopt the budget at the functional level and a copy of this document is included in the agenda and attached to
the action item for your consideration. I would like to thank the cabinet members. I'd like to to thank my staff as well. It's been a cumbersome process to get here. Um my a couple of my staff members are here. Miss Patricia Young is
our executive director of budget. she is here and our executive director of grants, Miss Jamie Rodriguez is here as well. Again, it was a team effort. Not only finance does this work, but our cabinet members, our regional chiefs and
others, uh, as well as the time that we spent with the board going over this budget. And that concludes my presentation. Dr. Lato, >> Mrs. Mrs. Moss, I want to thank you for your ability to move and help our staff
move money from this building back to the schools in the millions. And that's what was historically hurting our schools. It's a different way of thinking. You were supportive of it. You made it happen. I can't say thank you enough. And I can't say thank you enough
to our staff because we made some difficult decisions. But the decisions were about what's best for kids, not adults. And that's what I said when I first started on my very first day, and I'm going to say it all the time, what's best for children. So, I thank you for your efforts and your professionalism on
this and getting it accomplished. >> Thank you. >> That's all. Were there questions or comments from members of the board? >> If I could, Dr. um you you've emphasized and did just now kind of the shifting of of expenditures and expenses from central
out to the out to the students sort of on the front lines with the students can you share some of the particular kind of savings that have been achieved kind of here in central administration with vacant lines and administrative costs >> I am going to uh answer that but I'm going to ask uh my staff that had worked
on this to give them 30 seconds of how they looked at their organization and how we could save some money but I asked them I put it in the hands of these madies just amazing professionals that understood one thing, cut your budgets down and get it back to the schools. So, I'm going to go down the line as we see
uh some of the important factors uh that were able to and I'll start with uh Dr. Ciz, I'll start with you because I know you have a large group. Dr. Kushner, you have a large group and as well as Mr. Chowdery who really did a massively
great job on doing things. But I just want you three to quickly answer that. >> Absolutely. Uh the school's office is has definitely benefited from this reframing that Dr. Lacata has brought into the budgeting process of just making sure that our schools are being
funded appropriately, especially our historically uh underperforming schools. And so we have been uh making sure that we are allocating those resources, technology, curriculum, materials um into our schools through this budgeting process, but then also making sure that
from a school leadership department standpoint, we're not duplicating services or duplicating any contracted services. Uh minimizing the number of vendors uh that are in the field coaching principles, coaching uh school leaders. Um and so that that's really
where our efficiencies came from in the school leadership department and uh just making sure that we are through the regional structure streamlining all of our services to schools. We have made a conscious effort to put our faith, belief and strength behind the professionals that are in the
educational field and remove them from the vendors. We have vendors. We need vendors. There's a lot of things we do need. But we're the academic folks. We all study to be teachers and educators. We know how to do this and we shouldn't be buying services. We know how to do it better. If there's a place we don't,
that's when we step out. But we are responsible for it. And we want to be the people and the players on the field to make sure we're educating children the way we want to see it and not buying something. We're investing in people that know how to teach and and instruct. Dr. Kushner, 15 seconds. And Mr. Chowy,
I know you have $13 million to talk about, but if you could do it in 30 seconds, it' be great. >> 15 seconds isn't enough. Thank you, Dr. Lacata. Um, I'll just briefly talk and uh remind the board of the process we took to employ this strategy. And again, thank you to our CFO, Darla Moss, for a fantastic job and and helping the
cabinet through this process. I was tasked with meeting with all of our cabinet members one-on-one to ensure that they were cutting vacancies from their budget, positions that have been sitting, positions that we no longer need, and ensure that that those funds
are returned to our general budget. So, in an effort to support Dr. Lacata's plan to return money from central office to schools. So that was one of my tasks. It was um you know a little bit of a borrower back and forth with my colleagues, but we made it happen. So we
looked at each organization one by one that each of the cabinet members here represents to determine what we needed to reduce. >> I'll talk I'll talk about two things. one um you know the district has really shifted to adopting high-quality
instructional materials and in doing that we've unlocked um funding to be that that we can reinvest back to the ground. Right? We we are adopting instructional materials that allows us to not spend on materials that are low
quality, that have not worked over time, and that we also don't get to tap into incentive funding to be able to actually do the right thing back on the ground, which is reinvest our $199. And then the second thing I would share is title money. Uh we don't talk about it often.
you know, title money is designed to really meet the gap. And often times what we do is we just spread it. Um, and we spread it rather than really targeting how we put it where the most need is. So we unlocked about $13 million in title money. Uh, rather than
just spreading it across all campuses, we targeted at Elevate campuses to be able to have that additional assistant principal, to have that learning coach, to reduce teacher uh classroom ratios. And in order to do that, we wanted to be more targeted with our title money. It's
a drop in the bucket when you look at it, but it was designed to ultimately meet the gap, and we're actually doing that this coming year. >> I apologize for the long answer, but I think there's a lot of answers in there that help everyone as we guide through this process.
>> Um, I have a question real quick or a clarification and then a question. Um, when you say open positions, we've talked about this. This is really just more um for for the audience, for parents who are watching. Um I immediately think, oh my gosh, it's that
special education position that has gone unfilled, but all of these open positions that we're cutting are at the central office level. Correct. >> Thank you for the question and allowing us to clarify. So the positions that we mentioned at the cabinet level were all
positions that were housed individuals here at the district service center. could be a coordinator, could be a director, could be an executive director. These are positions that we as a leadership team determined we did not need to function as a leadership team and none of those cuts that we've discussed right now impacted special
education services. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I want to add a couple things here. Um, and I know Mrs. Moss said it quickly. The 2% is for every other staff member from director or principal or below. It is not for anyone above principles. that
2% there's no raise for people above u it's just going to be a practice that we do here and as long as I'm here and it's not going to be giving raises to the higher uh executives we are going to give raises to the principles and below and we start a new process I also want to address that you know these vacancies
that we're we're hearing are not in the building right now we have some vacancies in the building that we have to fill because of program changes but you know we do have vacancies out there and some we're in somewhere between 200 and 300 uh but that changes like within in the minute because we're in that 45day window. Um, you know, a high
school was mentioned here having 40 vacancies. We got seven vacancies in that school. So, I just wish people would talk about facts and that's the fact. So, um, I appreciate it and I appreciate the hard work your team and others were here in the weekend working on these vacancies because it's
important we start with zero. Uh so my leading to my question then um I know as a former teacher that you know not to toot my own horn but we're kind of important when it comes to student success. So how are is this on?
How are um things like the teacher raises, the the teacher residencies, um the leadership development, how does that strengthen our educator pipeline so that we continue to get highquality teachers into the classroom?
I think it starts with just the mindset that the most important person in a classroom after a child is the teacher. Uh I've heard some uh very great I mean just amazing things in the in the public and when I'm out about the 5% and thank you because they know how hard it is to have a class roster and have to be in
every period when that bell rings and getting those students in that's important. It also says that if you're a teacher and a resource in another position, which is incredibly valuable, but if you feel like you need that 5%, we want you back in that classroom. We really do. There was a time period all
across the nation we were pulling out our best teachers out of the classroom and it was creating a weakness in there and that's what we are stopping. The best teachers belong in that classroom and they deserve to get paid to be in there. So, that's what we're going to continue focusing on in our budget. And I know a lot of the superintendents
said, "Well, second, you're new around here. You don't do that." Um, I'm sorry. We did it and we're going to continue to do it. So, um, that is what we're doing. It's putting the resources and the best teachers back in the classroom, the committed ones to our district and to our students that want to stay here, that want to be here. We're ready for you and we appreciate you and we're
going to continue to show you that. >> Um, Dr. Lacata, we we've talked about um, a lot of resources. Equitable distribution of resources in our classrooms matter. Um, we know that. How will classroom technology upgrades, high-quality instructional materials,
and additional student support improve daily the daily learning experience? >> Well, I believe we took an $8 million board item last month for this very purpose. We we know that what schools always get the the late the slowest equipment. We historically we know which
buses are always late to which campuses and eventually that catches up to you. And uh board member Steagle brought up a point um Why did our African-American scores go down? Well, I'm going to tell you because sometimes we don't put resources where we need to. And that
elevate campuses, which are largely black and brown students. Our whole district is that we are putting resources in in that manner to make sure they have the exact same technology that every other student. I want when you walk into a classroom, you do not know what zip code you're in because the te
technology, the resources, and the teachers should look the same in every classroom. And don't think I didn't take note of your your your statement because that's bothersome and we did grow in some areas. Yes, great. We dropped in some areas, but if we have every classroom looking the same regardless of
what school you walk into and all of you walked with me in schools and saw significant differences in different places, we're not going to do that. So, I appreciate that question. Um, so that's why we'd spent that $8 million before the budget year started.
Um what would you suggest? So we have um Fort Worth I think is lucky to have a lot of very active PTAs in in some schools not all schools in those schools with really active and giving PTAs. Where do you think
they should invest their money spoiling teachers? Because if we want all schools to have the best equipment across the board, what's a what's a different way that they could use their funds?
>> You know, that's that's going to be unique to each school and that is some of the autonomy they have. But um we do have a wonderful even though she said some tough things about us or me uh but we've had some great conversations. We have a wonderful president for the region and I've met with her. We've talked and I'm actually going to be in
one of the meetings when we get back to the school year. Uh, but one of the things she she asked the same question and I thought one of the best things they could do is not give money but give their time to the schools that don't have strong PTAs and show how to form those because we know where the pockets
of great PTAs are and they shouldn't be penalized in any way but let's spread some of that wealth of how you formed it and how it got together and she was all over that. She was very excited by that. So, I think it's more time than anything, but let's leave the autonomy to the school and what they need and give the principal the idea of what
extras they need from the PTA. >> Good point. Thank you. Yeah, >> I'm going to jump in before everybody else cuts me out. >> The district has restructured Dr. Lica uh student support systems for students with disabilities
and emerging bilingual students. You mentioned that in your comments. Can you explain to us, however, how this redesigned student support system is supposed to improve, access, inclusion, and student success? And I have a
follow-up question if you answer that. I'm going to start it and then I'm going to ask Mr. Chery to finish this and complete this. Um, first and foremost, we know that having access to high-quality programs and choices showed that a lot of our u
emergent bilingual and newcomers in our comprehensive schools far outscored students that were in a segregated environment. We want to provide more of that. We want to provide that at grade level uh grade level material, but we also want to provide more options to
that. But I'm going to let Mr. Chowdery explained how we got rid of halftime and part- times and increased them to full times and and the number. So, go ahead. I gave away your answer. I'm sorry. So, I'll add a few things. Um, but I won't talk too much. Um, the first thing
is if you'll notice, we've restructured and see the positions that we posted our literacy department to be called literacy and bilingual programs. Too many districts make emerging, bilingual, and special education a place versus a
service that's integrated. And if you look at state education agencies across the country, including TEA in recent years, um I can tell you that as someone who ran an agency as well, that has been a problem. It is not a place. It is a service that's integrated. So in
literacy embedded is bilingual programs, right? We have a whole an inclusion arm in special education with a director who is trained in HQIM, who's trained in Blue Bonnet. We're hiring a new inclusion coordinator because we have an army of inclusion teachers who walk into
a classroom and they walk into a classroom and they freeze up and they are the co-teer. They should be co-eing. You should not be able to tell what student they're servicing. These have been major gaps. So, the organization we're building is designed to meet that.
We started this work this past year. We're about to accelerate it. So that's one big piece that I would share that we have done. And if you look at even just TA, they have also restructured in that way. They they caused this problem. They organized themselves like this. Districts replicated this. And so that's
why you have emerging bilingual, they're focused on their strategies, but not on the HQIM. Special education is focused on their strategies, but that is not the way to do it, right? You have to embed it, right? And that's where you get that most perfect lesson that's designed for every kid when it's delivered right that
first time. And so that's what we're doing and and that's what we're doing. And now we're finally building an organization that is going to embed that so everyone sees each other in every work. >> Thank you for that answer. Uh and Dr. Just followup question is
given all that can you explain to explain to us how the district will report the outcomes to the board and to the community so that we can assess whether these student support systems are actually working and finally when
are we going to get this information? >> Those are great questions regarding accountability and transparency. We do have a site that has consistent scoring and we post the data but what we do is internally as well and what we're bringing to is this idea that the demonstration of learning with the
students is almost immediate. teachers will be able to see that. But the data construction of uh an observation by the principal instead of doing buses, they'll be able to see the data immediately. And then we'll be able to see, wait a second, our regular ed students are doing just fine, but these
two classrooms are seeing our ESC students not progress like they're supposed to. And then we can assess immediately not wait every three months for end ofear test but on a daily database where our our regionals can see it our EDS can see it our principles
will be there our assistant principles will be there to assess that data immediately and stand next to that teacher and say our ESC students aren't learning what's going on how can we fix this and how can we help you so it's it's more of a daily thing but the data will be the beginning of year middle of
year end of your data is always going to be there and we're going to make sure it's public facing and we will make sure there's a link on the front page where you can access it. The daily stuff is not what we need to see. That's internal for us to make di uh to diagnose and see. But it's not a gotcha. When when an
ESC inclusion teacher is in there and they feel like they're doing a lot of work and we're not having success, it's not about what the teacher isn't doing or they should be in trouble or scolded. How is the principal going to step in and how's the AP going to step in and how's the regional office is going to step in and support that teacher to help get those ESSE students. We're changing
the entire mind shift about how we teach children and it's not about who's to blame. It's everyone has to fix it. So, >> and just to be sure, you're saying the public can access this data as well. Would that be on on a daily basis or monthly basis? >> Yeah, that data that data will be out um
every 3 months during the testing time. Uh give give the specifics on that. >> Yes. Um so we will have daily dos pretty much for most of our grades three through um English 2. Um in high school dos will be daily but strategically
spread out. Think in six week cycles. First six weeks six like second six weeks third six weeks. So we will have six week common assessments. So think about daily dos align to every te the the dos feed into six week common assessments right which feed into a
semester benchmark which ultimately feed to the star test but we should already know where our kids are trending across meetats and masters across every cycle and we have real-time dashboards that we've built we started this this year we're actually building it for the state
uh we always joke around that you know um um that that we are actually building it for all the intervention districts. Uh my team is doing that and so um Dr. Ciss and his team can literally look up do data that day on a lesson and see how
well it was taught and where students are mastering it and where students are struggling. And so you will have that data and the superintendent and I have discussed this as part of his report. He can present every six weeks to show you the TEACS taught up to that point in the
year how they're trending across the district. So third graders across the entire district how they're doing on the set of TEACS that they should have mastered those first six weeks. He can present that to you down to the individual classroom. Obviously we wouldn't do that by teacher name, but we
can show that for you. But we can show you why this school that has the same demographics and the same EB population and this school, why are they performing? Why is there variance? Right? It's clearly not a student challenge issue. There is an adult
execution issue there that we need to lean on and that's the work that Dr. Solis and his team will be in real time improving every single day. >> Sorry. Oh, >> what would you say to um someone who's concerned that we're over testing kids
when they hear D um do you know I kind of know as a as an educator I know what that is but as maybe a parent or just someone in the community who hears that we're constantly testing kids kind of can you go into that a little bit more? >> Yeah, you don't know what a child knows
unless you assess their uh comprehension of an individual um standard. So Dr. You want to expound on that please? >> What Dr. Lacata just alluded to is absolutely correct. This is really to gather daily information on whether or not our students are moving toward
independent mastery and in real time having an opportunity to provide meaningful second teach. So that teacher is then able to target a concept or a teique and close that gap the day of versus waiting for a six week assessment
or a benchmark on a quarterly basis. So the purpose of the DO is not to over test students or to give them a lengthy um assessment. It's a five question assessment that will help the teacher target that second teach opportunity for the student.
>> Um well thanks for all the work on the budget and Miss Moss. I know I was thank you for asking answering all my extra questions on that. So really appreciate that uh that you did there and also appreciate you including the um slide in there. uh warning about the deficit and
uh so I know you all did a lot of work to get it down below 50 million. I'm hopeful that just like you did this year, you'll come in at a smaller deficit than you did. You guys did a great job of reducing the projected deficit uh for for this year. We're just wrapping up. So appreciate all that. Um,
and I said fully support all the investments that we're making in Elevate and the other campuses. As we look to hold y'all accountable for return on those investments, what metrics are what metrics should we be looking for? Um, as
as we think about the incremental investments we've made and and the movement of funds out of administration into the schools, >> the obvious answer is we're going to use STAR data. We'll use beginning and middle data um as assessments. But let's
talk about growth verse proficiency or achievement. Um I have always I've set it out. It growth to me is a curse word because it's just a quick hit and it's test prep and it gets kids quick growth and a great score for just that year.
And that's not what we're here for. We're not because the next year they drop under the scoring system in Texas. Growth. You get it one year and it drops. That's not what we're about. We want to chase school grades. Sure, that's that's great. You know, we we're we've made a
commitment to not have any DNF schools at the end of this year that are our schools, not under any other environments, but that's not cha we're not chasing a grade. There's a way to work through and navigate that system. But if you chase achievement, if you chase achievement,
you now have not only moved every school grade to as high as it goes, you haven't spent time doing test prep. And I know it's been mentioned, oh, all it is is test prep. It is not test prep. I am so against test prep and so is this team. It's about understanding throughout the
year. So, we're going to chase achievement, which will then react or set in motion a higher school grade and lift up all subgroups instead of chasing growth for certain subgroups. And that's what's happened over the years because you see this, we chase growth and you only get
it one year and it just does a roller coaster and it's just it's a cheap way of saying we're we're growing and that's not it's a bad word. Achievement is where we want to go. Proficiency. So, those are our real internal measurements. obviously the star and that is is a fact of life because we're
a public institution and we'll we'll use that but we're we're going to chase achievement and proficiency. We're not going to chase the the small wins. We're going big. >> Dr. Lata, speaking of achievement, can you share what you're doing to ensure that we accelerate achievement for our
students attending our highest needs schools? >> Can you do it in one minute? Can you do it in one minute? Can you repeat the questions? I want to make sure I answer the question in one minute. >> Yes. Um, how does the budget address um
for us to be able to accelerate achievement when it comes to our students attending our highest need schools? >> Well, I think I think the biggest shift under Dr. Lacard Lacata's leadership is making sure that our historically underperforming schools are getting the the resources that they need. And right
now in year one of this intervention, it's it's really loading them up with additional resources that maybe they haven't had uh historically like new technology, furniture that is functional in all of our classrooms. Um making sure that all of our students have the
materials that they need to access highquality instruction every day. And so right now the the budgeting process that we just went through really was looking at the the 19 elevate schools and ensuring that they were getting the support and the resources that they
needed first and then building around that from uh the from a global context and global perspective. So uh I think that right now where we are and we are actually having a weekly cadence for first day of school meetings with all of our central office leaders. Uh and just
today we were explaining uh to all of our central office leaders that our schools who are who are historically underperforming or still domain 1FS absolutely need our attention, our resources, our time and our people to make sure that our students like as Dr.
Lata just alluded to um don't know that they are going to a historically underperforming school that when you go to a Fort Worth ISD school the standard is the same. the standard of excellence is is is obvious and the quality of instruction is great. Whether you are in
the Pascal pyramid or OD Wyatt, you should be getting the Fort Worth ISD experience. And that's really what how we went about uh this budgeting process as a cabinet. >> And and I have one other just not necessarily budget, but there are a lot of comments about the math curriculum,
the middle school math curriculum. Can you just give a comment on the administration? what uh perspective there. >> Uh there's so much I'd like to say publicly. Um however, um I I I'm just I'm surprised by some teachers that um
may be against this because our expectations for students should not be immersed in getting to that level three or that achievement just at that level of proficiency. We're going to aim high. We're going to push hard. Uh we have we
have a really good plan for that. I I don't really want to expound much more on it, but we're holding students to our seventh grade math is a dead zone all over the country. There's really no place to go with it and it's it's declining all the time. We're going to ask for the most important uh pivotal
grade of math for middle school students. And it's seventh grade. It's always been an enigma everywhere. But uh Mr. Chowder, do you want to you want to generically do that? But I I'm just disappointed that teaching new curriculum is is such a bad thing.
>> Many of our peers, including the ones 30 minutes east of us that I used to work here in work in Dallas, has shifted to, including the state where 8th grade should be where algebra lands. And in order to do that, you have to take the eighth grade test and get the eighth
grade tak. We do so much tracking and segmentation in this country and how we've taught math. And if you don't want to take my word for it, just look at the Dana Center out of UT Austin and the best minds around how we have taught math in the c in in our country versus how we've
taught it everywhere else in the world. And so the tracking has not helped. So when you make on level sixth grade advance, seventh grade advance where the vast majority of kids are at and then you have 10% of your kids in accelerated which is sixth graders taking sixth,
seventh, and eighth grade in sixth grade. So they end up in geometry by 8th grade. That's about 10% of your kids. You get all of your kids in algebra by 8th grade. In Dallas ISD, there's not a single seventh grade test given anymore. We're talking 90% title one schools with
special education students with EB students, right? Who Edy Walker Middle School. Look it up. Texaschools.gov. One of my favorite schools in Texas. It has the vast majority of his kids in algebra. It is a comprehensive middle school. They are performing. they are
performing as well as Highland Park and we all know what Highland Park is here and so we have had low expectations. We have tracked and it's not working and it's time to make the shift. It's overdue. All of the valley districts, El Paso, Isleta with high populations, they
are thriving. Yes, you have to differentiate. Yes, you have to go through that productive struggle and get it right. We will. We have an instructional framework that's designed to first teach DOL and ultimately retach for the kids who need it and for the
kids and our middle schools also have an advisory flex intervention built into it and we have not only our ready platform that puts kids on their my path 45 minutes a week right in math but they can also get pull out there as well too. So this reckoning around advanced math
is not a numbers game. It's actually the hardest work that we should have done a while ago. If you look at the press release from Commissioner Morath on grades three through eight math, he spent a lot of time quoting about the number of districts shifting to middle schoolers taking advanced math. That is
where we need to be. And the second largest school district in this country that looks just like us, you can fit two forts worth in has already approved that three years ago. So it is based on sound data. >> I want to add something to that. In my experience, which some people think I
don't have, um, I was a principal of a middle school 200 six, sorry, I'm that old. And the superintendent, the person who kept moving me every 3 years, said, "We're putting algebra in eighth grade across
the entire district." You want to talk about principles going nuts? I was part of that transition. And it's amazing in that district as well as Broward now 70 to 80% of our eighth graders are done with algebra before high school, maybe
even higher. And that's that seventh grade dead zone that we just kept pandering to and trying to do something. When we elevated it, sorry to use your term, Dr. Solis, we saw amazing results across all subgroups. And remember,
Broward County, four times the size, pretty much the same makeup financially, socioeconomic, algebra in eighth grade is standard. It's not an advanced course. The advanced in eighth grade is geometry. Algebra is the standard. And that's
where we need to push. And if we don't push that, we'll never get there. And I know it's scary for teachers to have to start teaching higher ed math or harder curriculum math. We'll support you. will support you, but don't underestimate the value of your student and challenge them to their fullest capacity.
>> Um, I I I got a question, right? So, I'm tracking I'm all about it when it comes to math. Um, if I think what I'm hearing maybe some of the sentiment is the intervention piece. So, is it possible
to doubleclick on what the intervention looks like to ensure that nobody gets left behind at That's kind of what I'm the sentiment I'm I'm picking up. >> Mr. Chatter, you want to jump at that? >> We're not going to We're not going to
>> support I got a pretty loud voice. If if if there's a kid that's not able to keep up, and I hear I hear what I hear what we're saying. sixth, seventh grade, they should be able to. But if there's a kid that can't keep up, how do we take care of that kid?
>> So, we have built-in intervention in two places in our instructional framework. One, we have systematic retach built into the 90-minute block. So, there's first teach, right? You deliver the set of takes and the lessons of the day about 4550 minutes. A 10-minute D
happens. A frequent check for understanding. That's another way to describe a DO. Or when you said, how do I describe it as not over testing? The best teachers do frequent checks for understanding. And so a frequent check for understanding will tell you immediately which students are they got it.
Do not hold them back. Have them spend the last 35 minutes pushing their meats to masters and pushing their mastery to even deeper levels. And we will have differentiated task already designed for the teacher for that kid to be able to do that work. And at the Elevate campuses, those students will have a
learning coach that works with them. Um, and this is not going to be new in Fort Worth. We actually introduced this this year. You saw our gains. Those are not accidental. Imagine what's about to happen next, right? And then and then let me just uh finish. The second layer
of intervention is the true intervention, the tier 2, tier three. So in middle school, we have a flex advisory intervention built in. And we have two pieces there. you we have our I Ready platform that essentially puts a kid on my path, right? And the kid and
and the the fidelity is 45 minutes a week um passing at least 70% of the lessons. That one levels to where the child is and coach and and brings them up. So that's another intervention and you can pull them because advisory is every day. You can pull them for small
systematic small group instruction as well. But at the end of the day, the best intervention is the best first teach. And we're not going to intervene our way out of the state we find ourselves in right now. >> Um, if I could just give a like a realworld example as a parent. So, I
have a child who went through this last year as a sixth grader. Um, I did not push for anything advanced because it was a new school. Um, just wasn't sure about the changes. Uh it was the teacher who said, "I think he can do more. I
think he can do more." Um and put him in that accelerated program. Um wasn't doing very well. Well, it turned out he was sticking around doing I Ready instead of going over and getting tutoring. So, we figured that out. He
got the support he needed and the kid almost mastered the eighth grade star in sixth grade which you know of course I believe in my child but I'm going to say I was a little surprised. Um but it was it was the the teacher believed in him
and pushed him and pushed me and then followed up with support and I mean he succeeded. It was amazing. Dr. Lacata, the strategic vision that's reflected in this budget is moving
resources from the district office to campuses. Uh, investing in the campuses with the kids. Another one of the strategic moves that's in this budget, I'd like you to talk about it and why it matters is things are taken away from
the campus. the O andM responsibilities. The previously principles had to be the mayor of a small town and um you're putting more resources in, but a big strategic move is you're taking so many of those other responsibilities out so
these campuses can be true centers of learning and and not workshops for for principles to deal with all the on andm problems that can plague a campus. So you could talk about that part of the strategic that strategic initiative and
why it's important. >> Yeah, we are now allowing principles to be educational leaders. Um I was very bold in the first day I met them and let them know that they need to be the best educational leader because it's going to be a tough road ahead if they haven't become or didn't get where in that chair
that heavily responsible chair being a principal. If you got there, other than being an academic and educational leader, it's going to be a tough road ahead because principles are now forced to do what they do really well. And I have a lot of faith in our principles,
our new ones coming on board, the ones that have committed to staying here. They want to be the academic leader. They don't want to be bus patrol. They don't want to be air condition mechanics. They don't want to be door jam mechanics when doors will get locked. I will tell you my years as a principal
in a middle school and a high school, one with 1500, another with 2,800, I don't know how many kids, the moment something happened, I was working on a facility and I wasn't standing next to that teacher that may have needed some support and I neglected
classrooms and I and I don't feel guilty about it because this wasn't around then, but I knew this is something that has to change and something's there. So, what we have is a separate team in the regional office that handles that. The principal is not calling transportation 16 times to see why that bus is late.
That is one text, one phone call to the ED of operations and say my bus is late again. These are the kids that need to be here because remember a 5m minute bus late every day. Same bus is 25 minutes a week. Now it's 50 minutes two weeks. Now we're talking about a lot of time for
kids that probably need to be there even longer than missing five. So this is where the efficiency starts happening and we allow principles to do their craft. They went to school to be great educators and we made them into building mechanics and we've made them into landlords and that's and mayors of small
cities. We need to make them we need to let them do what they do great and that's sitting in a classroom next to their teacher making sure students are learning. One one other aspect of of this u approach to campus
centered making them learning centers for for all our kids um is the standardized curriculum. And in my work in my my day job and in education nonprofits hear over and over and over about children move so much particularly
our economically most disadvantaged children. they move a lot and teachers and people in the nonprofit community and the work that that I do, we work to try to um patch up the problems caused by that
persistent moving. You some kids move four or five times a year, this standardized curriculum across the whole district. Can you tell share with us how that will impact the academic standing, the academic progress, the
peace of mind, the wellbeing of of the children who who are forced by economic circumstances to to move regularly. I I think the far-reaching impact on our kids. >> I could answer that question very well, but not even close to the impact that Dr. So can answer that question because
he had mentioned it before and I think his story encapsulates that answer more better better more better more betterist um than than I could ever articulate to anybody. >> Thank you, Superintendent President
Garren. I think what we are really um seeking in Fort Worth ISD is to eliminate that instructional variability to ensure that no matter what school you go into, not only is there a standardized curriculum, we know that
across Fort Worth ISD, we are using a curriculum for fourth grade math or fourth grade RLA, but that the instructional delivery looks the same and that we are using common academic language. in our execution of
instruction and the level of rigor is consistent throughout our entire system. That truly is the power of our regional structure and our regional chiefs who are here this evening who are coaching our executive directors of instruction in real time who are then visiting their
principles and providing feedback multiple times a week to ensure that as a district we are creating a very dense system of leaders who are instructionally sound and that we are eliminating that instructional
variability throughout our district. So if you are going to a school that is a domain 1F, that instructional delivery should look, feel, and sound like a school that is a domain 1A. And that is really the work that we are laying out
this summer with our principles and assistant principles. We've already had a number of instructional trainings this month and will continue to do so as we uh return for the 2026 27 school year. It's really aligning every leader in a
school in our regional offices um to what quality instruction looks like in our district and then when teachers return making sure that every teacher also receives that worldclass professional learning experience.
>> Thank you Dr. Lod. Thank you Mr. Sle. >> How does um teacher personality come into play there? Could you talk to me about that? Like are they I mean are you telling them to be little robots? >> How does that work?
>> There are systematic approaches to educating children. That lateral number line got wider and wider and you have to respect the craft and the talent and the art of teaching with the
teacher. But somewhere along the line, it got so expanded that we're now not teaching to the standards, which is what we're graded on, which shows proficiency. We got to a place to where we're downloading lessons from the
internet for free. Uh we feel like teaching this today. We feel like teaching that today. The style of teaching is delivering world-class instruction, but the way that I will teach it is going to look a lot
different than Dr. Ciss and Dr. Kushner. We have four or five principles sitting out here. We don't want to take that away. We don't, you know, you don't take away the singer's voice to make it sound like someone else's, but song's got to stay the same.
So basically is what we're saying is you have to teach the material in a way that is um systemically similar to every other campus, but you don't have to sing it in the same key. Use your voice, use your talent, use your ability to articulate to your
students, but you can't go out there and start making up things from teacher.com or whatever it is. Download teacher and all this stuff and no, no, no. We're going to teach what is tested and that is what we do. We're public education.
>> Okay. Any other more questions or or comments? All right. It it we now move to public comment and the public comment um will be restricted to the agenda for
for this um for this separate meeting and we will hear from those who've requested to speak specifically on the 2026 2027 budgets for the general fund debt service fund and child nutrition services fund. We have
four people signed up to speak. One has um left the premises. Our first speaker is um Miss Chararma. >> Hello. Okay. Um so I looked at it as much as I could on PDF. Um, so deficit
of 50 million, expenditure 94 million, revenue 854. You have three sources of revenue. You're projecting revenue from local sources to increase by 8%. I just rounded it up to whole numbers. So you're projecting local revenue to increase by 8%, which is $44 million.
State revenue to go up by 9%. And then federal revenue to go down by 5%. I would just like more um I guess commentary on why you think local revenue would go up because Tarant appraisal district they froze residential appraisals year-over-year
and then when it comes to commercial I'm not sure who your largest taxpayers are but the largest in the county for example are American Airlines but that goes to Bedford ISD then you have Facebook that goes to Northwest ISD you
have Google which is 2.7 billion in valuation that goes to white settlement ISD. So I would like to understand why local revenue you're projecting it to go up in the event it doesn't go up. What are the what's a contingency plan? Are we going to dip into reserves more
because you guys are already dipping into your reserves by $100 million? Um I had a point there forgot. Um so yeah uh what's the contingency plan? Are you going to dip further into the reserves? What about what's the criteria for uh accessing the funds from the bond? Uh I
think we still have this uh citizens bond oversight committee. I haven't heard anything about it. Is are those committees going to continue? But yeah, just please give me guidance on your revenue sources. Um now I have some questions. Um data processing. Oh, those
are your expenditures, right? Like 5% increase in teacher salary. That's good. 2% increase in other employees except director level. That's good. Elevated $25 million. So you're asking us at like we are your taxpayers. So you're asking us as your investors to give you $25
million. And I don't understand the vision. So I agree with Frost uh when it comes to what's the ROI like when what does it mean that we're going to achieve we're going to um go after achievement like I I'm sorry maybe I'm just too Wall Street but like I need to understand what are the metrics? How do we hold you
hold you guys accountable to this elevate model? Then we have this guidance counseling. I saw that you that's a reduction of $5 million which is 10% down year-over-year. So what I understood about guidance counseling is that um it's al also like counselors who
help you figure out what courses you should be taking to go to the college or whatever you want to do beyond. So if we're not going to have enough counselors like how are we going to make sure that students have adequate um train or mentoring to do what they need to do. And then also food services,
that's down $10 million, which is 17% year-over-year. Are we going to make sure we're going to feed our kids? Um, so yeah, thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Shauna. Our next speaker is Manda Hay.
Okay. Um, specifically to the budget, and it's an assumption, hopefully it's a good one, that the consent agenda items tonight are part of that budget. Hopefully, one will hope. Um, we're in a 49 million. >> Consent agenda items,
>> I'm sorry, >> are separate from the budget. >> Oh, so this is additional spending that we're doing. >> The consent agenda items cover a lot of different matters, but the budget >> Okay. Well, these are budget related.
So, uh, $49 million deficit, $994,000 200 or sorry, let me get that right. $998,296.37 to put in LED lights at um the Elevate campuses. Why are we what? Why? I don't understand. I've taught in dark rooms.
I've taught in rooms of lamps. I've taught in your examination rooms that you required me to teach in for the last 3 months here. I I don't understand how that's going to better students. The next thing I want to talk about that is related to the budget is we fired a
physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, and now we're going to contract that work out and pay those contractors double what we paid people who had relationships with our children. This is not good conservatorship of our
money. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next and and last speaker is Alexander Montalva. Okay. We were discussing back there is an interesting line that you said, Peter, that we teach to what is tested.
as if that's the that's the whole goal of public education is that we just want to teach to what is tested. STAR test exists. You're getting hundreds of thousands of dollars. Your team's getting hundreds of thousands of dollars to get kids to pass
this test and that's all that matters in their education pursuits and what they're going to achieve and what they're going to become. So, it makes me go back to the question that Lori asked. Are we trying to get teachers to be robots? Because it sounds like we're trying to get kids to be robots. And
that's pretty much what's what the goal is here. And so when I look at this budget, I also start to have questions about what y'all are looking in terms of y'all's goals and initiatives. So well, first, this budget is why don't we have a view of this budget
at the campus level? Because one of the things that we see in terms of inequities across school districts is you can pull all your money together to say that this is the cost per pupil. And we know that Elevate campuses are going to be different than other campuses
because you're structuring it that way. So you can even separate those two. But at the campus level, I want to see and everyone should be able to see what the expenditures and what the expectations are going to be at every campus level because those inequities exist at the campus level, not just as a district as
a whole. You exist here because of one campus failing five years even though we had a break in star test data because the test didn't work a couple of years, but you exist here for one campus. So I want to know at the campus level what is going
to be the expenditures and how is that money going to be applied. The other thing is when we look at critical goals of this initiative include but are not limited to when it comes to evaluating this progress of this budget
and what this impact of this budget is going to be. I think this language is just very very inconsistent. So you have a bullet point that says zero teacher vacancies across all campuses. Okay. So define what the quantity of teachers are needed within
those campuses because just saying zero teacher vacancies could mean that one campus is going to have 50 kids in the class, another kid's going to have 30, another campus going to have 30 kids in class. Hey, well we have no vacancies. We want specifics. Okay. Now for the elevate campuses, you say all elevate schools are fully
staffed, equipped, and instructionally readily ready. But you don't say that language for all the other campuses necessarily in that same way. So why is the inconsistency there between the elevate campuses and the regular campuses? The other thing that I would like to see in terms of a dashboard of this budget
is how many teachers, principles, and students are we losing? How many are you gaining? And what is that impact on our budget and impact on instruction quality? Those are details that we need as a community. >> Thank you, Mr. Ronal. And thank you to
all the speakers. This concludes our hearing of speakers for this item. The public hearing is is now closed. Now turn to Dr. Lacata for superintendent update. I'm going to try and make this uh quick simply because we've spent some time on
some really good stuff. Um, I had a lot planned, but I think we covered a lot of it. But I do want to talk about some of the community things that we did the last couple days. I've done couple vis couple three visits over the last three days. Yesterday, I
had a chance to go meet Literacy Fort Worth. Frequent attendee at the meetings. Not always complimentary, but always respectful and professional. And when you listen to the speakers and you listen to them, they're not talking about something for them. They're talking about something for children
that they are up close and personally volunteer their time. So uh Dr. Kushner and I drove across the uh territory, shall we say? Fort Worth is so large. Um, and we met them at a community center and and we listened and
we know that navigating the ESSE process is very difficult for a a a regular parent, but a parent who doesn't speak our language, English as a first language, or a person, a parent that is always working or doing anything they can and don't doesn't understand the
system, that's not fair. It's not fair to their child. So, we listen to what they do. We want to expand what they do. We want to partner with they with what they do, but we also ask them to tell us how to make the process easier. There are guidelines when it comes to federal
guidelines. We know we have to follow timelines and dates and such, but we need our parents involved. Our dyslexic par students in this district are of all colors, not just largely our white students. We
have to fix that because all our students that across the world here in Fort Worth are dyslexic and we have to assess that as quickly as possible and we are at zero for the testing. We're caught up but we have to really push hard on everybody. There are guidelines,
federal guidelines and we will do that but we really need to work and partner with our parents and make that better. And that's why we went to them to hear what they had to say and make the changes. Uh today I was able to visit Breakthrough Fort Worth and Breakthrough
Fort Worth um um and thank you um uh Ms. Montalvo. Um I know that what I saw today was just so nice. I mean most of the kids there were Fort Worth ISD students and yes it was a private school campus but it's a free program that a
lot of the folks uh uh around this around this city give money to. So kids can go there for for free and no charge. There is an application process, but we also saw teachers that aren't ready to be teachers yet, but honing their craft before they get there. And I I know I'm
old, but they all look like students to me, but these these these these sophomores in college were doing such, you know, juniors in college were doing so well. And it it was just so nice to see that, but we're also seeing students getting a chance to be
introduced to a lot of the curriculum that they they may need to see earlier. So amazing, amazing, amazing program. Uh I also got to visit and have lunch with uh a gentleman by the name of Dr. Weissbart and Jennifer Deakons from Alcon.
I don't know if everyone knows this, but Alcon u I've spent the last 20 years buying eye drops because I have an eye issue. Uh and only Alcon makes the best eye drops and they're not cheap. But now I know where my money went. It goes to free glasses for our kids. They not only
give the eye exams, but they cut the glass, give the glasses. The kids have about 300 different types and styles. Uh, apparently pink is the big one right now. Uh, and they get their glasses for free. And we are, we've asked them where else do they want to put places to do
this. They have the regular doctors that do the eye exams. And I heard a staggering statistic today. Eye doctors are able to diagnose 275 different illnesses by just doing an eye test. I was floored by that. I was
absolutely floored by that. So then I covered up my eyes because I didn't want to know. But they do this and they provide payment for one of our staff members to run this and it cost us nothing. And yes, I took a picture out in front of there a couple months ago because I'm proud that this is what they
do and we have to expand it. and they talk about it as though they're more enthused than I am talking about it right now, which is kind of scary because I'm pretty enthused about it. That's huge. And we're going to capitalize on that because a kid who can't see, can't see the paper, can't see the computer, man, that's a
challenge. We're already challenged with educating children. But if they can't see, that's even a bigger challenge. Let's get the resources there. And I've told them if there's no transportation available that Trinity Metro does provide free passes for our students to get them there for free any day, anytime. This is community working
together and this is working locally with the people that make the difference. We can't do this up alone. Finally, we are at our half break summer point. Um it's big and Dr. Cis referred to something and I I want to make sure everyone understands what we do in this building. Now, once a week all the
divisions meet with all the regions and there is a massive Excel sheet with every school listed. It's not listed by poverty. It's not listed by race. It's not listed by anything other than this is the school. These are the needs. Facilities is there, budgets there, HR
is there. Um, everyone's there. Legal is there. Every division is here. And they are responsible to respond to everything that school needs. So when we see a school and there's a couple red marks, we go red, green, yellow. And when there is red, we want to know why. And if you come next week and it's still red, we
want to know why you haven't addressed it. And that's the leadership people in that room that have to deal with that. Because the first day of school is not really the first day of school. It's the first learning day of school. And if we continue to profess that every day is a learning day and we aren't
prepared as adults to provide the environment for every school, then we have failed. Then we have failed. And I want to thank the team for doing that because it is pretty intense in there. Tempers sort of flare sometimes, but we also know that when we talk about a school, we're not talking about what kids go to that school. We're talking
about a school that has children in this district. Um, and finally, there's there's a item on the budget on the meeting tonight. Um, this is an emergency. I I hope I never have to use u 10.
I It's just an allowance for me to spend more than my $250,000 cap. But if we get to the beginning of the school year and some emergency happens and a school needs something that's significant, I can't wait another month for that school not to have that. I don't see it.
I I I truly believe it's not it's like I said to someone, I have a better chance of dunking a basketball at a regular size rim than having to use that, but I I may have to, but I will not will not do it until I form the entire board of exactly why I have to use it. There's a
great chance I won't, but if something happens in our campuses needed, I can't wait a month for kids to get their stuff. So that's on there as a as as a fail safe and more than likely we'll never use it, but just in case something happens, it's there for us.
>> Thank you, Dr. Lacata. We'll now move to consent agenda. As board president, I'm making the following statement in accordance with board policy BBFA local. This is a reminder to all board members of the legal conflict of interest requirements and disclosure requirements you may have
for matters under consideration on the agenda for this meeting. If required by law, board members shall recuse themselves from all discussion and shall abstain from voting on any matter pertaining to such a disclosure. Board members, we've been provided an opportunity prior to tonight's meeting
to submit questions and receive responses concerning the consent agenda and action agenda items. Are there any questions or comments at this time specific to the con consent agenda items? >> Um, I need to pull out item 9L, approve
memorandum of understanding between the University of North Texas and Fort Worth Independent School District to provide training and support for students with disabilities. Um I Yeah, >> that's okay. >> Okay.
Any other issues related to the consent agenda items anyone on the board would like to raise? Okay. Is there a motion to accept con consent agenda?
>> So moved. Do we have a second? >> Second. Uh, is there any discussion? We'll now move to voting. You know, we we Something's wrong with the screen. It's It's not
>> I'd like to to do a roll call vote then while we wait to get this corrected. Yes. Okay. All right. The this vote will be for all items on the consent agenda except for
9L which will be pulled out and voted on separately. Um we have a motion. We have a second. Uh Dean Aier vote I or nay. >> I >> I
>> I >> I >> I >> I >> I do we all voted all present voted I hearing no
nays the motion passes unanimously. Okay, we've now had one item pulled out to be voted on separately. Uh 9L approved memorandum of understanding between the University of North Texas and Fort Worth Independent School District to provide training and support
for students with disabilities. Do we have a motion? >> Do we have a motion? >> So moved. >> And do we have a second? Second. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?
>> Um I will need to due to my employment with um I'm an oversharer. So I'll just share. Um I'm in a fully funded doctoral position, I receive like my tuition, uh health insurance, and
then health insurance for my family if I pay for it. And then if I'm lucky, there's enough to buy a Starbucks left over, maybe. Um, but I do work for the university and specifically I I work um to teach special education courses for undergraduates to prepare them to teach
students with disabilities. So I find it pertinent to um remove myself from this vote. >> All right. The at the conclusion, the record will reflect that you abstained from voting. Uh once again, our machine
seems to um be on the blinkers. So, uh we're going to do a roll call v vote. Dina, >> I >> I >> I >> I >> I >> I >> I
Miss George abstains. Outcome of the vote unanimous vote for none against and one abstension. Okay, we move move next to agenda item
D, discussion and possible action to resend previous board action to non-renew certain term contract employees pursuant to chapter 21 of the Texas Education Code. Is there a motion concerning this item? Um, I will make a motion to um dis uh
discuss the the action to resend the previous board action to non-renew certain term contract employees pursuant to chapter 21 of the Texas Education Code. >> Is there any discussion? Oh, pardon me. Is do we have a second?
I'll second. Who was the second? Frost. All right. >> Is there any discussion? Okay, >> suspend for a moment. Okay, we have a motion. >> Um, so I move to resend the board action
taken May 5th, 2026 to propose non-renewal of the chapter 21 term contract of Irwin Santiago. >> Do we have a second? >> Yeah, I'll second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?
We'll now move to voting. Once again, we'll do it by roll call. >> It's working. >> Oh, it's working now. >> Okay. All in favor vote I. Any oppose? Vote. No. We have a total of eight eyes and no nos
and no abstensions. U. The motion passes. Now come to item E on the agenda, separation agreement for Dr. Karen Molinar. Is there a motion concerning this item?
>> Move to approve it. >> We have a motion for approval. Do we have a second? >> I'll second that. >> We have a motion and a second. Is Is there any discussion? I would like to speak in in support of of this motion.
Dr. Bolinar served this district with distinction and well for for nearly 30 years. And over this past year, we all saw the impact of of her leadership and the team she put together. She had a
multi-year employment contract and she negotiated a settlement that will provide her one year's salary plus additional benefits. And we've looked also at other u severance agreements at peer districts around the state and
she's well within the range of those severance agreements. It's a very reasonable settlement with her and it's a way for us also to recognize her nearly 30 years of service to to this
district. Um, any other discussion? Okay, we'll now move to voting. All in favor, vote yes. Any oppose, vote no. We have eight yeses and no nos. The
motion passes. Item F, approve adoption of proposed 2026 2027 budgets for the general fund debt service and child nutrition program. Is there a motion concerning this item? >> I move to approve adoption of the 2026
27 budget for the general fund debt service and child nutrition fund. >> Okay. We have a motion. Do we have a second? >> Is there any discussion? >> I second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second. I heard a second, but I guess it
wasn't spoken into the microphone. >> Okay, >> I second. >> All righty. >> Uh, any discussion? We've discussed it at great length tonight, but anything anybody else would like to bring up at this point? I would like to commend the staff for
the extraordinary amount of work that that went into producing this and the short time frame they had to to work on it compressed time frame and commend them commend the leadership of Dr. Lacata. Uh this is a kids first budget.
This is a break from the past. This is a statement about the priorities of this board, statement about the priorities of of this district and I pleased to have the opportunity to to
vote for it. Um, if no other discussion, I'll now call for a vote. All in favor, vote I. Any oppose, vote no. We have eight yeses uh no nos. The motion passes unanimously.
Item G on the agenda agenda. Approve delegation of authority to the superintendent or his designate to approve purchases necessary to facilitate the district's first day ready initiative. Is there a motion concerning this item? >> Yes. Um, I move to approve the
delegation of authority to the superintendent or his design to approve purchases necessary to facilitate the district's first a ready initiative and to inform the board prior to making any purchases in the amount of $250,000 or more.
>> We have a motion. Do we have a second? >> I second. >> Have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? We'll now move to voting. Oops. We lost it again. >> We've we've lost the screen again. We'll
do a roll call vote. Um Dean Aier >> I. >> Mr. Po, >> I >> I >> Mr. Ms. Lewis >> I >> I vote I >> I >> I We have eight eyes and no no nos and
no abstensions. The motion passes. Item H on the agenda, approve the purchase of contracted services for speech language pathologists, diagnosticians, school psychologists, occupational therapists, music therapists, and physical therapists. Is
there a motion concerning this item? I'll move to approve the purchase of contracted services for speech language pathologists, diagnosticians, school psychologists, occupational therapists, music therapists, and physical therapists. >> Do we have a second?
>> A second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? >> I have a question. >> Okay. Um, could could we talk a little bit more about the purpose of this given what occurred previously?
>> Yes, I'm actually very excited that you asked that question. Um, and I'm not being facitious in any way. Um, >> this is a backup and this is the ability for us if if we have encounter a place where we need additional services, we don't have to go ask for it. We already
have it in our back pocket. But doc, uh, Mr. Chowder, you want to expand on that just a little bit? >> Absolutely. And uh uh trustee trustee of board of manager, you have board of managers has uh a summary, a deep dive into our historical trends down to all
the numbers and what we've used contracted services is not new. Um and and and to state that it is never needed is is just not true. Um um every large ISD in the state of Texas uses
contracted services. You have medical leave, you have extended leave, you have evaluation peaks, and of course, you have the continual challenge of shortages. And as you can see in the summary I gave you, this is actually a reduction yearover-year. If you look at
2425, we were budgeted 2.2 million. By the way, all of this is funded by IDEA funds 224 actually intended for these purposes across the country. So in 2425 we uh were authorized to spend 2.2
million. We spent 1.79 million roughly. In 2526 we were authorized to spend a million. We spent a little north of 600,000. And then this year we are bringing uh fort to you 700,000. Um and
so it is always important to have locked in at least guaranteed work uh a set of at least 10 to 15 contracted service providers to make up for extended leave disruptions and such. And so we have systematically reduced it. It's not
coming from 199. It's coming from a fund designed to do that. And then I also gave you stats. 98% of our students receive services on time. In the midst of the noises around crisis and
everything else, the numbers don't lie. 98% I'm not happy that 80 students last year needed compensatory services. We are going to take care of that. Those 80 keep me up at night. But 98% and less than 2% needed compensatory services in
Fort Worth ISD in the midst of everything else. That's pretty darn good. Um, it's not 100% and it will keep me up at night, but but we are we are punching above average when it comes to how even beyond average in terms of how
we perform in this area. And this shift to 100 full-time when fully staffed, right, will will only make us even better. and and we're about 5,600 students who need speech services. Uh we've designed it so we could serve up
to 6,000 and 60% of those 5,000 5500 kids receive tertiary or consultive services. So it's 30 minutes or less a week and then the other 30 above 30% receive the more intensive. So I think when people talk about case load, it's
not as simple as 12 to 80. It's weighted case load. And so I've shifted our team and our great executive director over at special education has shifted to this weighted model. And so that's what I would share. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And I'd say thank you very much for the detailed analysis. It was super
helpful that you provided on that. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Any further discussion or questions? >> We have a motion and a second. We'll now move to voting. All in favor yes. Once again, our screen isn't up, so we'll have to do a roll call. Is it working?
Oh, >> okay. It's It's working. >> Huh? >> Well, um we have one. We have eight voting I none voting no. The motion passes. This concludes the items on the agenda.
I want to thank all those who came and joined us tonight and shared their opinions with us. Thank all those who stayed here to the to the bitter end. We appreciate your commitment. And I want to also thank the the staff and all the
work that that went into making tonight. And um thank thank the board members and and and thank the the team. A lot of great work represented in what we did tonight. >> And thank you, Pete. for all your leadership.
>> Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. Is there no further business? The time is, and let's see which clock we're going to use, 10:53 p.m. And this meeting is adjourned. Heat. Heat.