Call this special meeting of the GCIC board of trustees to order on December 2 at 6PM. Tonight is the time and place for our board of trustees to conduct the business of the school district. We ask that all in attendance give their attention and respect. There's a specified public comment period for those in attendance to address the board. We ask that you do not make comments outside of this time period as it disrupts the ability of the board to conduct the business of the district. If any materials need to be distributed to the board, please, contact Nicole Lyons. If you would just raise your hand.
If at least after one morning any individual continues to disrupt the meeting, we may request assistance from law enforcement officials to have the individual removed from the meeting. Thank you again for your participation and cooperation this evening. At this time, Trustee Spradley, do we have speakers? We do. We've got 24 speakers this evening. I wanted to go ahead and point out to everyone, you'll see a podium and a microphone in the middle of the room, and that's where you'll approach to do public comment this evening. So next on the agenda is public comment period of our board meeting. Individuals wishing to participate must complete the request to speak form online available by noon
the Friday before the meeting and submit it by noon the day of the meeting. This is a special meeting of the board. Those signed up to speak may only comment on listed items listed on the meeting's posted agenda. The board has allotted thirty minutes for public comment period, but the time may be adjusted at the board president's discretion to allow for the orderly conduct of the meeting. This evening, we have received 24 speakers, so each speaker will have one and a half minutes. If groups wish to speak on the same topic, the board may ask that a spokesperson be appointed to speak for the group. Please keep in mind that public comment is not the forum for presenting grievances. If you have specific allegations pertaining to a GCIC employee or other GCIC matter, please
use the applicable grievance process found in board policies DGBA, FNG, or GF. Please remember to direct your comments to the board as a whole. Board members may not answer your questions or address your concerns during public comment. We will call persons to speak in the order we receive their forms. Our first speaker, I'm gonna do like I did last month where we I announced the first one and then who's followed up since you'll have to come kind of a distance to get to the microphone. Our first speaker will be Rachel West followed by Hillary Benedetto. Please step to the microphone and state with your resident of GCISD. My name is Rachel West.
I'm a resident of GCISD. GCISD was a destination school district for my family. My mom moved to Grapevine so I could attend Dove, and later my brother did too. Years later, I chose Dove for my own kids, hoping they would have good experiences as well. When our oldest started at Dove, it was clear the school had grown from good to truly great. Greatness is felt in the classrooms, front office, drop off lines, and beyond. Principal Landrum and her team care about each student and each other. This culture is rare and the result of dedication and years of hard work. Our family is deeply disappointed the board is entertaining destruction of the culture that makes
our district unique. Those of us who have been here a while know we've faced challenges before. Difficult times led to plans developed and decisions made as a community based on varied experiences and ideas. You have that in spades from the Dove and Bransford communities. I urge you to utilize this untapped resource and seek alternative solutions to present challenges. GCISD did not go from good to great overnight, so the decision to impose devastating changes can't be made on that timeline. Thank you. Our next speaker is Hillary Benedetto followed by Courtney Frey. Hi. I'm Hillary Benedetto from Grapevine.
Did you know that there are at least three new housing additions going up in the cities of Grapevine and Colleyville with a total of 47 lots? Did you know there are several residential rezones and proposals in the planning stages in Grapevine? Did you know there are several apartment building renovations in the works, as well as new builds in the approval process this year? Did you know there are very dedicated teachers and staff on all of our current campuses to educate these new students.
Please pause this process until we can hire a new superintendent, then you will know that GCISD is the best. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Courtney Frey followed by Lizzie Morris. Alright. Good evening. So we have been shell shocked since September, when we got that email from doctor Schnauz saying that school closures was headed our way. This has been a very rushed process from the community standpoint, and it may not
feel like that to those who have been involved this entire time. But I urge you to slow the process, consider more feedback from the community, real dialogue between each of us. There are things that we need to consider. I do things with in the nonprofit world all the time. We do something with nothing, and I truly believe that there are other alternatives to closing schools. Please do not shoot ourselves in a foot before we're about to run a marathon.
We've got to get enrollment up and it will go up, but we've got to plan for that. And we can't get rid of our assets if we're not if we're planning to truly grow. That's it. Thanks. Thank you. Our next speaker is Lizzie Morris, followed by Jenny Culpepper. Thank you for your time. Hi. My name is Lizzie. I'm a student at Dove, and it's hard to sum up what all the teachers do in one minute and how our school has improved over the years. As an example, Dove Elementary was chosen as the twenty twenty five school transforming learning,
which means our school is doing amazing things. Dove was also named the I Ready mascot champions. There is so much that we have to be thankful for and all the teachers and our amazing principal. There are 14 after school clubs that our teachers take their time out of their afternoons to let us have some fun. They don't even get paid for it. They try their best to help us improve our learning. That means so much to us and all the other families. You don't need a committee to make these decisions. You need a community to make these decisions. Don't be the Grinch that steals our Christmas and shuts down our school.
Save Dove and Bransford. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jenny Culpepper followed by Maggie Taylor. I'm Jenny Culpepper, a resident, parent to two elementary kids, and the theater teacher at Bransford. I'm Kennedy Center trained. I hold a master of fine arts in theater. I've taught middle school theater, run a six a high school theater department, and I've helped build two fine art elementary campuses. I am one of your fine arts integration district experts. Your expert is begging you to not dismantle and move this program. While I might be the expert, I am not the program.
There has been talk of moving the program to another school. You cannot just move theater to another school and call it fine arts integration. This program is embedded into the DNA of Bransford. From the parents, to the teachers, to the administrators, to the students, to the community, Bransford is thriving, and your own data proves that. We need innovative ways to bring students back to the district. Bransford's fine arts integration program is one of those ways. We could start marketing our program as one of the best in the state because it is tomorrow.
If we move this program, it will take no less than six years to even come close to what it is today. Voting for the closures is voting against the best interest of our students. And isn't that who we're supposed to be serving? The students? Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Maggie Taylor, followed by Renee Hart. My name is Maggie Taylor, a GCISD resident and proud Bransford parents. When we moved into our house six years ago, my dream was simple, that my one year old daughter and soon to be arrived son would grow up at Bransford.
We chose our home because of the arts integration program. Yesterday, as our PTA decorated doors for the holidays, I listened to multiple students play Christmas carols on the morning melody piano. Moments are like that are why I and many others want our children to continue learning at Bransford. My kindergartner kindergarten son already believes he has a future on the stage and is thrilled to star in the first his first school wide musical, Alice in Wonderland. My second grade daughter, a budding artist, planned our summer museum visit around paintings her
teacher introduced her to. Bransford is special. Arts integration matters. I respectfully ask that trustees visit Bransford, talk to the teachers, and and see firsthand the irreplaceable value this campus brings to GCISD. Thank you. Our next speaker is Renee Hart, followed by Christine Leathers. Good evening. Tonight isn't the decision, but this was supposed to be a true community forum. Instead, we're once again watching a process that limits real input. Our parent group has held two forums where anyone could speak, ask questions, and be
heard. That's what transparency looks like. Sadly, tonight does not reflect that. So I need to ask, what are you afraid of with allowing genuine community input? And even without a vote, the damage is already happening. Our communities are pull being pulled apart. Our kids are simply not coming back together. Families like mine with children who struggle with transitions will lose every trusted adult who supports them. We will be a smaller group, and we will pay the highest price. Thank you to Dahlia and Matt for speaking up for families who were never given
a seat at the table. To the trustees staying silent, you know this process is incomplete. No transportation studies, no facilities assessments, and no real community engagement. It's not too late to pause and do this the right way. Our children deserve that. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Christine Leathers followed by Ashley Benson. I just have a few questions for the board. Why have you kept the $5,000,000 error a secret? How does that reflect a balanced budget? Who appointed Casey Ford and Richard Newton to the finance committee?
Why is the finance committee the only one that received an EMPC update? Why did the EMPC wait until October to use a rubric for closing schools? How does a 2% savings justify disrupting students at six elementary schools? How can we trust functional capacity numbers from an architect that doesn't understand that eight students in a classroom can be using a classroom to its fullest potential? Did the EMPC members or architect actually walk the campuses with administrators?
Why close Bransford over OC Taylor when OC Taylor has obvious structural issues and the most land value? Why are we fighting with the city of Grapevine? How did the news know about doctor Schnauz's resignation before teachers or before parents? Will we have a voice in the superintendent search? How could you possibly vote on closing schools without a superintendent and with so many unanswered questions? Thank you. Our next speaker is Ashley Benson, followed by Heather Baron.
Good evening. My name is Ashley Benson, and I've served as the elementary music specialist at Bransford Elementary for nine years. I'm also the district music team lead, GCISD elementary honor choir head director, and your twenty twenty three GCISD elementary teacher of the year. Across DFW thank you. Across DFW, there are 13 fine arts elementary schools in districts like Grand Prairie, Arlington, and many others. These campuses are not struggling. They're thriving with large waiting lists and active transfer windows. Many of those districts offer full fine arts secondary pathways and families seek them out.
And right next door in HEB, there are 10 Suzuki string campuses and two band of choice campuses. Transfers into these schools are lottery based, accepting only seven students per grade before placing families on a waiting list. That tells us something important. Local parents want fine arts elementary options. If GCISD wants to stay competitive with neighboring districts and private and charter schools, we must give families the education they are actively choosing. At BES, our PTA has fully funded our program. The only district cost is our theater arts teacher.
Closing BES or moving arts integration elsewhere resets the clock. It takes six full years to build the program, and it pushes GCISD further behind. Instead, let's keep BES open, market it to local families, and allow for transfers. Let's build on our success, not walk away from it. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Heather Barron, followed by Alan Thompson. Hi. I'm Heather Barron, a Grapevine resident and mom to a third grader at Bransford. My plea today is twofold. One, pause the closure of Bransford. Two, create an in district transfer policy that is equitable especially to students like my
daughter who has been enrolled at the same school for five years. Pausing the closure of schools is not only a judicious decision, but also exercises wisdom and discernment. It seems unreasonable to close the only arts integrated elementary campus. Utilize a successful program and continue building enrollment at this campus instead of closing what stands to be a potential source of increased revenue. Numerous studies have found a positive correlation between art integration and higher test scores, graduation rates, and overall academic achievement. Art integration allows students to think more creatively in other subjects and understand how different
subjects, connect to the world and their futures. In addition to not closing schools, we need a solid, equitable, and district transfer process. Our family is contributing members to the campus and feeder patterns. We've immersed ourselves in fundraising, volunteering, members of PTA, donating, etcetera. My daughter was even part of a musical at CHHS in kindergarten. I'm urging you, please pause on school closures for the 2627 school year. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Alan Thompson followed by Jessica Walsh. So tonight, there's two city council meetings, basketball games I almost walked into.
There's GT meetings at elementary schools. I should be building the float for our elementary school, but a lot of dads are out there doing that, leaving mom's home or here. Thank you. It's appropriate you moved it here to a theater. You don't really want us here. You wanted it to look empty. This is planned. This is a joke. You know what we're all gonna say. It's a farce. This whole process has been a farce. This forum should have been hosted back in February. But, hey, keep GCISD parents in control of their education. That's a heck of a campaign slogan, isn't it?
There's an email from September 10 where our school board president said, I don't operate in a by committee manner in it's unproductive in my view. However, the board of trustees in the district are not going to ask permission to consolidate and move things. We aren't going to ask parents about how to educate their children. Ma'am, that is your job, is to ask parents how they want their children to be educated with our tax dollars. So which one is it? Which one were you lying on?
Because this whole process has been a lie from the very beginning. You're clearly in over your head. You don't know what you're doing. And madam president, you need to resign and let us clean up your mess. Our next speaker is Jessica Walsh followed by Kendall Sloan. Jessica Walsh, Colleyville resident, Bransford mom of a GT student and a medically fragile student. I'm here to speak regarding the medically fragile classroom. I have concerns about relocating this class. I was curious if anyone on the committee actually visited the classroom.
And if so, who it was, what day you went, and what time it was. How was this recommendation made? Did you compare existing classrooms to where you could move equipment, reinstall it, accommodate what you're already accommodating now? Will there be a new medically fragile campus setup? I have asked these questions in emails and spoken to a few people. Thank you to those that replied. Many of you have ignored my my questions. So I hope you have some answers.
I would also just like to add that my son has been a student at Bransford since he was three years old. He's been with the same classmates since that time, many of them since they were four and five. And I was speaking to another parent recently about how they treat him and how they've had to learn how to get along with him. They don't. They didn't have to learn to do anything. They were four and five. They treated him just like any other friend, and you're never going to be able to relocate that. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kendall Sloan followed by Heather King.
My name is Kendall Sloan. I'm a GCISD alumna and Bransford parent currently utilizing the out of district grandparent transfer option specifically for Bransford because of its stellar reputation and arts integration model. A few questions tonight. Why don't the functional capacity numbers used by the EMPC come even close to matching the numbers historically used by the district For Bransford, it is more than 170 students off. Even if you took into account the specials classrooms and those needed for a medically
fragile, which is very necessary, by the way, the numbers still do not add up. It is hard to believe an honest process has been followed supported by facts and facts only. If you can just integrate our model into another campus, will all our specially trained teachers and resources all stay together? Will both receiving schools get a theater teacher? Do Heritage and OC Taylor really have enough room for that many additional kids? That one, we all know the answer to. The answer is no, not even close.
This is not a declining school, an underperforming school, or even a deteriorating building. Before you vote, I ask you please make sure you are listening to the valid concerns of hundreds of families and truly feel closing a rated Bransford is the absolute best option for our kids, staff, and district. Thank you. Our next speaker is Heather King followed by Casey Ford. Good evening. I'm Heather King. I'm actually a nonresident transfer of GCISD. My family and I moved to Colleyville in 2009 when my now nine year old
was one month old. She, we were excited to move to Colleyville just for this school district. And when I went to register her, I was devastated to find out that my fence line is the school district's border, and I'm zoned to Keller. But I didn't give up there. I transferred because it was a beautiful transfer process available to me. And I had options because at that time, I could make selections of what I wanted to send my daughter to. And she's a very shy, introverted, anxious child, and the arts integration program was the best choice for her.
So with that said, if BES closes, I'm gonna have no choice to look for other options. I didn't move to Colleyville for Keller. I moved to Colleyville for this community. Even if this process has been handled perfectly, which I have no doubt that it hasn't, the superintendent's untimely resignation changes everything. Decisions of this magnitude require stability and trust, which has not been built here. Right now, we don't have a proven leader who knows our district or has the confidence of teachers and staff, which we've already heard from some this evening. Please, please take a breath and wait.
Let's ensure we have the right leadership in place before we make irreversible decisions that impact families, teachers, the future of the school district, as well as the future of this community. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Casey Ford followed by Chris Wright. First, I wanna just thank the board for being here and giving us your time. Thank you for, for your service and for everything you do for us. It's not always the most glorious job. But, anyways, so what I wanted to start off with is I wanna say thanks for your efforts for the past eleven, twelve months. I know it hasn't been easy.
And as someone who has previously served on the board and served on the GCISD finance committee, as a as a citizen, I've seen it sort of from both ways. It's not easy when you're coming up with budgets and trying to do responsible governance, and being responsible for financial oversight. But the truth of the matter is the current structure in Texas is not sustainable for recapture districts like ours. And so I just wanna kinda bring some facts to the situation. Education, it's a service industry. About 87% of GCI GCISD's budget goes directly into payroll, supporting teacher and staff and so forth.
So to make meaningful reductions, you have to actually make some cuts. And we even listed Huckabee, Tasby, and Moat Casey that are professionals that do financial services and planning and much more if you go look at their website. In GCISD, we've eliminated a 146 positions, which saves us 8,000,000 annually. We've passed a beta for 6,000,000 that gives us more money annually. We've reduced your taxes, a $137,000,000. You have a QR code. You can donate that. The city of Grapevine could help do that too and promote that for us. And then finally, what I wanna say is on the finance committee, I asked the
COO what's the best plan for it. The response was you gotta close Dove. You gotta close Branchford. What's the best response for either getting invaders for copper pennies, which is taxed 18,000,000 to keep 6, or do you shut down schools? Thank you. Our next speaker is Chris Wright followed by Marissa de la Cruz. Chris Wright. Howdy. My name is Chris Wright. I am a, Colleyville resident. My wife and I moved here, about two years ago in the hopes of starting a family. We moved right down the street from Bransford because that school had the best ratings
of any other school. It was absolutely shocking to find out that Bransford would be shut down. I I wish that I had the same stats and figures that had been presented before you guys today. I I wish I was super familiar with the process. With this district, we haven't had enough time, I feel like, to really embed ourselves in this community, and that's something we're really looking forward to doing. I do, though, wanna urge you guys to ask yourselves, what do we wanna be? What does Colleyville wanna look like? Do we wanna drive down the street and see kids playing?
Do we want families like my wife and I to move here for the schools? What do we wanna look like five, ten, fifteen years from now? And I feel like that should help guide the decisions that we're we're making today. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Marissa De La Cruz followed by Matt Harwell. Another presentation on the EMPC's recommendation just feels like a half hearted attempt at inclusion and transparency, much like the EMPC process, which has raised ethical flags from the beginning. First, Brad signed a contract in December for $94,000 with Huckabee to oversee the EMPC
right after the VADER election, even though CH local stipulates that all contracts over 25 k require a board vote, but it was never voted on. Then trustees hand selected the committee members in secret, which was so few people that schools and important groups were left out. So we can only have a voice on what happens in the district if a trustee knows us personally. Then, some of those trustees participated on the committee, potentially influencing the outcome. And then all the same trustees who picked the committee and gave their input will vote on the recommendations from their friends that they've picked and the fellow trustees.
It's a closed loop. Is that your idea of good governance? The capacity numbers are a mess. You can only move that many kids if you take away spaces and specialty services and programs and max out class sizes at the receiving schools. Studies show that smaller classes lead to higher educational outcomes and increased engagement. So how can educators like Mary and Diana justify voting in favor of this? It has nothing to do with resilience and accepting change. It has everything to do with the lack of accountability, and our kids shouldn't have to pay for the poor choices of this board that have caused enrollment to plummet the last three years. Thank you. Our next speaker is Matt Harwell, followed by Bobby Hernandez.
Hello. I'm Matt Harwell. I'm an eight year resident in Colleyville. I'm a five year parent at Bransford. I have two girls and the former president of the dad's club. I guess I'll start by addressing the board because I feel like I may be a little unique in this situation, and then I voted for every one of you. From Shannon in 2021 to Matt and Dalia in the last two elections, I am thoughtful and deliberate in casting my vote for what I truly believe to be the best interest for our kids and our school district.
It's my expectation that you give the same thoughtfulness and consideration in return. The stakes are too high. Now in this limited time, a few of my concerns. First, we gotta hit the pause button. We have no superintendent. I've been in corporate America for two decades. A decision of this magnitude would never get made without a CEO at the helm. Next, I've yet to see a transition plan for the two extraordinary services that Bransford has. First, the arts integrated program and the program for the medically fragile students.
Lastly, we all saw the scoring rubric. The recommendation to close Bransford was not aligned with the objective measures and results. Now we have city E and P C members themselves publicly voicing concern. What else more really needs to be said? Sit back, take a breath. Thank you. Our next speaker is Bobby Hernandez followed by Doug Kapler. Good evening. My name is Bobby Hernandez, resident Colleyville resident, proud Bransford parent. I spoke at the last board meeting, and I really wanted to drive my thoughts
before the vote on the tenth. Bransford is the district's only arts integration campus and the only school equipped to serve our medically fragile students. These programs are essential to our mission of inclusivity and innovation. Closing Bransford would not only dismantle these services, but also force students into crowded classrooms across the district, impacting learning quality and teacher effectiveness and our reputation for excellence. At a time of leadership transition, we should not rush into decisions with long term
consequences. Instead, let's commit to a thorough review of all options, not just school closures, so we can strengthen our district without sacrificing what makes it exceptional. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Doug Kapler, followed by Denise Kapler. Doug Kapler, GC ISD resident. From what I understand, you are gonna be voting on the EMPC's recommendations to close two schools. But from what I've also heard, this will not solve our budget problem. So why are we even considering voting on a proposal does not solve the problem?
I've heard that there will be no rift for the teachers and administrators. So where is the plan for where they will be placed? What about the students who can no longer walk to school? How many buses will need to be purchased? What about the additional fuel, maintenance, and driver salaries? What is the cost? What infrastructure changes will be needed at the remaining schools to accommodate the additional students? What I would like to see is an actual complete and fact based plan that will make true positive changes for the budget. None of us wanna see schools closed, but I think we all realize changes do
need to be made. I think we would all feel better if we were presented a comprehensive and fact based plan that takes into account all aspects of any proposed change. If we do not have a solution that fixes the problem, you need to go back to the drawing board. Pull together true representation from the community along with unbiased experts and people with experience in similar cost cutting efforts. Be transparent and produce a viable plan. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Denise Kapler. Please stop to the microphone and state whether you're a resident of GCISD.
Oh, and follow Denise follows Ashley Johnson. My name is Denise Caplara. I am a GCISD parent, a member of the PTA at Mansford Elementary School for the last five years. Members of the board, I urge you to pause this consolidation decision. Trust in this process has eroded due to unanswered questions and rushed timelines. With doctor Schnauch's departure, the district is losing critical stability at a moment when credibility is most needed. Financially, moving forward ignores a fundamental reality, The extensive repairs required at receiving campuses like OC Taylor will likely outweigh any savings.
We have not been shown net net saving protections that account for these renovations, increased transportation costs, or the expensive relocating specialized programs like art excuse me, like arts integration and the medically fragile unit. Academically, Bransford is thriving, yet we have no data proving that the success of the arts integration program can be can be preserved elsewhere. We also lack any analysis on the impact to our medically fragile students. Proceeding without those answers is irresponsible. A short delay is not avoidance.
It is ensuring the right decision is made with complete and transparent information. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Ashley Johnson followed by Taylor Bernstein. Hi. I'm a I'm a mom. I'm a GCISD, a Grapevine High School alumni. And I'm here because I want the very best for my kids. Like I think every single person in this room. And for my family, that has always been Bransford. We have teachers who have been at Bransford for thirty years. Have you asked them why? We have more out of district transfer students at our campus than any other.
Have you asked them why? Our medically fragile students come back year after year when they have other options. Have you asked them why? For three months, we have lived under the weight of this possible closure along with our now friends at Dove, and it has been horrible for every single one of us. We have asked again and again to be part of the solution. We recognize the challenges that our district face, and we wanna be a part of the fundraising, of the marketing, of the growth, and not the decline.
In the last four years, when our school was not in jeopardy and our children's future was not on the line, Bransford raised more than half $1,000,000 because we believe in what our teachers do day in and day out. We believe in arts integration that is so much more than a fine arts program. We are asking to be part of the growth, part of the solution. None of us would be here. We wouldn't be emailing you, I promise, if we felt like this was necessary or if the data showed that it should happen. I'd love to be home packing lunches, making cookies, preparing for tomorrow.
But I'm here because I believe in our district. I believe in everyone in this room. And we wanna be part of a solution. Our next speaker is Taylor Bernstein followed by Jeff Hall. Hi. I'm Taylor Bernstein. I'm a GCISD resident, a Bransford mom, a Bransford Colleyville Middle and Grapevine High School graduate. I am concerned that the committee and the board have not fully considered the value of Bransford's arts integration program or the actual feasibility of moving that program. Please remember this is not something that's just fun for the kids.
It is a program embedded in every classroom at Bransford that supports engagement, confidence, and academic growth in ways that are tangible and consistent. This is a proven model for academic success and it plays a powerful role in our students' education. I deeply believe all students deserve access to opportunities that support their personal and academic growth. Arts integration has been that opportunity for my child and many others. I respectfully ask that the board please recognize the value of arts integration alongside the district's other initiatives that support student success.
Prioritize this the way we prioritize other district programs. This model is vital to our community and should not just be an afterthought. Thank you. Thank you. Our last speaker tonight is Jeff Hall. Please step to the microphone and state whether you're a resident of GCISD. Hello. My name is Jeff Hall. I live in Grapevine. Tonight I was told I shouldn't speak because I don't have kids at Bransford. I'm a taxpayer. I've got a dog in this hunt, and a lot of other people do as well. We heard a lot about, a donation offered by mayor Tate. As stated in a CBS news news article, there was nobody from the district or on the board who was contacted by mayor Tate regarding the donation.
To be clear, what I'm claiming is mayor Tate never spoke with anyone in GCISD administration or anyone on the board regarding the donation. In fact, if not for Colleyville mayor Bobby Lindemood sharing about what he discussed with Merit Tate, the first anyone in the district or on the board would know about a possible donation would have been in the CBS News article today. So to clear it up, nobody in GCISD, nobody on the board was ever contacted about a donation. And if that's true, it would be untrue to say that anyone at GCISD or on the board declined the donation.
Finally, I'd like to recognize the MP studied, data and numbers and made their decision based on that information, not on a motion. I ask that you please give strong consideration to the MPC. Thank you. Thank you. This concludes public comment. We will now have our community presentation. So before, before Nicole kicks us off, I just wanna give thanks to Grapevine High School for being great host tonight. We have our GHS theater staff in the sound booth who are running things, and we appreciate you, Rhett Schwarzkopf from communications, and doctor Paul Sykes, our director of fine
arts. And so thank you guys for being great hosts and just for, allowing this to happen. And and then also too, thank you to our audience. Yes. We can give them a round of applause. Thank you, guys. Thank you for being here tonight and thank you, for those that have signed up to speak and really thank you to Lizzie. Where's Lizzie? The student. Good job, Lizzie. Way to speak, girl. And we'll kick this off. Nicole Lines. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. Am I on? All right. My name is Nicole lions. I'm the executive director of communications here in GCISD. And I just want to thank everyone for being here, whether you're here in person
or tuning in online, we very much appreciate your engagement. And, we just want to, tonight present the overall GCISD forward plan. This plan was developed to address the long term financial challenges that both GCISD and districts across the state are facing for tonight's presentation. We requested that the community submit questions or concerns ahead of time, and that was so our team could best address them throughout this evening's presentation. We received many submissions and the complete list of those has been provided to each
trustee for reference. This presentation tonight has been built around those questions that we have received. We read through them. We found several, common themes and while you won't hear the information in a back and forth question and answer format, The presentation includes information and clarity to address those questions and concerns. So I'm going to just overall kick this off with why GCI SD forward. There are really four main components that have contributed to the development of this plan
and the recommendation of the EMPC. You have often heard these things and we will dive a little bit deeper into each of them, but they are really the declining enrollment that GCI SD and districts across the state of Texas are facing under utilization of the facilities within the district, a minimal increase in state funding and a budget deficit that is projected. Good evening. My name is Paula Barbaro. I'm the chief operations officer for GCISD. I think we've seen this slide before the reference here is to the decline and
often it's been referred to, in terms of the decline in student enrollment since about 2019. But the information on this chart also shows that decline began in student enrollment, looking as far back as 2015, there's decline on that chart in 2016, '17, and '18. There was a slight uptick in 2019 and then a greater decline going into 2020. And then there's been a decline since that time based on the demographic projections, at a period of time in which the district was growing, it appeared that the district
believed it needed to have 11 campuses and basically a capacity of about 7,100 students in those 11 schools. Today, what we see is just over 1,900, open seats within those elementary schools when assigning a revenue number to the enrollment decline, that's been experienced just since the 2019 period. We're talking about just over 10 at the same time, the district has been attempting to absorb, pretty significant inflation over that period of time.
So this chart here, again, covers our elementary schools here in GCISD and shows what the utilization was. Going into this school year after experiencing another, decline coming into August 2025, it's a reminder of where and why the demographer and the committee originally began its original consolidation focus. It began in those areas that you see there with the greater decline with the campuses, with the lower enrollment that indicate under utilization, some that are below 60% that
you're looking at there, some below 70, And those that you can see that are already approaching a 70% utilization when initially looking at say dove Silver Lake, Bransford, and, Colleyville elementary combined those schools alone represent over ten seventeen, vacant seats, if you will, in the elementary schools. So it was natural that those areas with the most decline, would be looked at and considered. And fortunately, in those two same areas are two of the newest schools within GCI
SD Colleville elementary and Canon elementary that helped the committee realize that they wanted more information about all of the district's elementary schools. And even some of the secondary schools were part of that overall discussion and the costs associated with them, which led ultimately to the rubric while looking at several scenarios involving different schools to ensure that everything was being considered. What they also understood was that the enrollment of a school would not necessarily fit into just one other school.
And therefore the demographer would have to look at movement to two or three, or possibly even four schools to accommodate students while also taking into consideration natural and geographical boundaries that I've previously mentioned, in the last update when designing potential scenarios. So that's taking into account traffic, traffic by way of streets for ease of travel, where neighborhoods are located, the direction that homes face within those neighborhoods and things of
that nature. And what I do want to reiterate was that the committee very early in the process also began to identify the feasibility factors that they would consider not just facility related, but feasibility factors in order to feel as though they had considered all of the things that were necessary or important, as the information was being developed together. I think David, Mr. Johnson, It's actually not, and we're giving a presentation.
They they gave you the instructions. Well, you submitted questions, and those she just explained how what they just did. Okay. Hello. My name is David Johnson. I'm the CFO. And what I wanted to kind of give an update, in the eighty eighth legislative session, I think there were four special sessions after that. And the end result of this, we didn't get anything. And so as we go to this most recent, end of the legislative session, what
we got out of that was about 6,200,000.0 and that's the first increase since 2019. We got a $55 increase in the basic allotment and the basic allotment is the driver in, in the funding formula. Inflation said that we would need it. We would have needed about $13.86 dollars to keep up with inflation. The big things that came out of that eighty ninth legislative session, the big two were the teacher attention allotment, and that is funding increases, funding for salary increases for teachers with three plus years, that that was about $3,600,000 And then we got the
support staff salary retention allotment, which is for everybody else. And that was for about $440,000 and obviously when you get certain funding streams from the Texas Education Agency or the legislature, they have spending requirements for that. And so when we look at the spending requirements, the mandated pay increase for the things that I just mentioned were about $4,500,000 They didn't fund, in those two allotments, any of the benefits and that's about 10% when we write checks for it. And so basically after you have the additional funding, the state spends the bulk of
that and they, and it's wonderful that they gave that to teachers, but that doesn't get the rest of the folks. The other funding after the salary and benefits was about 4 and a half million dollars And what was left over was about $1,700,000 which is about 0.8% of the district's little bit less than than 1% of the district's revenue. And that's the first increase since 2019. And as is Paula, Paula mentioned, our, our inflation has really been substantial. It's, it's been over 20%. So that $1,700,000 or 0.8% of revenue was meant to address, the other cost increases.
And G and Y G, GCIS D four. What I've provided here is a kind of a revamped financial statement. And what I've done is I've encapsulated what, what I call formula revenue and formula revenue is what the state determines you're going to get on a per student basis. Districts adopt tax rate. And then we combine that in this very first column. And I actually, subtract out recapture. We've got a TIF arrangement. And so that first column, is that. It's the ADA and the taxes result in the formula revenue.
And so I've given you four years of audited history. And so you can see that revenue, there wasn't any increase in revenue, which it aligns with what I was saying. Actually it's gone down. The unaudited fiscal year '25 is you can see that the VADER was tremendously helpful. And then you have the adopted budget and that was a balanced budget. We found out a couple of things. After the balanced budget, we had a decrease in enrollment, decline in enrollment. Paula mentioned that as well. And so I've kind of revised the estimate. So you see the adopted budget, you see the revised estimate and then in the
out years I've done a couple of things. We know that as enrollment declines so does our funding and so I've factored that in for the future that you can see. It's about 1% of enrollment based on the demographer's projections. I factored that in at about $750,000 so that's why revenue decreases. And then we're also in the very next column is all the rest of the revenue. The first column of revenue, that's determined by the state and the tax rate is about 84%. The next is is the remaining 16% and I've decreased that in some of the
out years. We get a lot of interest income when we collect the taxes. We invest that money with professional money managers. We've seen that decrease and every time you hear that the fed talks about decreasing the overnight rate that directly impacts us. The expenditures, you've got those kind of all lumped together for ease of illustration purposes. About 87% of that is payroll. And then in the in the next column, we've got deficits. And so As the district is cut, it's kinda hard to keep up with inflation and pay increases. So we take fund balance from about $58,000,000 down to this year of about 39,000,000.
And then in the out years, the deficit grows because again, loss of enrollment, loss of loss of interest revenue and I did factor in some increases in the expenditure column for the non payroll because again, we're not immune to inflation. I think, you know, we've made a lot of cuts, but I factored in some small, increase in the expenditure. So that's why the deficit grows. Each year compounds. So as you lose $7.50 in one year, that next year becomes 1.5 again in the first column. And so we see the the fund balance decrease based on, the way we're currently
operating. Again, the district cut a 146 positions. And, and the and this is meant to illustrate things that we all know because, we know that the the enrollments dropped. That's that's happened historically, but it gives us a general direction of what we're expecting to see over the next few years without changes. And so we did a little bit of we did a lot of work actually, to determine, you know, some of the costs that, that are associated with the individual campuses and that's what you see here. And so if we look at, the average operations cost, we don't spend a lot of money on, maintenance and HVAC as those things go.
So we accumulate that and the average is about $182,000 And so when you close a campus, they've got kind of a core, of, of staff and that'd be principals, assistant principals, nurses, counselors, librarians, custodians. And so that is about, $788,000. And then when when Kelly Myers, who will be up here in a minute, talks about how you staff, when you close that first campus, you can redistribute those students and keep class sizes again within the 22 to one because that's a state mandate.
That saves about seven zero four and then the benefits. And so when you close one campus, it's a little over 1,000,008. You go to that next campus and then you don't get the teachers and and Kelly Myers, our our chief of HR, will be up here to talk about that here in a minute. Two campuses saves you roughly $2,700,000 And so when I factor that into, you know, I guess the, the reduction of expenditures, it still shows deficits, you know, and I think as we continue to look at the budget process and do a whole lot more work, it's, it's evident that we've gotta do more work, but it does take
that, that, deficit or the fund balance from, about, 10.7, just a little under 11% down in fiscal year twenty nine to about 15%. Fund balance is basically what is referred to a lot as the rainy day fund. It's the accumulated earnings, excess of revenue over expenditures, and it's and it's kind of the district safety net. It's how we handle the ebbs and flows. We are an interest income on that. And it's in GFO agerman financial, financial officers association recommends 20%.
That is the board adopted policy. And we start to drop down, even closing two campuses. Again, there's still more work to be done. We have conversations really daily on, on that. It just shows that the decline and I think I will now turn it over to Kelly. Good evening. I'm Kelly Myers, the chief of human resources. And I'm here to talk to you a little bit about employee compensation and the struggles that we've had as a district to fairly compensate all of our district staff. As David mentioned, in the most recent legislative session, GCISD did receive 3,600,000 for the
teacher retention allotment, but that only went to teachers with three or more years of experience, which was approximately 800 teachers. If you were a teacher that had three to four years of experience, you received $2,500 And if you had five plus years of experience, you receive 5,000 that was funded by the state of Texas. We did not receive any money from the state to fundraises for teachers that were first year teachers, second year teachers, or, teachers that just had zero year experience, one
year experience, or two years of experience. The other thousand employees, which would be our bus drivers, child nutrition, counselors, principals, librarians, therapists, our teacher aids, our clerical staff, the state gave us $440,000 for raises for those individuals. Again, as David said, we did not receive any additional funding to help with employee benefits or TRS contributions. The slide that you see here has a picture of the most recent United Educators
Association salary comparisons of where we compare to all other DFW districts for teacher salaries. And even though the chart is difficult to read, you'll see GCISD is highlighted in yellow. And the chart shows zero year experience where we fall there in the first column. We are number 41 out of 52 districts for teachers, where we fall compared to teachers, in the DFW Metroplex area for five year teacher pay out of 52, we
fall at number 38. Ten year experienced teachers were number 37. Fifteen year were number 34. Twenty year forty and thirty year were number 43 out of 52. All of the districts surrounding us that we compete with which would be H E B, Coppell, Lewisville, Carrollton Farmers Branch, Carroll ISD and Keller. Those are the districts around us that we generally compete with for quality teachers are all above us as far as teacher pay.
The districts that are below us, even with the amount that we receive through the teacher retention allotment, the the districts that are below us we don't compete with. Those districts that are below our districts for teacher pay would be Weatherford, Alvarado, Glen Rose, Godley, Keene, Venus and Ponder. Much smaller districts. So you can see the struggles that we have with making sure our teacher compensation is remaining competitive. On the next slide, you'll see the historical view of raises that we've received in
GC I S D since the 2021 school year, you'll see that most years we received 1% cost of living increase some years, 2%, the 2324 school year, we received 4%, '24, '25, no increase, but we did receive a $500 one time payment. And then the most recent year, our teachers earned the well deserved re teacher attention allotment, but all other staff, which was in a thousand employees received the one and
a half percent cost of living increase. As an example of how our rates compared to other districts for 2025 Coppell ISD gave 3% HEB, 3% Keller, 3% Louisville, 3% Northwest, 4% Plano Three Carol ISD just voted to give a thousand dollars to all employees in November. And then again, a thousand dollars stipend to employees in April.
We not only compete with neighboring school districts, our non educational staff. We also compete with other industries, such as our bus drivers, clerical staff, nutrition, technology, clerical staff, teacher aids. They can go into other businesses for jobs in and around the area. And just as an example, for cost of living increases the average, the social security administration the last four years were able to give the cost of living increase of
about 4% and then the year US Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported that the average increase of salaries in the DFW area for business, private business for June 2025 was 3.7% increase. And then the exit data that we've surveyed for 2425 showed that twenty two percent of our employees who've resigned resigned because they have accepted positions in other districts. So this is just a summation of the committee's recommendation that being the EMPC.
What you're going to see now is, the administrators going forward and going through each one of these, in the order in, in, in that, within that addressing the questions that we received from the community, as well as addressing the parts of the recommendation from the committee itself. So overall material here as a district, we, we do continue to get some questions about the analysis, the overall analysis that was used, and in trying to help explain
how the committee arrived at the recommendation they did, which was to consolidate Dove and Bransford. And as I said a little bit earlier, utilization, and the low enrollment in certain areas certainly kind of kicked off where that evaluation began. However, the committee identified information that they felt was also needed in other areas, that were ultimately addressed in one of two ways. Either the scoring rubric, and or the feasibility analysis. So all of the information coming together between the two two methodologies that were being
applied. The rubric pointed the overall analysis in a direction with the feasibility factors for scenarios that were also being discussed. And as a result of the rubric, the committee then had about six or seven schools to consider in the consolidation scenarios. So, and I explained in October that the committee would apply the feasibility analysis for the best looking for the best overall scenarios, which would involve a combination of schools, right? So I stated that a low score on the rubric alone would not necessarily predict
the consolidation scenarios, that the committee was considering all of the information relative to a scenario and combination of schools in trying to find what they believe would be the best overall scenarios and ultimate recommendation. So this is, the feasibility analysis chart that we used at the last meeting, and that the committee kind of worked through. And really this is about what is most and least conducive in the scenarios.
Nothing is necessarily perfect, but it is about what is most and least conducive. So this is the feasibility analysis and information that the committee discussed and used to analyze the seven schools you see going across the top and those, associated scenarios for those campuses. So the seven of them listed there are because of how they scored on the rubric from left to right. Okay. So first on that was dove. They placed a high priority on the things that would minimize effects on students, things
like the number of students having to split to other schools, number of students overall displaced in any of the scenarios, excuse me, there's a net, and staying as close as possible to functional capacity at the receiving schools. And then the discussion carried on from there through some of the other factors that you see and I'll try to cover some of that. Factors could result in continuing to include a campus in the consolidation discussion or eliminating it from consideration. So again, you're kind of going left to right.
Even though some of it kind of jumped around and several factors typically would lead to a decision as to whether a campus would consider con continued to be considered for consolidation or not. Anything that added operational cost was certainly, in the discussion in terms of the district's budget, the effects on programs, trying not to overwhelm other campuses with students that might have, greater needs or bring greater needs to the situation. The in the scenarios involving OC Taylor and Bransford should state there that they do
not cause more bus routes based on current ridership. The Glen Hope scenario or campus there should state that it would have added bus routes, not for Glen Hope students, but for Timberline students that would have been displaced and had to move to Grapevine Elementary in that scenario. And that information was known at that time. And the committee understood that in terms of these scenarios. Where you will see bus transportation mentioned has to do with Timberline and bear Creek when you're looking at those scenarios. So again, beginning kind of just with Dove having scored the, on the rubric as
the number one campus to look at, it was then looked at in terms of the feasibility analysis factors to see if it could be removed from consideration for consolidation. That analysis continued to favor consolidating dove. Here are the reasons that scenario had the least displacement of students of any of the scenarios that the committee looked at. Students are split to two other schools, that being cannon and silver lake with no further displacement of students at either cannon or silver lake in that, scenario.
Receiving schools have the capacity for the students that they would receive and they're going to have more capacity in the future because enrollment decline is still predicted in that area. As I said before, no bus routes are added in the Dove scenario. And some of the other things that are listed there had to do with parent commute, which was still within an acceptable range. No changes would be needed at the receiving schools to accommodate students. No special programs were necessarily impacted because in fact, Silver Lake has the bilingual program
and the property, the Dove property itself is conducive for residential development. So those were the things that continued to favor dove, being in the consolidation discussion and ultimately the committee landed on dove being the campus to consolidate out of the three, Dove, Silver Lake and Cannon. And so that removed Silver Lake, from the conversation as a part of having already reached that and Silver Lake is obviously higher in the overall original rubric.
So looking at Timberline and Bear Creek, then the items shown on the feasibility scenario, rule them out for consideration of consolidation for primarily these reasons, the number of students that would be replaced, displaced in that scenario involving those campuses and the number of schools that would be involved or affected through that scenario. That means other campuses and added operational expense that would take place as a result of those. And I think the Timberline scenario had the greatest number of students displaced Bear Creek
had a significant number as well. I think the second number of students being displaced as well as adding operational costs in both of those situations, Timberline would have caused an increase, in operational services through the bilingual program, having to be provided at another campus with moving up those students to another location. And then bear Creek would have added the transportation operational expense because none of those students are currently transported. Had be displaced in that scenario.
It also involved the discussions around bringing together aspire students with a new group of students at Timberline. There were questions about the potential effects on the students at both Timberline and the aspire students from Glen Hope. There were positives and negatives discussed about that combination of students, on a campus. But ultimately it was all of that and the functional capacity at Timberline would have been, over functional capacity, but at a greater amount than what we see in any
of the other scenarios. And that would have been for at least the first three to four years. It may have been a little bit longer depending on, on predictions. It too would have added bus routes for Timberline students, again, probably having to, to move them to Grapevine elementary. So it added operational costs of Glen hope came off the list, if you will, or was ruled out at that point. So that left OC Taylor, which scored on the rubric on the left side and, and then Bransford, the separating factor for the greater part of the group.
That's the committee itself where the number of schools that students would be divided or split to two in one scenario being split to four. And the other scenario declining enrollment in one area with more stable enrollment in the other area displacement overall, which was somewhat similar and looking at the potential for regreening and space to do that in the future so that the district would have the resources to accommodate any growth. And the commute change for parents was similar.
And looking at those scenarios, I mentioned this in November, but in looking at Blanford, the displacement appeared similar. And it is in terms of total overall students, all students are valued and important there, but I clarified that non resident students at Bransford, were also included in those disability in those displacement counts. So the number of resident students would be slightly lower than what you see there on that chart itself. There is more splitting of students, involved in the other scenario.
Again, the split between having to go into two schools versus four with additional displacement at receiving schools, All of that really had to do with the available space when you're talking about Bransford, the available space at Colleyville Elementary, the closest school to it. And then looking at the long term or future regreening, OC Taylor has the land space for expansion. It is in the more centralized, denser, more stable enrollment area of the district within the district's boundaries, compared to the other elementary schools around there.
There's less space to be able to fit at the neighboring campuses, which is the reason that an OC Taylor scenario would split students into four schools where when you're looking at the other scenarios, both dove and Bransford, you're splitting students into two schools. Again, with the dove scenario, no additional displacement, but with any of the other scenarios, there's additional displacement detractors to the scenario involving Bransford, but not significant enough to change the decision around those scenarios where the ability to relocate the Mac lab.
And that's going to be addressed here a little bit later in the presentation and the finance fine arts program being feasible at another campus. More details about that will be addressed. I'm looking at all of the considerations. The margin of difference between those campuses was close, but there were differences that at least the greater part, that means 75% of the committee felt lean, very difficult decision in front of them in one direction. Doctor McMullen. Good evening. I'm Kaylee McMullen. I'm the executive director of instructional leadership, and I'm gonna walk you through two exercises
demonstrating potential building utilization of both Colleyville elementary and of heritage elementary. We are, where'd the clicker go? Sorry, misplaced the clicker. We are gonna start with Colleyville elementary. So currently Colleyville Elementary as of 11/14, has an enrollment of three seventy eight students and you will see, in the chart displayed on the screen the breakdown of the number of students enrolled by grade, the number of homeroom classrooms there are and the student to teacher ratio.
So currently for the, 2526 school year, there are 18 homeroom classrooms at Colleyville Elementary. So as I'm working through this model, I wanna talk about some of the assumptions. So our demographer projects that there would be 560 to 571 students at Colleyville Elementary in the 2627 school year with the consolidation of Bransford students into CES and to O. C. Taylor. The difference between that 378 of the current enrollment and the 571, the projected high,
is 193 students. So just for the purposes of math and modeling, I divided that 193 students evenly among the grades, just assuming a natural distribution there will not be perfect, but that was 27 to 30 additional students per grade level. And so then we used that round math to create projections. The projections that I'm gonna show you on the next screen, are for illustrative purposes. They're not built from demographer provided specifics yet. We are still waiting on those very specific how many students in each grade level
moving from BES to CES. So for our twenty six to twenty seven enrollment estimate, we are looking at five eighty one. So that is taking the current number of, students enrolled at CES, rolling them up to the next grade, and then adding 30 students per grade level. Then on the right side it shows how many homerooms there would be and the student to staff ratio at Colleyville Elementary for the 2627 school year.
And this demonstrates that there would be a need for 30 homeroom class these numbers. So then when we look at Colleyville Elementary, CES has 39 classroom spaces. I do wanna go ahead and state that we cannot show campus maps because of our safety and security protocols and so I'm sorry that these charts, are, are the best that we're able to do for illustrative purposes. But CES does have 39 classroom spaces. If you'll remember on the previous slide, there are 18 homeroom classrooms this year and
next year, if they were to need 30 homeroom classrooms based on the distribution I showed on the two slides previous, they would need 30 classrooms out of those 39 spaces. So that would then leave nine classroom spaces to be utilized for other classroom campus needs. And you will see that I populated those other nine classrooms with art, music, GT. There are two classroom spaces dedicated for special education resource, a special education dyslexia classroom,
a science lab, and then there are two available rooms for a district specialized program that is, a wide variety of things that that classroom could be used for, but two additional classroom spaces there. So that would demonstrate the utilization of all 39 classrooms at CES. This model, was created in collaboration with the CES principal. So we walked through, this projected larger enrollment, where classrooms could be located and it
actually kept all grade levels clustered together. So all pre k together, first grade together and so on. It also had minimal displacement of current staff. So art, music and g t all stayed in their current designated spaces. The only people that were displaced from a full sized classroom space to a small group or office sized space was the counselor and the diagnostician. The campus also after placing every other staff member would have three additional empty small
group or office spaces that could be utilized for staff members either added to the campus, or itinerant staff members that may float there or spend part of their time there. Okay. So just a summary of the information about Colleyville Elementary School. They have 39 classroom spaces. A kind of overshot projection of five eighty one students would utilize 30 classrooms as homeroom classrooms. All permanent staff would have a designated classroom space or an appropriately sized small group or office space, depending on their role.
And this model would also allow for, two classrooms for a district specialized program or additional homeroom classes if needed. And it also allows for three pre k classrooms in this projection. One thing I do wanna note is we only have one campus currently in the district that has three pre k classrooms and that's Timberline Elementary. Most of our campuses, either have one or two pre k classrooms with Glen Hope currently not having any. And so three is, a large capacity and and might not even need to be
utilized so that really could be three rooms for a, district specialized program or additional homerooms. So then another example wanted to talk through was Heritage Elementary because I know there have been, we've received questions around functional capacity, and exceeding functional capacity and what that would look like at Heritage Elementary. So one thing I wanted to address first is every week we do an enrollment report of how many students we have enrolled in each entity, each campus and then the breakdown by grade level.
So the current HES enrollment for 11/1425, which is the same date we used for the CES model, is five ninety five students. That number includes 64 pre k three students that are housed at the ECDC that are not necessarily HES zone students. It is a centralized program held, housed at the ECDC. So really that means we have 531 students that attend Heritage Elementary on a daily basis. Eight of those students are on our ECSE, which are Early Childhood Special Education Program.
Some of those are part time students, some of those are three, three year olds or they are walk in for speech services. Essentially those eight students do not have a homeroom teacher assigned to them, or they are in the ECSC class, which is a centralized program. So just for the purposes of homerooms, we have five twenty three students at Heritage Elementary, assigned to homeroom classes and that does include our seven students in our RISE classroom at HES. RISE is also a district, centralized program and this is the first year that HES
has held it in the recent past. So using that number of five twenty three, wanted to explain why the five twenty three compared to the five ninety five that shows up on our weekly enrollment report, because 523 students, or how many, are rostered to homerooms? This is the current makeup of Heritage Elementary. There are 27 homerooms for the 2526 school year. You will see the breakdown by grade, the number enrolled, the number of homerooms there are, and then the student to teacher ratio. So then assumptions, based on the heritage elementary model, we actually have some more specific
information from our demographer. So initially, the demographer projected six thirty five to six fifty four is our enrollment for the 2627 school year, with the, the rezoning of the cutout in the middle of the heritage zone that goes to O. C. Taylor moving into rezoning to heritage. Initially, the demographer identified 120 students that are in that rezoned area. After he is analyzed by individual student address grade level, he has found that 25
of those students either already attend Heritage Elementary, on a transfer of some sort or they attend Glen Hope, as part of the Aspire program or an Aspire sibling. So essentially that leads us 95 students, that would be rezoned to Heritage Elementary. That does include the fifth graders that roll to middle school next year and kinda counterbalance the kindergartners that would be incoming, in that group.
So we are using, that is how I I got the number for next year of 06/2014 because that is rolling up current HES pre k through fourth grade to the next grade and then adding that additional 95 students in that rezoned section, that is currently O. C. Taylor into Heritage Elementary. We also held pre k study at two sections, but the model will show there is an opportunity if there was a need for a third. So with an enrollment of 614, this shows the breakdown of the number of students,
the number of homeroom classrooms and the staff to student ratio. One thing I failed to note in the CES example, is that pre k through fourth grade, we staff at a 22 to one ratio and in fifth grade, it is 25 to one. So that is why you'll see the increased ratio in fifth grade. This demonstrates that HES next year with an enrollment of six fourteen could have 30 homeroom classrooms. These numbers were derived from specific, students moving from the O.
C. Taylor cutout in the middle of the Heritage Zone being rezoned to HES. So for example, second grade, we have currently there are ninety second graders at Heritage Elementary. They would be in third grade next year and so those third graders were added to the 17, students in third that would be in third grade, currently in that cutout rezone. So that is a very specific number which would give the one zero seven, five homerooms and a 22.4
to one ratio. So much more specific, than the CES example just because of the availability of the data. So looking at that 30 homeroom classrooms needed for next year, Heritage Elementary has 40 classroom spaces compared to h e CES's 39. So 40 classroom spaces. They would need 30 classroom spaces in 26, 27. And these, plotted on the chart or on the actual map that I'm not able to display, in the same sense because of safety.
This, still leaves 10 classroom spaces to be utilized for other campus needs. And so art, music, GT, two special education resource classrooms, a special education dyslexia classroom, a science lab, and then two, district specialized program classrooms that could be designated for, like, currently RISE is on the campus, ECSC is on the campus. Those are examples of district specialized programs. And then there is actually one open space that is not designated in this model.
So a little bit of a summary of this is this projected model also we were able to plot every single, one of the grade levels is staying together in this model. They are in the same cluster area. The projected model also has minimal displacement of current staff. Art, music, g t all stay in their current spaces. We were not moving, grade levels across the building. The only people relocated from a classroom space to a small group or an office space was the counselor and the diagnostician similar to Colleyville Elementary and then the campus
technician, which this is a shared, a person, from the technology department that repairs devices and assists with other technology needs is actually shared across campuses and splits their time, with at least one other elementary campus. The campus also can currently utilize, office space needs, to to see which staff members are there every day and need a permanent space, and how we can best utilize the spaces that they have for offices and small group areas. But just a summary of that information, Heritage Elementary has 40 classroom spaces.
The enrollment model of 614 demonstrated a need for 30 classrooms as homeroom classrooms. All permanent staff on campus would have a designated classroom space or appropriately sized small group or office space to role specific. And then the building utilization would also allow for the placement, of three classrooms used for district specialized program or additional homerooms if there were additional students or growth, needed that. Did wanna take, an opportunity to just discuss a couple of questions that have come
in. One was around, HES potentially exceeding functional capacity. And so the functional capacity of HES is, listed at six thirty. And I think you will see on here that we did this for, I'm sorry, 06:14. With that model of six fourteen, there were still in those homerooms and it never works out perfectly, but 58 available seats, if you will, within those within those ratios.
And so not only could we add three additional homerooms if needed, but each of the classrooms was not maxed out within the 22 to one ratios or the 25 to one, for fifth grade. Another thing wanted to discuss was the, I'm sorry, the functional capacity variations. So I know that the annual comprehensive financial report, the numbers changed over the years, but the facilities did not change. I am not sure where these numbers were derived from but I know that the district will correct them moving forward.
I do know though that the Huckabee study when when we looked at the numbers that were provided from Huckabee and we we walked the campus and looked at classrooms, it proved to be accurate and spot on with CES and HES specifically. And so I do feel like those functional capacity numbers provided were very accurate and showed, that the campuses could accommodate those functional capacity numbers given with those additional classroom spaces available, for district, specialized programs.
Additionally, traffic patterns. That is something that's been brought up, especially at Silver Lake, you know, with an increased enrollment at Silver Lake and that was, one thing discussed, at campus staff meeting. And, Silver Lake in the 11/12 school year actually had 675 students on the campus, at their height. And so, these numbers are not are not new to the campus. It has been some years, but traffic patterns are something that we evaluate every single year. As campus leaders, you're looking at what is your arrival procedures, your dismissal procedures.
And so based on, historical enrollment, and current leadership, we feel that all campuses would be able to handle any increased, traffic to have, dismissal and arrival, procedures happen. So alright. Good evening. Lindsay Fuentes, executive director of special services. Thank you for allowing me to be here tonight. I wanna review the next few slides to hopefully answer some questions regarding, special education support within the district. So first off, in GCISD, we offer a variety of programs.
We have many students who have varied needs that require specially designed instruction. So I'm gonna review from that least restrictive environment to the most restrictive environment. So we provide pull out services and in class support services. Those pull out services are for our students who are on a modified curriculum, and you, pretty much hear about those services either in a resource setting as well as a dyslexia setting or a speech therapy set setting. What's important to understand within our, special education support programs, our students who receive dyslexia
or also speech services, those are centrally deployed, staff members who provide those supports. So about a third of our district employees serve that population. Many of our staff members go to three campuses a day to serve those students. In addition to that, we also have our centralized programs. So if you, look at this slide, I've listed those here for you. So I know we've, received many questions regarding our medical assistant classroom at Bransford, but
I also think it's important to, recognize some of our other specialized programs that Doctor. McMullen might have mentioned at other campuses. So we have our early childhood special ed education classrooms. We have about, five campuses that have that program right now district wide. We have our academic behavior learning environment. That's our able classroom. We have one classroom right now district wide that serves that population. We have our medical assistant classroom that is referred to as our MAC unit.
It serves a variety of students with disabilities, not just medically fragile students. That currently is one unit, at Bransford Elementary. We have reaching independence through structured education. Those are our RISE classrooms. We have, RISE at about 15 campuses so far this year. Reaching excellence through social emotional teaching is our reset program and we have four campuses that have reset. And then lastly, our transition adult program who, predominantly serves our 18 program and we
have one campus that serves that program. Why I think it's important to list all of these, programs so that you kinda get the scope of what we offer here in GCISD, What's not unique to special education or our department is every year we analyze students' IEPs because our population changes throughout the year. We have students that continue to qualify. We have students that are dismissed. And we have students that transfer in within Texas or even out of state where
we have to look at matching placement. So sometimes, maybe mid year, we might have to analyze the population and add another unit at another campus. We might have to close some. As doctor McMullen mentioned, last year, we added several. We moved some, reallocated some. So it's not an uncommon practice in most districts. A centralized program means that it's not at every campus, that we have to utilize our staff efficiently and also address our student population.
And so this process starts, we began it in January all the way through May. So I know this year we're talking about consolidating campuses and that is unique for this upcoming year if that's the recommendation that's approved, but it's not necessarily unique for special education. We are make those decisions. So what does that mean for your child?
What that means is is basically if there is a new campus placement for the following school year, then we ensure that their student's IEP will be their individualized education program that's documented and agreed upon within the ARD committee is implemented with fidelity. Regardless of what location they will this child will be at, those services will continue. Part of that process will also be collaborating with various departments within the district to
ensure that we have the equipment, needed to make sure that that classroom functions. Also, as I mentioned earlier, those specialists that are district wide and centrally deployed, we consult with them. They make sure that they continue implementing those services regardless of what location they will be at. Also within those specially adapted equipment, I know that has been a question that's brought forth is we have students who have assistive technology devices, who have physical adapted equipment,
not just in certain specialized programs or centralized programs, but also maybe in a resource setting. We ensure that that equipment goes with them. Just like when our fifth graders go to sixth grade, we make sure that that equipment goes with them. So we're able to transport that equipment, with with no issues and that's our obligation as a district and we have the staff to ensure that that happens. The continued support that we will provide is ensuring that the IEP is implemented as
I mentioned earlier and agreed upon, within that ARD committee regardless of what location the child is receiving the services at. If the student is eligible for special education If the student is eligible for special education transportation and it's documented within their IEP, we work closely with our transportation department to ensure that those routes are efficient and that we continue to allow transportation. So in in addition to that, several questions received was in regards to staffing. Every year we look at special education staffing.
We work closely with our human resource department. And part of that process that I talked about earlier when determining what centralized programs will be located, we look at staffing. We look at our, student need and our numbers. Sometimes it requires additional staffing. Sometimes we have to move staff around. But all of that is based upon the student's needs. And also taking into account the teachers, you know, with if the recommendation is approved,
as miss Myers has mentioned, that the teachers have, you know, the the option to put on their, preference form where they would like to go. So that constant communication between departments is happening. The specialized equipment I mentioned earlier, just making sure that our students have those specialized equipment. Looking at I received a question as far as the cost of, you know, if we have to relocate a unit to another campus.
Most of our, equipment is very portable and can be moved. It's minimal incurring cost and something that might incur some cost would be, an example could be laying down a tile floor or looking at any sort of adaption within, the physical classroom, but nothing that would, would cost anything, that we're not used to typically doing when we're adding new units or relocating units. So we've had some questions about staff members and some concern about them losing their
jobs. And we wanted to reassure our community and our district that we are committed to our staff. If campuses are to be consolidated, the human resources department will work to ensure that every staff member at a campus being consolidated is placed into a new role. While we can't promise that it will be the same assignment that we have now, that they have now, we'll make every effort to accommodate our employees preferences for new positions. If this is approved by the board, it is going to be our number one
goal in the human resources department to take care of our employees. That could mean that employees move into new sections of grade levels that would be created at a campus who will be receiving students. It could also mean that employees could be moving into positions during the normal resignation and retirement process that happens every school year during the spring semester. We have allowed times and we'll be communicating to individual campuses about times that we will allow employees who could be at campuses that are being consolidated an opportunity to
visit other schools within GCISD, to visit with campus principals, to talk to teammates, to determine if the new school that they would be, requesting on their preference form would be a good fit for them. We have already communicated to campuses that could be consolidated about an employee preference form. That preference form is something that they will complete that will let our team know what they would like for the new position, their new position for 2627.
Do they want to follow the kids to their new school? Are they really concerned and want to make sure that they stay in a particular grade level or content area? Or is there another GCISD campus that maybe is more geographically located to where they reside and they would like to explore an opportunity at a different campus? All of that information is going to be so important as we work with our campus principals to make sure that our team and our staff are taken care of. That will be our number one goal. Sheila Shiver, chief academic officer.
We've received a number of questions and concerns both from staff and community around the fine arts integration at Bransford Elementary. In order to really begin addressing this, it's important to provide some history and some information that is background information around what exactly does that mean. From a history perspective, the arts integration at Bransford was a campus based interest that began in 2016.
A campus committee formed and began researching and exploring arts integration that included campus visits around the area, research into professional development and student experiences. The Kennedy Center's definition of arts integration has been a foundational part and component to the Fine Arts Integration at Bransford Elementary. Arts integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in the creative process, which connects an art form and another subject area
and meets evolving objectives in both. That is a founding element to the arts integration led to the decision to move forward. It was presented to our board of trustees in the 2017 with an implementation that began the 2017 with the first training through the Kennedy Center for a number of staff members. So, the school year of twenty seventeen-twenty eighteen was the first year of implementation for
arts integration at Bransford Elementary. Throughout the really first three years of implementation, there were staff members that attended the Kennedy Center as well as another form of professional development. I'll talk about that in the next point. That process was then disrupted as really all life functions were disrupted with the COVID pandemic and the response to that. It really picked back up, the year of school year of twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three.
And at that time, the Kennedy Center was not yet returning to in person professional development. So, the training that happened, really during the next two years, really was on-site through the experiences of our teachers that had attended Kennedy Center training. And Kennedy Center started back with in person professional development and that then, moved forward
for the last two years of the arts integration at Bransford. Each year arts integration is a program within that campus that is reviewed. It's part of the campus improvement planning process and there is an arts integration committee that also does a program review, gets feedback, looks into opportunities for staff development, the needs of the staff, and really supports the campus in making those plans on how arts integration goes forward each year.
Then in the area of professional development, there are really three areas. That is professional development that's been received directly from in person training at the Kennedy Center. At this time, we have nine of our 35 staff members that have received person training through the Kennedy Center. Four were prior to, the disruption to in person activities of 2020 and five were in the 2024 when that in person training started again. From really the first year of implementation of arts integration, the professional development has had
three tiers, which includes those staff members that have received that valuable in person training have become trainers of trainers. Meaning, they turn around the training for the staff members on campus for staff members that are new and have not had the opportunity to attend in person training. Professional development has also been received from focus five, an arts integration consulting company. They have provided on-site training in whole group and through observations and modeling in the classrooms.
They've also been valuable in providing web based training when in person training was not an option. All of that training that's been mentioned has also been used as a trainer trainer model in which the experts on our campus at Bransford have supported new staff members and the on Going, identified areas to improve for all of the staff. I'll now talk about the instructional strategies. So, what is the instructional experience for students through arts integration? I'm gonna focus in three core areas.
Through focus five, it's referred to as the actors toolbox and the actors toolbox is an active part for all of our students in each of their classrooms every day. This is a physical contract that students sign to show their commitment to controlling their bodies, voices, minds and to concentrating and cooperating with others. Many of our campuses are across all of our campuses. We use what's called CHAMPS as a behavior model to support collaboration and cooperation, within our campus and our students and what those expectations are.
At Bransford Elementary, that is experienced through the actors toolbox. So, it looks different at Bransford Elementary. Instructional strategies, the second phase of implementation, is really what does this look like in the classroom. So the core content of instruction at Bransford Elementary follows the same curriculum documents as we are required by Texas Education Agency to meet all of our standards that have been set forth by the state. We have curriculum documents that our teachers use for those core content areas.
The arts is integrated through supplemental activities, supplemental instructional strategies. Some of those are reading portraits, tableaus. These are incorporated into their lesson plan processes. There have been expectations through professional development that have been integrated into those campus expectations. Part of the partnership with the Kennedy Center our teachers all have access to the digital lessons of the Kennedy Center, and that is not no cost, through the Kennedy
Center lessons but they've had the training through the Kennedy design lessons that incorporate an art form and other subject areas. At this time, the expectations are incorporated into staff expectations that they collaborate with one another to design lessons that incorporate an art form and other subject areas. At this time, the expectations for arts integration includes as defined by the Bransford handbook, staff handbook, is that each grade level will design at least one arts integration lesson
per month. And each grade level will display arts integration a minimum of once per nine weeks that includes and highlights the efforts and experiences of our students through explore, create, revise, reflect, and share. The third area that I want to talk about is the arts integration that happens through our specials. And at the elementary level we refer to our specials traditionally as art music and PE. At Bransford that has been expanded through the arts integration process, to include theater.
So, all of our students at Bransford Elementary have been experiencing an additional specials rotation that they, for pre kindergarten through fifth grade they experience on a rotating basis. The state does require a minimum number of minutes for all students for physical education, PE. While there are not a minimum number of minutes for art and music, there are standards that we are required to meet for those areas. So, our students all rotate through those specials throughout the week.
Where that does also differ for our Brantford elementary students is in grades three through five. They also have what is referred to as studio that is built into their rotation. So one day a week our third through fifth graders experience studio in which they get to determine and select a focus area of music, art, or theater and they get to change that selection each semester. So that is an additional way in which our students experience arts integration, throughout their
time at Bransford. Another area when we talk about arts integration, that we need to recognize is the partnership that has occurred at Bransford with the PTA. So in the very, in the inception of arts integration, the PTA and our parents in the community were very invested into the success of arts integration. And through that had specific fundraisers that would supply and support the professional development over the course of the years.
In addition to, more tangible things like a piano lab, a musical playground. There is a very special, wall mural in the cafeteria, that was, designed and painted by, at the time, a Brants Ford elementary art teacher. That was supplied by funding of the, PTA. In addition, more recent additions have been related to light and sound systems. When you do musical productions that have copyrights, you have to buy the musical rights
to that. Those are some other areas that the PTA have provided support there. So, when we think about all of those areas of arts integration, I wanna refer to some of the language that was in the feasibility chart, that miss Barbaro referenced and the language in that chart was continuation of fine arts integration is feasible at another campus. So I wanna specifically address that because I do believe that it relates to some of the questions that we are receiving from staff and community members. While the arts integration at Bransford can be is an approach to teaching that can
be implemented at other campuses, it is not building dependent. So from the feasibility study and that language that was used for the educational master planning committee it's not building dependent it is dependent upon the support of the community and the staff training that they've had. So from the description that I have shared around the history and the development of arts integration, the professional development that's been provided, the current instructional strategies that are used,
you can see that it's not as simple as declaring that another campus will become an arts integration campus. There is a process that needs to happen and that has not been really even started at this point. We are in the midst of having received the recommendation and upon, the December 10 decision of moving forward that is when a process would then begin moving forward on what those next steps look like for arts integration.
One area that we have to make sure that we have through that process is that it is a collaborative process. The implementation of arts integration at Bransford Elementary has been, very much driven by the support in the community through the parents and the embracing of that arts integration by the staff. So, through a collaborative process, we would have to give consideration to the history, the professional development, those instructional strategies, and how and where appropriate they might move forward.
Because that would have to be something that the community of the campus that is considering moving forward with fine arts would have to embrace that and move that forward. So this is an area while that is not, specific answers to the questions that we have received regarding arts integration and what those next steps are. It is not something that as stepping through the history, you just you truly do begin. It is a process that you go through. We will continue to provide updates, as we move forward with next steps as there
are, considerations for what that looks like, in different stakeholder groups. The next stakeholder group that would occur would be internal with district and campus leaders to look at all of the different components of arts integration and what the components of arts integration and what the considerations are for moving that forward. Another area that we have received a number of questions that I want to spend some time on is around student transfers. So the students currently attending a campus on an approved transfer are included in the
projected numbers on consolidated campuses and receiving campuses. So I wanna break that down. What does that mean? It means a student that is currently on a transfer at Bransford Elementary or Dove Elementary. Those transfer student numbers have been included in the receiving campus numbers of Colleyville Elementary, Cannon or Silver Lake or OC Taylor. So they're receiving campuses. They've been accounted for within that consolidation process.
Also, on receiving campuses, we have received questions around if I'm at a receiving campus and I may transfer, will I have to leave in order to make room for the consolidation process? There are no there's been no movement of transfer students. Those transfer students, if they are already on a campus that's receiving students through the consolidation, they are still counted on the campus that they have an approved transfer for. Transfer students and the transfers that I'm referring to may be an employee, resident, non
resident, grandparent or city employee transfer. So our next steps regarding transfers really need that next layer of detail. We do have the specific information about our transfer students by campus. So we are able to tell who is a transfer student, what is the type of transfer they are approved for that campus, and what grade level they are in. The next level of information that we are should receive, within the next few weeks
is the specific information by student and grade level for rezone students. So, for students that are currently attending Bransford, currently attending Dove that are being rezoned to a new receiving campus. What grade levels and you heard in Doctor. McMullen's presentation that we're still working with those projections and estimates when we're rolling numbers forward into the new grades. While we know exactly what grade levels all of our transfer students are, we do not have the information by student for the students that are being rezoned through the
consolidation process. Once we receive those numbers the exercise that you saw, with Doctor. McMullen we will go through again with the exact numbers That will allow us to have more certain numbers on the number of sections in each grade level that we will have, the seats available in each grade level that we have. I do have a chart here that I want to talk about. These are actually numbers of current transfer students at Bransford and at Dove Elementary.
They have been rolled forward. So they are current kindergartners through fourth grade rolled forward to the grade that they would be in for the twenty six-twenty seven school year. You can see that in total at Bransford, we're talking about 60 students and in total at Dove, we're talking about 20 students. The majority or the largest numbers at Bransford Elementary of those 60 are employees and non residents. The non resident makes up 37 of those 60 transfers.
So as we begin to look at those numbers, those are the contacts that we are going to make personally with those families. Just looking at this chart does really not give us enough information because it does not tell us the story of that family in what grades are siblings. So a fifth grader may have a third grade sibling. A fourth grader may have an incoming kindergarten sibling. Those are the things that we really have to have personal contact and family information to know and understand. So once we have all of our numbers, we will make those personal contacts and
we will talk about individual options. We will let them know what zone, what campus they've been rezoned to and assigned through the consolidation process and talk through that with them. And then also another option is if they attend their home zoned campus. One of the major points that I want to make here is there's there's not a unilateral decision around any, choices that are limited for these families. And we are going to have to look on the look at them as a
case by case basis. Last point that I'll make is that, we did make some changes to our transfer process coming into this school year, and those were communicated last spring and we will continue with those current transfer processes. Okay. The second part of the committee's recommendation had to do with one time revenue generation through the selling of properties, and looking at that. And so what I really wanna touch on is is kind of the process and
timeline because that's kind of been a question that's been asked as well, if you will. So the sale of properties was recommended to the, by the committee to add basically to the district's fund balance that safety net that you heard our CFO, David Johnson, speak of. It was it is considered one time money. It's not something it's it's, you know, one input. It's not something that continues year after year. Therefore, the recommendation overall is that it it not be used for daily operations, right? The process for selling properties will take some time, more time than people might actually
realize. First of all, the district is required to have an appraisal, to know the fair market value of any property that it intends to sell. Then that property also has to be marketed and then placed for competitive bidding. Rezoning is also necessary for potential buyers and that too would take some time. So none of this would necessarily result in immediate funds. Some of these things could take as little as six months or as much as as two years. The district also has to evaluate the use and the and the selling potentially of
the contents of any of those facilities. So, it will take some time also for the district to evaluate where current students and staff could be relocated. That's because some of the initial properties that, have been recommended are the Heritage Annex where the iUniversity or our virtual school, staff are currently housed, the P Deck they're on Colleyville Boulevard which houses a couple of our alternative campuses Bridges and Vista as well as our special education staff and our nutrition services staff. So, that it would take some time to determine where that staff and those students
could be relocated after we plan and settle on, the consolidations if that is approved to go forward. The last piece there has to do, with some questions we've received relative to bond funds. Bond funds are basically directed by the board in in terms of, how those would be used if they're going to be used and so forth. So needs would likely be evaluated by the district, and looking forward to the campuses that are receiving students or other needs of the district with recommendations being made to
the board of trustees, as needed if needed. So this brings us to the third portion of the EMPC's recommendation. And that is to expand the revenue generation in GCISD Following the close of this legislative session, the E M P C, concluded that it was both, it was necessary for both campus consolidation and expansion of revenue given the very minimal financial support provided
to public schools by the legislation. These right here are, areas that the district will begin to explore first to determine the viability, potential funding impact and implementation processes or timelines that would be associated with those plans. This list of revenue generation possibilities from the committee is intended to be a starting point, and it is not limited to only these items. The district also asked the community for suggestions on additional revenue generation and cost saving measures. Those will continue to be explored as well, along with the committee's recommendation.
Although some of the ideas we have received have been implemented in GCISD over the past few years, and so we wanted to provide an overview of those as well. So first, we'll start with cost savings. This is not an exhaustive list here, but it does highlight some of the key points or addresses some of the suggestions that we have received, and our community may not be aware of all that has been done up to this point. First, we have, the reduction of 146 positions. I think you've heard that mentioned earlier. That includes those are positions across all roles, across all of the district, and that
has been done to this point through attrition. For several years, department and campus budgets were also cut by specific percentages. And most recently, a zero based budgeting approach was implemented to build budgets and provide justifications department budgets. Other cost savings, that we've implemented were done through secondary campus staffing efficiencies and the transition to an eight class period day at our comprehensive high schools.
Additionally, the district does utilize bond funds when they're, able to for any capital expenditures. And so that does not impact the maintenance and operations fund when it's not necessary. As we move into the budget process for this next school year, we'll continue that program evaluation and staffing efficiencies, as things continue to change and determine where additional cost savings may be available. We'll next go into, revenue generation. The, the 6,000,000 in revenue that was generated through the VADER has been brought up,
with some questions regarding how the $6,000,000 was spent. And, when we had the VADER, had it failed, the district would have actually had to make $6,000,000 in immediate cuts during the 2425 school year. And so the budget was built based on, the implemented or the, the, the passage of the Vader. And it was communicated that if the, Vader had not passed that $6,000,000 in cuts
would have needed to be made. And with 87% of the maintenance and operations budget being in personnel, we would have had to look at positions primarily for that. Additionally, we have already secured one corporate sponsorship and support support agreement. Last February with Baylor Scott and white grapevine that results in $200,000 annually. And it is for five years, we are currently finishing up the first year of that agreement. Bus advertising was also added just this school year.
You may have seen those as you've seen the buses throughout town, every bus on a regular route has been, secured with an advertisement. Long term lease agreements have been renewed on cellular towers, and that brings in approximately $230,000 annually. Grants have also been secured to offset costs of implementing things like iReady, pre k three, safety and security implementations. And new this year, extended learning offerings, which you may be familiar with extended day program, or what we call EDP.
They are expanding to additional programs that are after school. You may have seen things like the dance and cheer sessions. They are the most recent ones launched during the fall semester. And they're currently looking at where there the areas where there are interest. So you can expect to see more of those, as we move into the spring semester for after school. And then, how we can expand our summer week long camps. As we mentioned with the recommendation from the MPC, we will continue to explore the revenue generation opportunities as well.
And lastly, we know that the, base of our funding from the state comes from our enrollment and then average daily attendance off of those students. And so as we have heard questions, or, suggestions regarding open enrollment, we do have limited open enrollment in GC ISD and have expanded that over recent years. First, you're most likely very aware of our university prep, which continues to increase in enrollment. That is our virtual school that serves students across the state.
We also last year expanded the GCISD collegiate academy, which is housed at TCC Northeast Campus, and that is open enrollment. So anyone outside GCISD can apply to that school and attend no matter what school district they are zoned for. You heard doctor Shiver speak about, out of district transfers. They include children of GCISD employees, SROs, who are assigned to GCISD campuses may send their children to GCISD even if they are not residents.
And then new last year, we expanded that to city Of Colleyville and city of Grapevine employees should be as well. Additionally, two that have been in place for some time are residents of the City Of Colleyville or City Of Grapevine, where there are pockets of those two cities that are not zoned for GCISD. They may be zoned for Keller or Carroll, and they may attend GCISD. And lastly, any grandchildren of GCISD residents. We also continue to look at ways that we can expand the limited open enrollment
options for GCISD. Okay. The last item has to do with the feeder pattern in a future year. So while one suggested feeder pattern was shown at the November update, we also shared at that time that the recommendation from the committee was to continue to pursue a feeder pattern, because it's something that our community routinely expresses that they would like to see. To be clear, the district then issued communication that the feeder pattern is not intended to be implemented for 2627 and again that was a a potential feeder pattern that
was possible that was that was shown. We do plan to use the next school year to explore options and ideas. A feeder pattern does not result in any operational savings. That's one of the reasons, to kind of pause on that per se. It could in fact add cost though the the cost, impact of that would not necessarily be significant, but certainly would be something that would have to be weighed and explored against the the reasons for continuing to look at a feeder pattern at that time. Doctor. Snouts and trustees.
I believe that's the end of the presentation and the address of the questions that we received from the community. Let's take a seven minute break so that people can go to the restroom and then we can come back and start the question process. It's, 08:12, so be back here at 08:19. Well, the first question is how do we wanna do this? Do you want me to target my questions to a specific staff member? Yeah. So you can just kinda target it in that direction, and they have a microphone that they're gonna pass around.
Okay. So in or you can say the name or Okay. However you wanna do it. But that's in lieu of us having to get up and walk to the to the podium. So Yeah. No need to push it. Thank you to the team for the for the microphones too. Appreciate you guys. Okay. Well, thank you everybody for for being here and for the presentation. I do have some comments and some questions. And it it was a little bit difficult to follow and confirm the the order of whether the community questions were answered.
So forgive me if some of these are redundant. Let me see where to start. I think I have more questions than I, did when I first walked in here. So we'll start with financial. One of the things that was not covered today, that mister Johnson, you mentioned in, a board update was that we are factoring in a 100 account student loss following this plan? Correct? Okay. That is correct. Yes.
If I do some simple math and say that a 100 students at 6,200 a pop is 620 k. Did you was that factored into your savings projections? So the the numbers that you quoted earlier at $7.88 and 2,700,000.0 depending on the campus count. Did you already take out that 620 ks? Because that would, that would dilute the savings of one entire campus. Is that an accurate statement? Not sure I'll follow, but let me, let me go back to my presentation real
quick. So when I look Oh, it wasn't in there. I'm sorry. I I'm just talking about your comment regarding the loss of we're factoring in a student loss of a 100 Correct. For next year. And and and what what people talk about is the $61.60 now, $62.15 after they add the basic cost. That's that's that's your tier one, but we also have the tier two that is a component of revenue. Right? And so when we look at my projections over time on the revenue, that very first column, the formula funding, I'm reducing that by about a 100 students, which is
about $750,062.15 plus weighted funding plus tier two. So, if we look over time, I'm decreasing revenue 750,000 year one. 1,000,005 in year two. 2,250,000 in year three. So I'm accumulating the loss that the accumulated loss of enrollment over time in giving you the financial projections that I presented tonight. Okay. I guess my point here is if we lose 620 ks in enrollment loss, you've depleted the savings of a campus closure, which which means we won't realize the savings
that we have estimated here. And that's concerning. Right? But you're redistributing those kids to other places. I don't think the kids are leaving because you're you're closing the campuses. I mean, that's subjective. That's a completely different question. Okay. The next question is, do the proceeds of building sales go back to MNO or I and S? I'm not sure I'm clear on that. It'll be it'll be determined based on the status of the bond encumbered on the on the individual, on the individual properties. In other words, if you have bonds tied and we've got twenty five years of
bonds. Right? Mhmm. And we've got multiple refundings, we'll have to research on a property by property basis to determine if they are encumbered by bonds. If they are encumbered by bonds, then we go through a series of questions. Ultimately, it may be that some of those bond proceeds or the sales property proceeds do go into the m and o. But we don't know that specific We don't have that research. That'll take a a good deal of time for twenty five years of of expenditures. Okay. So is there is it possible that any proceeds from the sale of any of
these campuses could potentially not help us on the MNO. Just trying to be realistic. It could be. Yes. That could be. Okay. Thank you for that. Next question. Okay. I'm still not clear on the special education components. Can somebody and maybe miss Fuentes, that's you. Although like in the CES example, we saw, I think the current room count use was 18. There's a total of 30, right? The delta leftover was nine.
That would house specials and any pullout presumably for SPED, etcetera. Walk me through how that caseload is calculated that shows that that would be adequate for the number of SPED students at a campus that is five eighty. Is there a calculation that's done? There's not a calculation that's done to determine the sped students on the campus, but I can pull the number of sped students per campus.
But I don't know the number of special ed students at CES off the top of my head. Sure. And then combined with BES students, it it certainly nine sounds like a lot, but when you think about all of those specials and potential, you assume 15% of any campus might have a, you know, that population could be special education students. I wonder if that nine seems then very low to me is the point I'm trying to make. Okay.
I'll let you talk a little bit. But right now, currently at CES, there's no specially special centralized programming. And so what doctor McMullen was talking about as far as the pull out resource, that is not a self contained classroom. Those students come in and out of that room. Some might have fifteen to twenty minutes per their IEP. So, it's typical that you can use one classroom to serve a typical teacher's caseload could vary in a resource setting for 20 kids on their on their caseload roster.
And so it really, yeah, really depends on, but right now we're meeting the needs within that current setting. Okay. I think I would like to hear some, some more confirmation about caseload assumptions that are used to conclude the number of rooms needed to make sure that we can in fact provide the adequate room for pull out for those students. That's important. I, I would like that confirmation. So I can add a little more to that as far as a typical case
load for a resource teacher, that they case manage can be a it could be, you know, 15 to 20. It just depends. It's not it's about case management. They might not directly service the kid. For directly servicing a student, they could in one particular setting have up to 12 students in that classroom. Okay. There's no ratio determined by the Texas Education Agency. Best practice would be up to 12, but right now, we don't have that many
in that current setting. Okay. So does that mean you will still provide me with, sorry, with confirmation about the assumptions about whether the room count is adequate to house whatever you need based on whatever best practice assumptions you use? Absolutely. Thank you. The elephant in the room is the MAC. Where where is it going? This is not a typical year, where we would visit things on a normal cadence. So my questions are, where is it going? I'd like to know that before the decision is made.
We do not know. We do not know today where the unit is going to be relocated. Do you know what the current square footage is of the current MAC unit at Brantford? No, but we probably have that. I can find that. That would be great. It's been a while since I've been in there, but my recollection is it's very, very large. I've been in there. Yeah. It's huge. Yeah. It it would be, I would say, one and a half to two classrooms. And so right now, how the other classroom is structured and the equipment in there,
all of that's been taken into account when the if it's approved of the new location as well as the restroom. Okay. And then you mentioned and you, you talked about cost to relocate being potentially a simple tile needs because that that room is tiled today. But I I can't imagine that is the only cost. So, the analysis I've done as far as looking at all of the equipment that the students assess and use, all of that is portable equipment.
Some, units have ceiling lifts. However, our students right now do not require student, ceiling lift. We have, what we call, rift and chair that's a tram and that's what that rift is portable and all of those equipments, the high low table, the medical tables, the hospital bed, the, curtain privacy rod, the track, all of that has been discussed and is portable. As far as the tile, that is on a small that's on, part of the
classroom and that is for sanitary purposes. We have added tile at another campus this past year for another purpose and so that is just one example that we would like to continue to make that adjustment for that room. Okay. The underlying concern about the MAC is the availability of space at campuses. I'm assuming that we would want to keep this population with their current peers, so that would figure CES or the other campus, goodness.
It's escaping me. O. C. Taylor. O. C. Taylor. Thank you. Right? Is that a fair assumption? I would say that, yes, we take those factors into consideration when we're looking at centralized programs. I think we would want that for every centralized program. So right now, I I think that's something we can look at. I just I can't guarantee that I we can commit to one of those locations yet. That hasn't been determined. Will that be determined before next week when we're ready to vote on this proposal
or no? No. No. I don't I don't think I can affirmative say yes or no. I'm gonna give my, my fellow board members some opportunities for questions too. But I think, you know, a comment that I wanna make sure to make here before I move on, Mr. Harwell, thank you for articulating what I was thinking. Besides the very unfortunate departure of Doctor. Schnauz coming up, I'm struggling. I have a lot of open questions. I've got pages and pages of notes. So I, you know, I I need a comprehensive business plan that's going to articulate
solidly how this is going to happen. The other thing that I'm still not sure about is how data driven the selections were and how the the rubric or the feasibility analysis really weighed into it. There were some comments, I wrote them down because I found them interesting around some of the things that were applied to a dove, that had you applied to a Bransford and vice versa, wouldn't come to the same conclusion.
So I'm I'm struggling to get there. It Dove, based on the least displacement, that didn't apply to BES, that was one of the higher displacement schools. No special programs impacted. We did that on the Colleyville side instead of the Grapevine side. Silver Lake got credit for higher on the original rubric, but then Bransford didn't do that on the Colleyville side. So I I I I can't say that I am tying the data out here.
So I I have more questions, but I wanna be respectful of everybody else wanting to potentially ask others. So I'll take a pause. Keep going. Keep going. It's not a sure. Keep Can I just ask you? Yep. I just wanna ask a question. One of the things that and I did go, for the person that asked, yes, I went to Bransford And I met with Aaron on November 20. And we walked to the MATLAB because I wanted to see that area. And I agree that it takes a lot of space.
You know, one of her concerns and again, I understand this in education for thirty three years you have the students that are physically handicapped and then you have the students that are mentally challenged. And those two are two totally different groups. And, her fear was that they would all be lumped in together. So one of the things, Lindsay, I wanted to ask you is, will the students in the math lab and the students at Bransford, they will all 12 of them will go together to whatever campus should that be, what we vote on, correct?
Yes, that would be the preference. So, in the current Mac classroom, there are five students. And then in the RISE classroom those students are interchangeable, but mostly are familiar with the teacher. Both of the that whole team and the aids. So, yes, that would be the preference. I'm kinda like Dahlia. I think the students, you know, really depend on each other. And if we're gonna change their setting, and it's my understanding their aids and their
and I know one of them is a full time nurse that's just been with them. You know, one I know for sure. I just wanted to make sure and let the parents I mean, I would feel the same way if I didn't really know. And I know it's, you know, December, but I also understand that people are trying to plan, you know, what's what is next year going to look like. So Yeah. I'll go. Is this on? Alright. Let me take a break. Thank you.
Yeah. So couple thoughts to begin with. First of all, miss Myers, I really appreciated the, the clear eyed and level headed analysis that you brought to talking about, things that, that I'm not particularly proud of, the fact that depending on where they're at in terms of experience, our teachers rank forty first in pay out of 52, 38, 37, thirty fourth, fortieth or forty third. Now I'm not proud of that necessarily and that's something that I know as a board that we're gonna work hard to rectify, but and here's what I'm saying to
you. I appreciate that level of seriousness that you brought to that, to the conversation, the presentation, knowing that those are things that as a board, we need to be able to focus on with clear eyes and a level head knowing that, hey, just because that's something that we're not proud of, that we shouldn't mention in public or that we shouldn't know that it's something we need to work on. It reminded me of something that a great mentor of mine said. He said, the difference between amateurs and professionals is this, amateurs want praise, professionals want criticism. And I think that you encapsulated up there and being able to talk constructively about
something that we need to work on. So that was one, just a thought. Two of the constituencies that I've heard the most from and I think for very good reason is this, the first of all what I think of as the McCain North folks, they're the ones who live West Of 26 and just North of John McCain. Based upon previous E. M. P. C, slide decks, they represent 49 different students who, under the E. M. P. C. Recommendation, would be transferred from their current elementary campus of CES to Glen Hope Elementary School. When we were talking earlier about this, I'm gonna provide some context that I distilled
from the presentation and then ask this question. One of the other communities that I've heard from quite often and for good reason is what's known as Creekside. It's the area that is, that currently goes to OC Taylor. But because of this, it's a little peninsula, because of the fact that it was developed later on historically than some of the surrounding communities, that I've heard from them quite a bit too. And just in all candor, other than perhaps the people who are having their campus closed, those are the two constituencies that I feel the most compassion for because they bought their home with the idea that they'd be sending their kids to a certain
elementary school. And it looks like there's a possibility, a likelihood, maybe even a probability that that's not going to be the case. And so here's what I wanna ask. Whenever the demographer dug down into the numbers about those OC Taylor students who are who will potentially be transferred to Heritage Elementary School. I think that number started out at something like 120 students. I think you were talking about this Doctor. McMullen, but whenever the demographer looked at those numbers closer and realized that because of students who already go to Heritage Elementary School and because of students who, perhaps go to Glen Hope because of the Aspire program, that number, that refined number got down
to 95. And so that's a that's a marked difference between 120 or whatever the original number was 95. Has this Our analysis has been done to those 49 students or applied to those 49 students who live in, the McCain North area to see what a distilled, perhaps more accurate number would be. One of the things I want to take us back to is just to remind us that the demographer was having to track two sets of enrollment projections where students are currently today and where they might be once the transfer policy that wasn't effect works its way through the system.
And so while digging into that specific area that you referenced that currently attends OC Taylor, that's bordered by HES, if you will, that, that the recommendation was to move to HES. When he, yes, when he looked at those particular students in a little bit more carefully, it's not that he didn't recognize that those are 95 today because of those that are already attend heritage and or attending Glen hope for aspire. But he would still say this, this is what you're looking at for the coming year, but you have to also consider that four or five years.
And now if nothing changes, if there's no decline, you have to also think about the potential that there could be 120 because you can never be guaranteed exactly whether all of those same kids in the same homes are going to stay at the campus, for the programs that they are. It wasn't a warning that we shouldn't look at that, because even with 120, it was still fairly workable when you disperse the number of students across the seven grade levels within a campus. But when he was able to dig down deeper into that, he was able to
present that information to us, last week in, in specific to the, that 120 being 95 today, if you will. Now your question was about the North McCain area, the, the, the rezone to, Glen Hope. He has provided some information and analysis about those students and the roll up similar to looking at Heritage Elementary, not to the same detail, but we do have student IDs now and the grade levels in which they are. And still looking at those projections, trying to the analysis was, could you retain those
49 kids at Colleyville elementary, which would lower the overall displacement, without putting Colleyville elementary over functional capacity at that point? And the answer was no, not based on the students that we have today. Could you necessarily do that without placing them potentially over functional capacity now, whether or not it's a, it's a number that's significant enough to not do that also was not necessarily the case.
It literally will boil down to, how many pre K how many kinder are assumed in the model? How many of those kindergartners that exist today roll up to first grade and those kinds of things. So there's a potential, but the, I guess the, the recommendation from the demographer in a situation like that is if you don't have to, that maybe you just grandfather perhaps fourth and fifth graders, because what will inevitably happen is you're, you're going to
get the question about siblings and whether those can remain. And so really it's like, can you, can you hold on to fourth and fifth grade with siblings that they may have, or the alternative is the entire 49 in that area not being rezoned. And that's something that we would still look at literally down to the grade level as Doctor. McMullen was, was talking about and doing. Right. Thank you. I guess my question though, is that the 49 students and I'm basing that, upon the other slides from the EMPC, not the difference between home zoned and currently enrolled
students. So just the number that was provided was 49. So has there been an analysis similar to what was done for the, the Creekside students to see, okay, out of those 49, perhaps a certain number already going to Glen Hope and participating in the aspire program. Perhaps there are students who might be homes within that 49 that are going to a different campus under a previously granted, transfer, something like that to be able to hone in on what that number is similar to the refined numbers for the Creek Side area. We just recently received that list, and so we'll have to look at them. Okay.
Because whenever I looked at the e the the recommendations for the EMPC, just take a step back and say, what does a newly constituted GCISD look in terms of where our elementary schools and which students go to each one of them? There are two areas that look fairly, for lack of better phrase, gerrymandered, and just don't seem to be consistent with the idea that we are going to abide by major landmarks or major roadways. And one of those is the McCain North Side. And I've read through every single email. I've had numerous conversations. And every time I speak with the McCain North family or read one of their, one of their emails, I honestly step back and say, that's a very compelling argument.
So my hope is that we can do everything within our power to make, to see what it is that we can do to rectify what I think is a legitimate, issue that they have with it. The North McCain area. Yes. Yeah. McCain North, North McCain. Is there, just so everybody understands. Yeah. All, but Doctor. McMullen is glancing at the list. All, but two are currently at Colleville elementary and two are at Glen hope today. I think my thank you for that. I appreciate that. But I think my point remains looking at a relatively small group.
Yes. And especially when I look at that map, just the the the way that it juts out all the way across 26, not to mention one of the things that's been, referenced to me is the significant traffic concerns in in the morning, especially working your way against McCain and then across 26. Hey, Matt. I wanted to comment. Sorry. I have met with the same group and I know AJ did as well. And I'm telling you, they did a really good job of research. They have numbers and maps and all the things. And so I agree that that they should stay at CES because of because of
Highway 26 is crazy busy and they have really good points and, I I just know that this group spent a lot of time and and I did go meet with them, and I think their data is spot on. I mean, they spend a lot of time doing this and, I mean, they they got your maps and everything and they know each person. So to Matt's point, I agree that those 35 students should just be able to stay at CES. So I thought it was forty nine and thirty five. This is mine. Right? 45 going to Glen Hope and 35 going somewhere else.
It's 49. Yeah. There are about 75 CES students that that would need to be displaced, but I guess maybe they're not all John McCain. Is that what it is? Correct. The 35 live on, the East Side Of 26 near Blue Bonnet Cemetery and everything else. And they're rezoned for OC Taylor, 49, John McCain, North are rezoned for Glen Howarth. Sorry, Matt, keep going. And according to, just according to that meeting, the 35 allegedly are okay with going to O. C. Taylor. The 49 would like to stay at CES. Okay, thank you for clarifying.
You don't know me, and apology, Diana, that's perfectly fine, thank you. You. This was alluded to earlier, within the context. You mentioned potentially fourth and fifth graders specifically for grandfather considerations. That's another solid vein of feedback that I've received is where what is it that we can tell the community right now as far as what factors and analysis going to go into how we're going to develop the grandfathering system for students who are affected by these changes. So what we can tell the community right now is that when we look at the number of students in small pockets, the number of students in the areas that
you have described, the number of students in the, OC Taylor zone proposed to be rezoned to Heritage, and transfer students that are currently at Bransford or at Dove. Those are small pockets of students that until we have the by grade level for all of the rezoning, what we will do is so, Doctor. McMullen presented projected numbers and what it looks like and demonstrated that, yes, we do
have capacity within the buildings for that number of students. The next step is to actually know by number truly how many students the proposed changes and rezoning would be in each grade level. Then we would take the smaller groups of students that we have questions about that we've received questions through the community input and you have received questions for. And we would begin to look at those kind of individually because they do each
have a different story of what do we have is there a capacity at any given campus because we're talking about several different scenarios of what could happen. I will kind of repeat to make a unilateral comment that we would grandfather x y z Yeah. Is really not possible. Because when we look at the whole bulk of number together, that's that's really the reason why that area was carved out is based on the numbers, it would have
put us over functional capacity which was a priority of the education master committee that we stay within that functional capacity. Once we have those specific numbers and kind of back to Doctor. McMullen, one of Doctor. McMullen's charts, it went to the proposed numbers and how many students may be in each class in second grade. We've got to have that level of knowledge before we can start really talking about any type of exceptions to any of the zoning that has been proposed or transfers,
grandfathering, siblings, because it also dominoes once you start looking at those numbers and adding them up because sometimes what you do for one family is expected by another family. I think that's what we call consistency. Yeah. Sorry. Not to speak over you, but yeah. Yes. So all of that really, we've got to have that next layer of information by student of the rezoning so that we can merge our files together and start looking
at actual numbers. Okay. Because to your point, let's say there's campus a not thinking about a particular one. If they're 18 new students, the best possible scenario would be there are three kindergartners, three first graders and so on all the way through. However, if there are eighteen fourth graders that show up are registered for day one, then that throws off the numbers considerably. Is that fair? Yes. Okay. So if I understand you correctly, doctor, the policy that we apply for grandfathering decisions is gonna be reflective of the actual numbers down to the grade level on the
campus and what it is that we can accommodate? Yes. Okay. I want to talk a little bit more about the medically fragile unit. Dahlia asked the primary question, which is where, will it be relocated? As we sit here today, do we have an estimate of how much money that will cost? I'll, before I pass it along, this has been addressed by, Lindsay Fuentes as she was speaking to it. And when we really look at the equipment that one, the equipment that we use is really driven by the individualized educational plan that each student has.
Most of the equipment that is in the medically, our class that we're referencing, the MAC, it is movable. So to relocate it, one expense that has really been identified is the desire to have tile. And there are multiple reasons why you would have that in that space that would be identified for that. That's really the only expense when there's also and that's if we didn't have it in on hand.
So, from a actual dollar perspective, we don't have that right now, but we have gone item by item in that classroom based on the current student needs, not projecting what are all the possibilities of what a student in that class might need, but current student needs, all other items that would be needed to serve students, are movable by our facility staff, can be installed by our facility staff.
Those are the exercises that we have gone through. Okay. Thank you. Another question about the medically fragile unit. Why did the feasibility framework that we looked at earlier, why did it draw a distinction between the medically fragile unit as compared to the quote sped population, with acute medical needs end quote? How, why was there a distinction drawn between those two sub pops? It really wasn't, listed as an, as an intent to distinguish between the two simply noting whether or not there are some special populations, if you will, of students with
particular needs that might be unique to a campus. It was really not intended, the comment under RC Taylor to be comparative to the medically fragile unit at Bransford necessarily just a notation about whether or not there was anything specific as a program. I wouldn't say that the students with acute medical needs are necessarily a programmatic issue for Rosie Taylor. The converse of that was true, which was to say that there isn't something like that necessarily specific when we're looking at having to consider a program.
David earlier, I believe it was, trustee Biegun. Who's asking you questions about the 100 student loss that you factored into your numbers. Correct. Was that the 100 students that you factored in, was that just the idea that if things progressed organically or naturally, we'd have a 100 fewer students or was that an analysis based upon the number of what I think of as kind of people who would perhaps choose other options as a result of EMPC recommendations? It was based on the demographer's projections. Okay. And so the demographer said you can generally expect to lose about 1%, and that's what I factored in.
Anything else would have been just speculation on my part. The only thing that I had was data and that's what I used. Yeah. And I'm never, especially from the numbers guy, the dollars and cents guy, I'm never going to ask you to speculate. So I'll broaden it up a little bit. What analysis, if any, has been applied to our situation whenever we look at other districts, cause this has been brought up several times. We're not the only district in the state facing these issues and looking at the potential of, consolidating campuses. So what analysis has been done maybe regarding other districts that are faced with similar
circumstances regarding the number of students within that district who choose other options as a result of their campus being closed or as a result of campus consolidation in their district generally? I think that, and I can, I can see if Barb, Paula wants to weigh in, but again, I went through the demographer's projections? He's very well aware of what we're doing next year. And so his analysis is what I based all of my information on. Again, I wouldn't speculate, you know, I could speculate on the vouchers, Right? I mean, that could that'll impact us. It's I think what I tried to give you was the best information the best
guess on the best information, knowing that it's a pretty fluid situation, especially with the vouchers and, the changes in some of the legislature. Yeah. I have no doubts about that, Mr. Johnson. I guess my question though is that the number that you're talking about, that 100, that was based upon the demographer's projections regardless of consolidation. You know, I don't know what his thought process. Was there any thought process on the consolidation? Did he try that? That. In looking at overall projections and trying to help the district understand what consolidation could look like? I mean, I'm sure he was thinking of all of those things.
He didn't specifically ever state that he had necessarily looked at another community that might have gone through a closure of campus to try to discern whether or not that equates to a certain percentage of loss or change in your overall enrollment. What he does routinely do, thinking back to previous presentations that he's made to the district long before this conversation was to look at, changes in the housing market, the
actual yield coming out of apartments or homes. He looks at the census information. He looks at home prices. He looks at the age of the population through the census and things of that nature. And he's, he's looking for specific trends. And I remember that he shared at one point that even large districts that are experiencing growth in their districts are seeing a reduction in a certain population. That being the younger age students, ostensibly, one could say this is speculation that that's related to a more interest in choice, if you will, among that age population, especially
since the advent of 2020, right. Where everybody experienced a lot of different things and began to think differently about schooling. And as I mentioned, I think at the last update, the, the data point that Texas has the second highest number of homeschool students of any state second to California. So it seems all of that is a, those are predictive items in terms of an appetite for different things. Did he specifically, say, Hey, I think this is going to be the number because
you'll have some people who are disappointed that you've closed schools or what have you? No, I don't, he didn't say anything like that, but his projections were all again in trying to track two datasets, looking at the areas where they've already historically been declined in the district and where there has been less decline in the district, more of a stable enrollment, if you will. And he did not necessarily factor a decline per se by, an individual campus. He's looking overall at the district decline because you see the larger high school grades
that are leaving and you can already see the smaller enrollment at the grades at elementary that are coming up. So I think I mentioned that no matter if nothing changed, not a single loss was experienced, fourth grade alone moving out of the elementary campuses will cause a further decline, which will help with the question marks that there could be around whether or not you're at functional capacity or not, or how close you are to it. We're going to see some additional changes at the elementary level that we know just
based on what we have currently, if nothing else were to change. And we know that there are on the horizon potential changes just through the implementation of vouchers and online schooling of a different type. Are, are we just have a few more questions. Oh. I think it's on oh, there it is. I I think the point you're trying to tease out, which is a good one, is risk mitigation for additional loss of students because of this exercise. And if that additional incremental loss of students is great enough to negate the savings
that are derived from this exercise, it begs the question, why do it at all? Right? And overcrowd other campuses if you're gonna lose equal or more. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that piece. Brad, I'd like to hear tell tell us from a, leadership perspective, what is it like to chase this dollar? Because I know that, that the four and a half years that I've been on this board, that I don't know the the buy more stuff. I don't know that world.
We only have known. I've only experienced cutting. I've only experienced eliminating. That that that's all I I know. And we have chased a number year after year after year. Unknowns occur. So tell us about that. And then how easy is it to find a million dollars? Yeah. Who has the pointer? The yeah, the clicker. Sorry. Can you go to or can I have it, please? Sorry. I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. If you're gonna continue to speak out, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.
You've spoke out numerous times. We're having to have a conversation. Why does it matter? It's because he's employed here, and we're gonna honor the gentleman that has the job. That's why. So if you can't sit here without officer thank you. Please you're you too. Yeah. So I wanna kinda just sit on this slide just for a second. And you can see here and this is if I believe, David, this is if we if if nothing is is done, if we're moving forward. Right? And you can see here the projected deficit for, '27 would be 3,200,000.0
roughly, right? And we can see kind of the, the fund balance as it continues to deplete. And so I think, President Braun, yes, to your point, this is really what keeps us up at night and what, I mean, gives us angst every day. And to your point, you know, over the past four years, we've reduced, over 140 positions. And that's been extremely difficult. And that's those are layers of support that we don't have for our teachers, for our staff, for our programs.
But it's been necessary for us because of the financial constraints we've been dealing with. And then I wanna go to, this slide right here that that Kelly touched on. And this is the UEA's latest, statistical data data on pay. And just, that's really that's that's not acceptable right there. And it's, it's not okay. And and that's something, this is something that for me, this is what really kind
of keeps me up at night and thinking how can we, you know, pay our people better because they deserve it. And so in order for us to be in a more competitive situation and I'm not saying we need to be at the top because I don't necessarily think that's realistic but we certainly need to improve, in this and move up. And the only way to do that is to create space on the expenditure side. And so you can see here going back to that, the first slide that I
was on, you know, we as we sit here and watch our fund balance just you know deplete basically, you know, we have to act. We have to we we have to make some some really hard decisions and and not just us but that's why a lot of our neighbors across the state and the region here have had to make tough decisions like this and and unfortunately we
have you know neighbors and friends around us that have have closed campuses or consolidated campuses and and are having to do it again here soon. And and that is just the harsh reality that that we face that, but in order for us to to, you know, invest in our people, we've got to find the space on the expenditure side to reduce that, to remove that, to, to move up on that chart. And so that's, that's, that's my take. Go ahead.
I just want to add in Dahlia, try kind of answer this and not anecdotally. What we have around us is we have a couple of really good examples. Coppell decided last month not to consolidate an elementary school. So to offset the costs of that, they have decided to riff a significant number of employees, including adding an incentive to employee, to have employees resign on their own accord by February. I don't want to be, we're at a point as we've seen and as I've
sat on this board and you've sat on this board now, we're at an inflection point with our budget where, hard decisions have to be made and to try to minimize the amount of pain that that would cause. And so as I've stated multiple times, I want to make sure that we take care of our people. Our teachers are amazing teachers that everybody spoke about, at Bransford, at Colleyville Elementary, at O. C. Taylor, at Glen Hope, across the district are the people that we need to make sure that we retain and keep in classrooms, whether that classrooms at Bransford or at
Colleyville or to C. Taylor or Heritage or anywhere else, it's maintaining that. And if we don't take action, in, in my opinion, in, in obvious areas where we can take action, we're going to be faced with much harder decisions and we're not going to be necessarily worrying about moving a few students here or there. Cause what I, one thing that I did see, which I was happy to see was our class sizes are going to stay pretty much the same or even go
down in a few areas. And so I like to see that as opposed to increasing class sizes, constantly asking for, exceptions from TEA to increase our elementary school class sizes. So we can look to our neighbors in Coppell. We can look at what Northwest did two years ago when they didn't pass Evader. They rift a bunch of teachers packed classrooms when they put it back on the ballot at overwhelmingly passed this year. So I think we can look to our neighbors and see what they have done, or haven't done. And we don't have to look into anecdotally and determine whether or not we factored
in if we will lose students, based on the consolidations. Because I think, something that I shared when we had our workshop, my biggest fear is not taking the appropriate action that we need to take. Now as difficult as that is, and I understand I gotta be honest with everybody. Every one of our elementary schools are amazing, and every family feels the way you do about your elementary schools. There's no question about there's no question about that. You can go to LA, any elementary school you want speak to families. They love it. And that's a testament to what GC ISD has something that you mentioned, the special
sauce. We have that in our borders. We have that in GC ISD and I want to preserve that as much as possible. And that's because of our staff, that's our teachers, that's what's happening inside the buildings, not just the building. So I, I say we can look to our neighbors and learn from that. I'm glad you bring that up and I don't want to hijack. Cause I think Matt, you had some additional questions before we moved on. But I will come back to the Coppell comment and the staffing there later. So Matt Europe. Are we aware of any, not like individual names?
It's not what I'm asking, but just individuals or groups who served voting members on the EMPC who, visited any of the potentially, affected campuses in person visits. I'm not personally aware of whether or not any of the MPC members visited some of the campuses, any of the campuses, or what have you, it is certainly possible. I'm not, I don't personally know that. Fair enough. Could you go to the slide that showed the feasibility framework, please? As we sit here today, do we know what the fair market value of any
of those properties is? No, we do not have the appraised fair market value for any of the properties at this time. Okay. If y'all indulge me just a little bit longer, I thank you all for answering my questions, setting aside for a moment, the misgivings that I have about the concerns that I have about the EMPC. I've shared this with, with many, many people that I have two boys who a second and a fourth grader who actually go to one of the campuses that will potentially be consolidated. And so about a week ago, we were out running errands on, I think it was a Saturday. We went to the grocery store, whatever it was.
And on the way back, we were driving by what will be their new campus. And so we parked in the parking lot. I looked at the campus and I said, you know what, boys, I think y'all are gonna be really happy here. Y'all are gonna learn great things here and y'all are gonna continue to make your parents proud. And even though this is a difficult thing that we're going through right now, I have that unmitigated sense of confidence in our district in each one of our campuses, whether next year that is 11 elementary schools, whether it's nine, I have an unwavering support for that. And I think that to a large extent, the questions that have been voiced, the
emails that I've received, the conversations that I've had, those come from a very deep sense of passion because of how much we care about these issues and how much we want to see our children succeed. And the fact that we know the best way we can allow them to succeed is giving them the best education possible. We know that I think everybody in this room, everybody in this room without exception feels that way. But thank you. But I think that once this decision is made, I think that to a large extent, in fact, almost exclusively, our students are going to reflect our attitude towards this. And so I think this is a very, this is a worthwhile process.
I think that the time we spend listening to community members, having questions posed towards us, maybe trying to stress test some of the analysis or questions that have been put into this, I think that's gonna serve us well, but ultimately, I think our students, just like they always will, are gonna be a reflection of us individually and as a community. So setting aside the misgivings I have, I think that that's how I'm trying to approach this, making sure everything that we do collectively or individually is aimed towards making sure that the recommendations are, once they're applied, that they have, our support and knowing
that it's ultimately with us telling our kids, just like I told my sons, that they're going to continue to learn and they're going to continue to make their families proud. So thank you. Can I go? Matt, that is a very sweet story and got me in my feels. And I wanna publicly acknowledge that's some really solid parenting right there. And our campuses are awesome, and I know that this is hard. It's hard for your family. It's hard for all of the families. So just know that I know that. Talking about finding millions of dollars, I do have a question, that I think the community is really interested to know.
Has anybody in administration been offered millions of dollars by the city of Grapevine? I'll take this as the spokesperson for the district. We were asked this question yesterday and the answer remains the same, that the district has received no direct communication regarding a large sizable donation to GCISD. Thank you. If if that was to come about, what does the process of a millions of dollars donation, what would that process even look like?
I mean, there's gotta be an official pro it's not just. Monthly, we have the donations, right? Board policy requires that they're over $5,000 that they would come that I would present those to you Right. In a board meeting for your formal acceptance. Just like a PTA donation that's over. That is correct. Right. Okay. So I just wanted the community to hear that we have not been given a formal anything from the city of Grapevine. I I can't hear you. Sorry. Okay. So the other things that I have going on Paula, can you tell me off
you may not know off the top of your head. How many seniors we have this year versus kindergartners this year? You added that portion to the slide, so thank you. I just wanna make sure those are are the current kindergarteners and the current seniors. So up at the top right hand corner, you see the numbers there, six ninety two for kindergarten, nine seventy eight for seniors that are outgoing. And that's what I mean about the Delta difference between the outgoing grades and those
that are coming. Yeah. Okay. I've just got some comments here. When Brad talks about fund balance, in my head, that's what keeps me up at night also. And when you look at the we are here portion of that slide, that to me just equals that action is needed. And, you know, we're we're not a board here that isn't a time of yes, unfortunately. We don't I haven't had many fun things, to be honest. We're we're unfortunately not the kind of board that gets put up on a wall and and remembered for starting new programs and and doing all the the things that
are great and in times of yeses. But this is a time of necessity, and it's hard. It's terrible. I do appreciate, Paul, I think that you talked about it. I know I'm jumping all over the place, that, or maybe Nicole did, that Silver Lake in 2011 and 2012 was at six seventy five, students, which means that the infrastructure is there solid, solidly to handle what's gonna be, put in there. I do wanna also go back to the McCain North. I I do agree with my fellow trustees there that we need to look at
that and try to accommodate that as much as possible. I also agree or not agree, but I have a stance that, grandfathering is something that we I know it's a it's a painstaking process, but to look at all of those stories as individuals as much as we possibly can is is necessary in this time of great change. I think that's all for me right now. Adrienne? Okay. Shannon? Any questions? Okay. I just wanna be super clear.
Mike? No. Thank you. The savings are necessary. This there is no doubt in my mind that we need to save money immediately because this is heading to a very catastrophic place. What I'm trying to mitigate is additional unforeseen issues that might arise. So I wanna be really, really clear that I don't think that we can sit here and do nothing. Right? I think we are all in agreement and on the same page there.
The rigor is where the trouble is here. The rigor the rigor of the process and having been somebody who has led multiple strategic financial business initiative at a much larger scale than this, I can tell you certainty, with professional certainty, that this process does not have the rigor that we need to avoid those unforeseen circumstances. That is that is the please please don't. That is the point that I'm trying to make, and I want us to do
it the right way and do it in a way that is student centered. This is putting the biggest burden on our students, including my children. So besides that, let me ask some serious process questions. And I I don't mean to pick on OC Taylor in any way, but this is a really good example of the conflict in my mind. If OC Taylor, one of the older campuses on the Colleyville side is being retained despite its age because of its land possibilities, let's call it, why wouldn't we consider
that for Dove on the other side that has much better land opportunity for potential expansion than a Silver Lake that's tucked so far in a corner? And I know that Silver Lake has its all, but just, again, to to illustrate the inequity in my mind and hoping somebody can can get me there. Right? Two old campuses, both on decent plots of land, both not the biggest functional capacity wise? I I can't pretend to get into the mindset of every member of the committee.
All I can go by is having listened to the conversations and discussions, the debate, the questions that were asked in terms of what was relevant for them in trying to reach what was for the group, a very difficult decision. And some of the things that you're saying are things that obviously were discussed and debated and, how much weight does that carry versus not? And, and for certain people looking out long term was important. I'm sure in some regard, a belief that within the next decade there would be
some re greening certainly with some of the programs they had talked about, that there would be rebirth of enrollment in some fashion, that something was going to give, that the pendulum was going to swing. Not not everybody necessarily thought completely like that but certainly could understand that concept and knowing that there wouldn't really be it wouldn't really be feasible for the district to necessarily acquire land, even if it had the money to do that, it wouldn't be readily available where needed.
So if you were going to look to the future, whether that's just expanded campus or whatever, that's a site that has the potential, has the topography for it, if you will. It's central in the district. I mean, these are just some of the things that were kind of just shared and discussed in terms of the thought process. I think one of the things too, that weighed heavy in that, and admittedly it, it w it's close, right? Yes. If you would have just stopped at OC Taylor because of age, there would still
be questions in the community as to, well, why that OC Taylor students would be split to four schools and that seemed to carry some weight versus being split to two schools. And then what other, what other displacements were associated with that? You mentioned something about the displacement numbers being different for Bransford. And when we're looking at the rubric, which isn't there, it, it, they're really like
within two students of each other based on those those projections. Right? Were there 580 displaced as a result of the Bransford closure? Am I remembering that correctly? It's about 580 in both of those. Two five schools total. Right? That will touch five schools. Affected. One being the campus consolidated and then four in the, you know, all the receiving or the moving and receiving kind of. So both of those scenarios resulted in affecting five campuses. I mean, it would have been far easier, I think, for the committee and I
think for the community and anyone else if something had jumped off the page. I don't mean to say that Dove jumped off the page, but it was a more direct line as compared to Silver Lake, than these two campuses as it came down to it. Can I interject on that? Because what I recall was that when we did the math, when the math was because it became a math equation, that the math worked almost perfectly with that that
was kind of the determining factor, that Silver Lake and Cannon could house them, that if it were reversed and, like, if you closed Silver Lake, that the math didn't work. You would have to add on and rebuild, Dove. That's what I recall early on that started making all of that, very easy. In the case of that scenario there, the kind of the the challenge was the new school has the lower capacity but it certainly wasn't gonna make it anywhere into
the rubric in terms of age in future if you will. Silver Lake has the larger capacity of all three schools. Dove has a lower capacity than Silver Lake. The reverse what you're talking about is trying to put necessarily those students into Dove and to Canon would have been a greater challenge. That's not to say that definitively it might not have been able to happen. But as they went, as the committee went through the conversation about here's rubric, here
are all the reasons why dove scored the lowest as it did in the rubric and then applied the feasibility items to it that were, that could apply to it because not everything applies to every single scenario. But where it could apply, could you rule that campus out? And the answer kept coming back to no, this analysis still suggests to us that Dove is the campus to close. There was some conversation about, in actuality, I think the Silver Lake site is larger
than the Dove site, but it doesn't feel that way because of the way things are situated on the site, if you will, talking about just the feasibility of those sites and things of that nature, no indication from demographer projections that that area is going to actually produce or increase in enrollment and that in fact you would still be looking at that particular part of the district absent something else. Because you're you're not these are not reaching 99 and a 100% of capacity with
the exception of Canon, potentially depending on what happens with the transfer policy and the interest in STEM and so forth. And so that is the reason, as I walked through the feasibility analysis that applied, that dove continued to be there, in terms of the campus, for selection was much closer when you're looking at the OC Taylor Branson discussion. There's, there's no doubt about that. Okay. Thank you for that. Next question. Are there really no additional bus routes that are needed for Duff students to get
to Silver Lake or Canon? I think that's what the feasibility report had said. No, that is correct. That the total number of routes that are dedicated to that area would continue to be the same number of routes might be different people on, students on buses, but that it would not result in the need for additional routes. So there are no current dove walkers that would now be need to be transported? No. I'm I'm I'm saying it might be different students. Oh, I see. Okay. But there could be additional And remember, there are dove students that currently go to
Silver Lake Right. For bilingual services and there's availability. And so I don't have the specific details of that, but the analysis by the transportation department is it would not result in additional route needs, adding cost to the budget, unlike looking at the Timberline or the Bear Creek scenarios. Okay. No, that just surprised me and jumped out at me. So thank you for clarifying. Why is the arts integration program not treated like a STEM at Canon? What I not being a long timer in GCISD, you know, it was, it was
born before my time here. So I, I don't understand what constitutes a special program versus not. That's a good question. And there are a couple of factors that I'll just use as reference. Part of the consideration was the feasibility of could it actually be at another campus. It's not building dependent. With STEM and Cannon was specifically built because it's been built since the inception of
the STEM at Cannon. That is a building that was designed for STEM instruction. So that's one difference when we say that arts integration is not building dependent. There aren't modifications that have occurred to the building that couldn't be replicated to have that at a different campus. So that's one area. Another area is that whenever we really start looking at the core content in both cases, which I spoke to in the presentation, all of our campuses are responsible no
matter what type of supplemental program they may have to provide instruction related to the standards that are required by instruction related to the standards that are required by Texas Education Agency in those areas. With STEM, there are curricular integrations that look different than the integration of Fine Arts at Bransford. So there's some instructional aspects that do look different. On the STEM aspect of that, there are more, instructional, supplemental, just not necessarily equipment,
but educational aids that are integrated into the instruction with fine arts, So, is another way in which it is different. When you ask the question and I believe you phrased it, why are they considered different when we talk about specialized programs?
That really comes back to how it started in the inception and where the district was in transfers, how that was incorporated into that process. The STEM program at Cannon started before the Fine Arts integration at Bransford, So, we were at a different stage in how things were being implemented and I realize that that's not real specific on why it's viewed differently.
But there are the main thing is really how does the instruction look different and what student experience. They look different. Is it specialized instruction? Can it both be used with that term? It can. With canon, what a decision that was made in the process was an actual change to the campus name. With Bransford, that was not something that was considered as part of the process.
I can't really explain that difference. Sure. No, that's fine. So based on your logic, Aspire is not a specialized program either. Is that a fair statement? There are curricular differences within Aspire in how the curriculum is enriched. But it's not building dependent either? I think it's the general, maybe I'll go home and do some research about what what constitutes a specialized curricula or a specialized program versus not. Because coming from Arlington, I know a lot about their fine arts academies and that
is very much a specialized program. So I I'm just trying to reconcile in my mind why it feels so different here. And I know ours is not as robust perhaps as theirs in the way of if marketing and use is an attractive offering. Yes. And at the beginning processes of developing and making the decisions around and I mentioned that committees and groups of staff from Bransford in that initial phase of research visited
academies versus campuses with integration and they made a very deliberate decision on what they were pursuing for various reasons. And you've mentioned it in your experience, the Fine Arts Academy is a different type of programming than arts integration and there are some very specific differences in why our campuses and districts use the terminology of academy versus even specialized program as you point
out. Technically specialized program, you're gonna find that we could probably call just about anything a specialized program because there's not a specific TEA definition of what we can call under that. We actually refer to and you heard Ms. Fuentes refer to specialized instruction. So we do use that term and it applies in various situations depending on what those circumstances are. So it is very universally used. So to say that we can't call it that, that's not there's not a reason
that we can't call it that because of any requirements that we have, from the standards or how that curriculum is integrated. Okay, thank you. My last, I think question is where is bridges and Vista going to go with the potential sale of feedback? I think I mentioned that that's part of what still has to be evaluated in terms of looking at where those students potentially could be housed. Those are secondary students, obviously, those two alternative campuses and that kind of comes in
the next part of the districts, you know, with there, the revenue ideas, there's the selling of the property. These are all, I think one member of the committee referred to it as individual projects that the district will now have to, work on and research and, and follow through on in terms of the process itself. And part of that is evaluating where those students and those staff members could be relocated in order to sell that particular property. And that will begin more than likely with looking at space within existing facilities and
whether or not that's feasible. Okay. Thank you. I think that concludes my questions for now. Appreciate it. I just want to elaborate a little bit on some of the, to to Matt and Dahlia's point, because I I agree that, we we will lose more than a 100 students. So our our you know, I I'm with you. That that's an extremely, I mean, low number. We lost more this year than that.
So, anyway, so I agree with that. But that that is all the more reason why we have to take action. We have to start taking control back of what you can control. Eliminate, waste in our buildings. Get you know, you've gotta get efficient with how we use our space. You know, and I'm sorry, but I'm I'm the person that throws truth bombs. And, what the demographer told us is in three years, you're gonna, get to close another school, another elementary. And in a fourth year, you get to close a middle school.
That that's what he projected. We can close three schools today. That that's that's a fact. And so if if three years down the road, you're now closing two more elementaries, that is just the state that we're in. Revenue generation, this is what our district needs to, do in a way that, we we can start generating dollars. I think that this tennis center ideas have already been pitched. I mean, things are kind of already moving.
There are things that are kind of already down the road a little bit that aren't just, you know, brand new that nobody's thought about. That can potentially generate quite a bit of money. Kyle, I'm kind of curious, with all of the things that iUniversity has, what do you feel like and, you know, you don't I'm not pinning you down on a number, but what do you feel like, is a good potential that that we could
do with, you know, selling our curriculum, increasing, you know, what we do online, whether it be testing and doing things like the Texas Tech model, you know, doing some of those online classes that people do, you know, health and, you know, some of the things you kinda knock wanna knock out, you know, so that you can free up your schedule in the brick and mortar. What do you think we we could potentially do? Yeah. So we are, in the final negotiations of being able to close out a deal
for curriculum sales of the courses in which we have. And that would be something that we could offer statewide. So that's something that we'll be able to talk more about possibly within the coming month. Okay. As we get that going with the landscape landscape changing in virtual for districts all across the state, I think we're gonna see an increased interest in our virtual school as people get more educated as it being an option. So I do definitely see our enrollment increasing dramatically, in that what we're needing to do is we're also trying to balance that with our integrity of the program as
well. You know, not just bring in thousands and thousands of kids because we want to provide quality instruction. So that side I see we have a lot of ability. And then as well as mentioned of our ability to do other online courses, like offering comparative, as you mentioned, Texas tech and stuff and offering online courses to other students, throughout the state as one off potentials, for example, or other hybrid. So there's a lot of discussions right now going on around some hybrid instruction. And the week doesn't go by that we don't have multiple districts reaching out asking, can we partner in some way, and how can we work with that?
So we have a lot of potential in the virtual area, especially based on our university. Thank you for that because I, you know, I I just feel like once we get in a mode where we can start focusing on all of those things, and, again, this is a a step by step process. We have taken a lot of steps up to this point. We've been consolidating, we've been eliminating positions. We can do more in that area, and we will. But the next step is you've gotta get efficient with your buildings, then we can
free up space so that we can do some other things. So that that that's just that's just the reality of where we are. Do we have any other comments? Because we alright. So, at this time, we're gonna go to executive session. The board will adjourn to closed session, pursuant to Texas Government Code section 551.074, to deliberate the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer or employee, or to hear complaints or charges against a public officer or employee.
This will be about the superintendent transition plan, and we are adjourned at 09:39. We are now back in session. And we are now our business is is concluded, and, the time is 11:40. We are adjourned.