Okay, good afternoon. This meeting is now convened at 01:04PM. I'd like to ask everyone to please silence all cell phones. Quorum of the Board members is present in the Board Auditorium. Let's see, our first order of business is to hear from speakers to the agenda. Public comment during School Board meetings will only be available to those persons who have signed up to speak prior to the meeting time per current protocol. Verbal and other disruptions by persons during School Board meetings are not acceptable as they inhibit the Board's ability to conduct business and the public's ability to observe those processes.
Persons who participate in such behavior will be given will give one warning and then if the behavior is repeated, we'll be asked to leave the meeting. We have 14 speakers, signed up today who will be limited to two minutes each per Board policy. We ask that you stay on topic and refrain from naming individuals, especially students as their identity is protected under law. You may name your own child. I ask you to please respect our procedures and the other speakers and to end your comments promptly when your time has expired and the timer rings. We will first hear from in person speakers followed by speakers who are on Zoom.
In person speakers, please come to the microphone. In your number in order, please state your full name, before your remarks. Miss Smith, are you going to call folks? Yes. Speakers one through six. Please, state your name before you at the podium and then begin. Dear members of the HISD board of managers, I'm speaking to you as a deeply concerned member of the Middle College High School at Felix Farraga Community regarding the devastating budget cuts proposed for the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six school year. Our campus serves a unique and vital population of 130 students, 90 nine percent of whom identify as Hispanic.
As an early college high school with alternative education accountability provisions, our program is specifically designed to serve students for whom the traditional high school setting was not effective or accessible. Many of our students are on track to graduate, but face life circumstances that require a more flexible and supportive environment to thrive. Others are an underserved youth who may not have never accessed without the personalized support we offer. Despite operating with minimal resources, our staff and students have achieved a remarkable outcome, say, ninety four percent graduation rate, a ninety four percent attendance rate, ninety seven percent graduation rate, ninety seven percent college readiness rate,
ninety three point two percent of students earning an approved industry based certification, eighty five percent of students enrolled in one or more college courses, academic growth in STAAR EOC scores that consistently exceeds state averages across all four subjects. We operate with only three office staff members, an administrative assistant, a registrar and a counselor. Our teaching staff is provided to just eight teachers, each responsible for at least three prep plus a credit recovery course, and we receive only one planning period every other day. This already is about to worsen. We've informed that due to the coming budget cuts, our registrar position won't be eliminated.
The plaintiff is to combine the roles of registrar and counselor, but this is not feasible. Our counselor is new to the role and has no experience as registrar. Asking them to perform both jobs would not only be unreasonable, it would directly jeopardize the stability of folks over campus. The alternative that was discussed is terminating two teacher positions is equally unthinkable. With only eight teachers carrying a full load already, we cannot lose anyone without sacrificing the quality and breadth of instructions we provide to our students. We We implore you to restore the small school and high school allotments so that we may keep our rates on our current staffing levels. Doing so will allow us to continue developing the high quality personalized education that our students not only serve,
but have come to rely on. Frog is more than just a school, it's placed the second chances of transformation and growth. Please. My name is Judy Chang. I'm a parent and a taxpayer. I believe everyone in this room has a responsibility to ensure that every student in this school district has a chance to succeed. When you don't fund the mandated salary increase and when you cut campus budget, you're directly impacting the classroom learning. Let me be clear, those cuts are not due to declining attendance, but rather because the PUA is lower than previous years. In fact, the PUA is an all time low.
So what happens when standardized test score in core subject dominate the evaluation system? With the limited budget, principles are forced to cut what makes school meaningful, the foreign languages, fine arts and athletics. It's our goal to accelerate HRIC enrollment decline by stripping schools their programs and reducing them to core only test prep centers. And here's a question to all to ask That why is money not falling to students? Eighty percent of HISD students are economically disadvantaged. There needs some change just because they switch campuses.
But somehow, the funding allocated for students varies drastically from school to school. And what about the state high school allotment? Why isn't the funding going directly to school to support students as designed by law? Cutting campus budget means cutting programs and staff and that means cutting into the heart of what help student grow and learn. If we want to increase enrollment, we must start valuing our human capital because the adults in this building are teachers, counselor and staff. They make or break a school. I'm asking you to make meaningful changes,
focus on the real learning, give our school the resources they need to be excellent, not just adequate. Mediocracy is not acceptable, not to our students, not for our city. I know the decision ahead are not easy, but I also know what's at stake, the future of our students. And I hold you to a high standard because they deserve nothing less. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Brooke Longoria. Per usual, as I was driving over here, I tried to put myself in your shoes and, think what I would think if I was sitting up there with you all. And one of the things that went through my head as I drove over here
today is, some of the rhetoric that Mike Miles has said recently in the press. Things like, there's no superintendent that could make the achievements I've made, or things like Jim, Terry, and I are the only ones who can save this HISD budget. I've served on boards before, and if that was a statement made towards me, that is something that would have given me great pause and question, so I just wanted to bring that up. And then additionally, much like, Judy, I also share big concerns about high school budgets and the PUA and money not
following the students. I'm very concerned that we're robbing Peter to pay Paul, and I am concerned that NES continues to be, unsustainable and not a good fiscal investment, considering the decline in enrollment. And then, additionally, I wanted to share concerns I have about the test prep culture in HISD. At some NES schools, I learned recently, students who are Vanguard and GT are allowed to enjoy recess, while those who are not are doing zerring lessons during recess. Parents have complained repeatedly,
and they have not had any success in, getting the thirty minute recess time for their children. That's unfortunate. You know, I know superintendent Miles talks about how he used to miss recess to receive speech services, and it was really beneficial to him. A computer program just repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly is not a benefit. It's not what our kids need. So good luck today. Thank you. Oh, I see. This is someone else's. Brooke did not bring a computer with her. So under Lone Star governance, you're expected to defer to the superintendent on matters of policy so long as there
are measurable results showing progress. And the problem is, God bless you all, you are intelligent people, you are about as qualified to judge that as I am to sit on the board of the Federal Reserve. You don't know what questions to ask, you don't know what is considered valid data, So, what you've been told over and over is that the district is making this great improvement because look at the twenty three-twenty four change, well, anybody, everybody in the academic world who has any integrity knows that the 23 scores were an
anomaly, they were not valid because there was such a drastic change to the test both in the format and in the content, everything bombed. If you want to look at the last valid scores, you need to look at twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen. And guess what? So far none of you have asked for that, that I have seen. Guess what? Here's the chart. Here's twenty eighteen, here's twenty nineteen, here's twenty twenty four. The blue is a through c rated score schools, and the orange is d and f. It's identical. There's no change. So what have we gotten for that?
Well, in fact also half of the NES schools did better in either '18 or '19 than they did in '24. So what have we got? We got a ballooning debt, we've got hemorrhaging enrollment, especially at NES campuses, we got no libraries, we We got no wrap around service providers. We have now, done the thing that you said, Mr. Campo, you knew was bad, which was to silo those services. We have closed campuses and there's a dramatic increase in DAEP placement, which is the school to prison pipeline. Everything that is evidence based, which means it has been published in peer reviewed journals, says relationships are what make education work.
And everything that this administration is doing Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Kelly Blickery, parent. You have to take care of people first. That's what you, Mr. Campo, told the Kinder Institute just this month. But now you're doing the opposite. Last year, this district had hundreds of wrap around specialists embedded in schools, trusted adults who noticed when a student needed food or clothes or mental health care, without waiting for someone to ask. This year, just 44 remain. And now even those roles are being eliminated.
The plan? Push that work onto campus staff already stretched thin, or redirect families to Sunrise Centers. The one closest to my son's school is 18 miles away. Meanwhile, families are expected to scan a QR code from a sign posted outside the school. It's in English, maybe Spanish. HISD has students who speak over 100 languages. These signs are barriers, not bridges. They exclude our most vulnerable immigrant families, families without internet, families who don't want to ask for help from a sidewalk.
Wraparound specialists didn't need a form to see a hungry kid. They didn't need a QR code to know when a student needed shoes or a safe place to sleep. They were there, every day, on campus. Yours is not a plan that centers students. It's a system that shifts the burden away from the district and onto families least equipped to carry it. Those who already are facing food insecurity, language barriers, job instability, or housing loss. This is neglect dressed up as efficiency. You say you want to put people first, then do it. Please stop outsourcing compassion.
Stop deflecting responsibility. Bring wrap round specialists back to our school. Thanks. Thank you. Any other in person speakers? Okay. We'll move to Zoom. Doctor Benzone, you may begin. Thank you. Hi. Today, I'm here to speak about the essential role of wraparound services in our schools, supports that have been strategically dismantled by a system claiming to value equity while abandoning the students who need it most. In twenty nineteen to twenty twenty, HISD's wraparound specialists completed over 622,000 interventions, reaching over seventy five percent of the targeted student population.
Notably, students at risk of dropping out who received these services were seven times more likely to meet grade level standards in math and five times more likely in reading. In June 2024, the HISD board approved a $2,100,000,000 budget despite a $528,000,000 shortfall. One third of it was funneled into Miles' new education system, a model that offers high salaries for compliance, not creativity. This isn't empowerment. It's control. Meanwhile, HISD cut over two ten wraparound specialists and slashed $14,000,000
from the department's budget. The 48 remaining specialists had to split time among five to 10 campuses each. They were stretched thin and set up to fail. Now Miles has Sunrise Centers as community hubs for support. In theory, they could offer partnerships and opportunities and integrated services. But in practice, they feel more like a photo op than a real solution. The truth is that families working multiple jobs or without reliable transportation can't access distant hubs during business hours. Equity means meeting families where they are. We need wraparound services in schools,
not centralized in eight hubs across three thirty three square miles. A flashy program that only works for the few is not equity. It's performance. And we all know that Miles likes his performances. We must stop funding bonuses ranging from $40,000 to $140,000 for district executives and start investing in the students and communities we serve. We are not here to enrich demagogues. We are here to educate children with dignity, care, and justice. Thank you. Thank you. Robert Van Borenson, you may begin. Good afternoon. Board and superintendent of files,
I'm speaking here today to ask to reconsider the priority in your current budget. I believe that there is a much better use case for a lot of the money that is being pulled back and reallocated to really improve the outcomes of the children in HISD. The fact that non NES schools are being penalized while NES schools are showing severe flex is abhorrent. It is nonsensical, and the current budget needs to reflect that non NES schools are achieving better outcomes and having more students stick them out. I know several people personally who are doing the same thing right now looking for
non NES school options within the district. So I do believe that the current budget I proposed is abhorrent, is an affront and needs to be strongly reconsidered. And with that, I'll yield the rest of my time. Thank you. Christine Hurley, please unmute yourself. You may begin. Hi. Every time I speak before you, I wonder what message will finally get you to listen. What words will finally get through to you? You've been provided with data, research, mountains of verifiable facts, yet you continue to have the arrogance that you, not the experts,
know what's best. Or will you claim it's that we, non board members, who don't understand the full picture? In which case it's still a lack on your part, a lack of transparency. How are we at this point of a crisis and you still willfully choose to remain blind to it? In the Board's Q and A, you admit that enrollment is in a free fall. Spending millions on HISD now is not going to help enrollment or student outcomes. Spending a million on a new teacher evaluation system that's widely criticized by expert is not going to help enrollment or student outcomes.
Spending money on increased salaries for uncertified teachers is not going to help enrollment or student outcomes. Spending hundreds of thousands in bonuses and salaries for harmful administrators is not going to help enrollment or student outcomes. You know what would be money well spent? Libraries, which I'm sure you're sick of hearing about, but you continue to disregard their importance, further emphasizing your unsuitability for your position. You don't ask questions seeking to understand. You assume you know best to the vast detriment of our schools. I will never forgive you for the decimation of our campus.
We're planning on leaving our NES campus because NES sucks. But now we're terrified that with these asinine budget cuts we're planning, our non NES school choice will lose their library because very few campuses are supported by a wealthy enough PTO to sustain these budget deficits. I sincerely hope you all trip over a spin bike because I'll never forgive you the egregious waste of money on those either. At any point, you can course correct, but I doubt you will. I hope you wrong. Thank you. Brianna is on Borsen, please begin. Thank you.
I'm here to express deep concern over the decision to cut vital wraparound services within our schools, a move that significantly impacts our students' well-being and academic success. Currently, approximately eighty percent of HIC students are considered economically disadvantaged. These students often face challenges beyond the classroom, including food insecurity, housing instability, and limited access to medical and mental health care. Wraparound services have been instrumental in addressing these issues, providing essential support that enables students to focus on learning. We all know a hungry child doesn't learn well.
A child that doesn't know where they're staying tonight or when they might have clean clothes again is a distracted child in the classroom. Assuming these children and their families can make it to a Sunrise Center on their own is Assuming these children and their families can make it to a Sunrise Center on their own is misguided. Language barriers, distance, and potential work conflicts make these resources unattainable for the most vulnerable in our community. The consequences of these cuts are tangible. Chronic absenteeism has become a significant obstacle to student success, with many students missing 10% or more of the school year. Without adequate support, students facing personal hardships are more likely to disengage,
leading to lower academic performance and higher dropout rates. I urge the board to prioritize the restoration of wraparound services and divest for vanity projects such as HIC Now. The one thing Mike, Myles and I agree on is keeping our tax dollars as close to the classroom and students as possible. Investing in the whole child is essential for ensuring every child has the opportunity to succeed. Thank you. Thank you. No more speakers on Zoom. Okay. Has any other speakers come in or okay, great. That concludes our hearing of speakers' agenda items.
We'll now conduct the hearings scheduled for this meeting. Okay, our first hearing is a procedure to consider dispute resolution of Stacy Kapetsky, level three dispute hearing. Purpose of this mean, the hearing involves complaints against district employees are to be held in closed session unless the employee who is subject to the hearing request, request an open hearing. If both parties request an open session during the course of this hearing, the Board may go to closed session to consult with its attorney under the terms of Texas Government Code Section 551.071.
If any board member wishes to seek advice of counsel, please make the request to me. For the record, Hector Morales, with the Texas Support Personnel Employees Local one, representing Stacy Kapowski, and Stacy is present. Eliza Phillips with Monte Ramirez Law representing the administration is present and Katasha Woods, HISD General Counsel is also present. Mr. Morales, would you continue in open session or closed session?
Open session. Open session. Okay. The issues before the school board are whether board policies and administrative procedures are correctly applied to the agreement and whether the administration has violated these policies or procedures. Ms. Kapheski, since you asked for the board to hear this matter, your representative will proceed first. Mr. Morales, you will be allowed to make a ten minute presentation to the Board followed by a ten minute presentation by Ms. Phipps. Ms. Morales, you may reserve part of your ten minutes for rebuttal to matters presented by us FIPS.
You both sides will then be available for questions from the Board after each presentation. After deliberation, the Board will render its decision. Are there any questions about how this dispute resolution hearing will be conducted? Okay. Mr. Morales, how would you like to divide your time making your presentation to the Board? Six minutes and four minutes for rebuttal. Six minutes and four minutes. Okay, Mr. Niles, you may begin. Good afternoon, mister president, board members. We come here today to discuss an unjustly termination that occurred in the nutrition department.
I've always said and I've always argued in front of you when I've come in front of you to weigh in only the exhibits that were presented, only the transcripts that were presented to you. If you look at the exhibits, miss Kopeski worked for the nutrition department as a coordinator too for over fifteen years. The problem and the concern that arise is about a pay. She discussed her pay, follow this one if you could please, with her HR, with the director of operations, with the executive director, and also her senior executive director.
She followed the whole chain of command regarding her pay. That is the reason and that is the purpose that we're here. The administration and the district is trying to say that she was terminated for misconduct. But if you look at the exhibits and if you look at the testimony that was presented to you, nowhere does it say that misconduct was conducted. Prime example, if you look at exhibit b, which is a very important exhibit, four b, she was not terminated for misconduct with work.
Look at exhibit five. We did an open records request under the Texas open records request. All the documentation that we requested for whatever reason, the administration denied to give it to us. And it would show proof that miss Kopetsky followed every board policy that is outlined in HISD to show that she was doing her job the way she was entitled to do it. Secondly, if you look at exhibit 11, she met with mister Lewis to discuss her pay. He is the director of operations.
If you look at the other exhibit, she met with miss Betty Wiggins and miss Palmer, who is the HR and the senior executive director on 08/2824, again, to discuss her pay. And the purpose that she was going to discuss her pay is if you look at exhibit 11, which is a very important excuse me, exhibit 21, which is a very important exhibit. The purpose and the reason that she discussed her pay is there was an individual who just got promoted and was just recently in that row, making 20,000
a year, and then miraculously received a $65,000 increase, who just started working in that department. That is the reason she was questioning why she only received a $2,000 increase when the new employee who just started in that row with no experience came in from a cafeteria manager to a coordinator two received a $65,000 increase. I'm sure each and every one of you, if you were in your profession and you realize an employee that just started was
making less than you but received a $65,000 increase would raise a concern and would raise an issue. And that's what she did. DGBA local or policy states that employee has the right to raise a concern about their wages. So somehow the nutrition services cannot justify how my client only received a $2,000 increase, but the newly hired employee with no experience, no knowledge of that department, no knowledge of the work went from making 20,000
a year to a $65,000 increase. Now the administration is going to argue, well this took place and this took place. So you wanna recommend termination for misconduct about raising up a concern about her pay. And mind you, she followed the chain of command. She met with HR. She met with the director of operations. She met with the executive director, and she also met with the senior executive director. And she specifically stated, if I'm here to discuss about my pay and my concern,
would there be any retaliation taken against me? They specifically said absolutely not. Well, guess what happened a week later? She was called in to employee relations, said we're here to discuss some concerns. She answered them truthfully, and a few days later, she was recommended for termination. So my question to you, and I argue to you today, what board policy did she violate to warrant the termination? If it says under DGBA local that you can raise a concern regarding your salaries at any time. And the good thing is she followed the chain of command.
She didn't go outside of the scope. She didn't go way above. She went step by step by step. And that's what you need to look at, and that is what I ask you and I pray that you look at only to the exhibits that were presented to you and also the documents that were presented to you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Phipps. You may make your presentation to the board. Good afternoon board members. Thank you all for being here today. My name is Alicia Phipps, and I am with Monty Ramirez Law Firm, and I represent HISC in this Level three appeal.
I do have a presentation for you today, just to summarize and visualize our arguments today. If you just give me one moment. Okay, got it. We have heard today from Mr. Morales, Ms. Kopeski's representative, regarding why he believes she should be reinstated to her position as coordinator one. Yet, Ms. Kopeski has not and cannot meet her burden of establishing that the level one and the level two hearing officers decided incorrectly. Today, I will be telling you why both the level one and level two hearing officers
correctly decided to deny the grievance her request to be reinstated. There were no reversible errors made by either of the hearing officers for this grievance and I will explain why. This case is very simple. And is easily broken down into three key points. First, HISD rightfully terminated her employment for violating D. H. Local. Second, this was not her first violation of D. H. Local. And she was previously warned. Third, Ms. Kopeski was an at will employee in a non contract position as coordinator one.
Therefore, she could be terminated for any reason, or no reason. However, as I will discuss, HISD did have a good cause to terminate her. First, I will discuss the grievance violation of DH Local. The evidence is clear that Ms. Kopeski engaged in conduct that violated DH Local, which provides that every employee is responsible for relating to colleagues and supervisors with respect, courtesy, and in a professional manner. It also mandates that the workday be spent on work related activities rather than on personal business.
The level two record is clear. Ms. Kopetzky's actions around contacting coworkers during and after work hours created an uncomfortable and unprofessional work environment for her colleagues in violation of DH Local, which will be shown by statements that her colleagues submitted. From September 13 to September 16, Ms. Kopeski was Sorry, from September 13 to 09/16/2024, before Ms. Kopetzky was ever investigated by employee relations, several coordinator ones reported to their supervisors they were contacted multiple times and during work
hours to urge them to sign a petition regarding pay differentials and company vehicles, which was circulated by Ms. Kopcky, along with Mr. Ernan Ergo and Ms. Felicia Mays Corbin. That petition is available in the administration's exhibits, Exhibit 4. Fadoma Geiss was one of the coordinator ones who wrote her supervisor that the petition was attached and sent to Tasha Hicks on 08/29/2024. She stated in her email to her supervisors that I don't want to be pressured
into signing the petition. And she said that she felt pressured, and she was contacted multiple times about the petition. Karen Roberts named Ms. Kopeski as one of the driving coordinators out of a group of three that were contacting coordinators during the work hours multiple times. We also have statements available in administration's exhibits for Shelby DeWitt and Curtis Johnson. Both reported that they did not want to be involved in the petition and did not want to be put in the middle.
They had a desire to remain neutral. Ms. Kopetzky's involvement is clear from her colleagues identifying her, and from her email to Ms. Betty Wiggins, available at administration's Exhibit 9, in which she referenced a petition requesting higher pay, rental cars, and remote work options. She also signed the email on behalf of the coworkers as a whole, despite the fact that as you've seen by the statements, they did not all agree to be involved. Her email to Ms. Wiggins also referred to text messages between Ms. Kopeski, Ms.
Mayes Corbin, and others regarding the company car situation. And I have included on this slide, a snippet from the statement that she made. According to Director Keith Lewis, it was after Ms. Kymig and Ms. Minan, two of his reports, each had two of their reports, coordinator one's, complain about feeling pressured to sign the petition that Mr. Lewis decided he needed to have HR launch an investigation, this decision was driven by concerns over the comfort of the employees in the workplace, and integrity of the work culture. During the investigation, Ms.
Kopetzky admitted to Brianna Turner in employee relations that she, Mr. Ergo, and Ms. Mayes Corbin created the petition to encourage others to sign. And this is, on this slide is an excerpt from her statement. Second, I will talk about the grievance prior DH local violation and the warnings she received. On this slide you see, a prior letter of concern that she was issued on 10/05/2020. And the highlighted portions are the most relevant excerpts from her, the citation she received. Ms.
Kopetzky's DH local violation that immediately preceded her second violation of the same board policy. On 10/05/2020, Ms. Kopetzky's supervisor issued her a letter of concern for disrespectfully communicating with a colleague in violation of the same DH Local provision. Third, and finally, I will discuss the at will nature of Ms. Kopetzky's employment as a coordinator, one. Ms. Kopetzky was an at will employee in a non contract position as stated in her personnel file. And you can see on this slide,
this is a letter regarding her termination and she is identified as a non contract at will employee pursuant to DCD Local. And so pursuant to DCD local, she could be terminated for any reason or no reason. However, as I showed earlier, HISD did not terminate Ms. Kopecky for good cause, which was her violation of DH Local. Not once, but at least twice. She was warned that disciplinary action could follow, but still engaged in conduct that violated the policy. This is why HISD terminated her on 10/02/2024,
and Ms. Umbrella's arguments that she was unjustly terminated given the alleged misconduct of others is completely baseless and nothing more than a red herring to distract from the simple truth. The truth is that she broke board policy twice and was terminated for that. HISD did not need a reason to terminate her because of her at will status. But, HISD did provide a reason which is well documented and presented in the record before you today. As an overview, I have talked about why the Level one and Level two decision to deny reinstatement
must stand. One, I have discussed how her for good cause due to her violation of DH Local, and reviewed the evidence which proves this. Two, I have shown that she had a pattern of breaking the same rule and was worn previously by her supervisor. And, lastly, I have reiterated that Ms. Kopeski was an at will employee and therefore could be terminated for any legal reason or no reason. Yet the record before you proves HISD was justified in terminating her as a repeat violator of DH Local. Therefore, HISD respectfully requests that you uphold both the level one and level two decisions and
again deny the grievance reinstatement request. Thank you for hearing my presentation and I look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you. Miss Morales, you have four minutes remaining. Trying to be very professional and not get upset like I did last time. So my concern to you is when someone's fabricating something, I believe they should back it up. Prime example, the administration talks about the employees were being, for whatever, threatened by my client. But if you look at exhibit eight, which is a very important exhibit that she stated, Karen Roberts.
Let me read what she says. Three coordinators are Stacy Kapeski. I never spoke to her about a petition. These are the all the statements that were given by the administration from the employees that alleged that she was the corporate and she took place of what occurred. That's one statement right now. Exhibit eight. She stated that the employees were scared of miss Kopetzky. You have one employee on the record. She never spoke to miss Kapeske. If you look at exhibit seven,
again, this is the administration's exhibit again. Mister Curtis Johnson, I'll read what he says. I wrote his supervisor. I wasn't going to sign the petition because of how far I had come as a unified front. I talked to Hernan about the progress and changes that have been made already with coordinators. Again, nothing happens overnight. Never do they mention miss Kopaski's name at all. Let's look at miss Shelby DeWitt. Exhibit five. Rotor Zubair, please consider my desire to remain neutral with all the inform information above. I do not want to be put in the middle of anything.
That's exhibit five. Again, the administration's exhibit. Where does it mention miss Kopetzky's name? Nowhere. On any of the exhibits that the administration admitted to you. The administration has always argued that they're Agwell employees, and I'm always on the record. They're not slaves. Board policy says you have the right to file a grievance regarding your pay, unjustly terminated. I don't know why they continue arguing that that they're an at will employee. But under board policy, if an employee feels they were unjustly terminated, they have the right to file a grievance. If it has to do with pay,
they have the right to file agreements. And that's what miss Kopheski did. She exercised her rights under GGBA, and that is the purpose and the reason that we're here. The administration has not given you sufficient enough evidence to warrant the termination. I ask you please wait in only to the exhibit. Did what I just read to you doesn't implicate my client at all at all. And she said it did. But I just read to you the employee statements that the administration used as exhibits,
and it says one of them says, I never talked to miss Kopecky. One of them says, I never mentioned miss Kopecky. So how in the world can you uphold something that employees who entered as a statement and exhibits from the administration never implicate my client? I ask you to please, and I'm begging you to please weigh in only to the exhibits and the statements. The statements alone shows that my client didn't participate in this at all. Is there a witch hunt? Who knows?
But also consider the reason why she spoke out freely. An individual came in at 20,000 and jumped to 65. That's the reason she spoke out. That is the reason why she wants to be it correctly. In closing, I'm begging you and I'm asking you to weigh in on the statements and their exhibits that were presented to you today. Thank you for your time. Thank you. The parties have completed their presentations. It's now time for the Board members to make our decision on the issues before us. We must apply only the facts presented in the transcript to the applicable policy under
law and make a decision. If there's any dispute between Ms. Kopheski and the Administration as to what the policy or procedures mean, it is the Board's responsibility to determine the meaning or application of the policies and procedures. The record of Level two hearing must support any action we take that is if the record supports the position of the administration or the position of Ms. Kopetzky, we may find accordingly. Is there any discussion? Okay. Is there a need to go to closed session? Okay. I move that we deny all requests of relief not previously granted by the Level
two Hearing Officer and uphold the decision of the Level two Hearing Officer. Is there a second? We have a motion and a second. Members please vote. Motion passes five-four. Thank you. A letter of notifying both parties to action of this Board shall be prepared and signed by the Executive Director of the Board of Relations as soon as possible. This hearing is concluded at 01:50 P. M. Okay. We're going to take a quick recess. We're back in session at 01:52. Yes, I can. Go ahead. We're not back yet. Okay. We're back in session at 01:52PM.
Do we have the other group here? Hard to start if we don't have another party. Right? Agreement? Okay. Okay. Sorry. She was here earlier. I'm sorry. Don't mind Michael's on. Probably outside. She actually just walked out of the room, apparently. Okay, well, let's go ahead and we have some procedural things we have to do before we start, okay? The purpose of this meeting is to consider the dispute filed by, Terenes Shields, a Special Education Resource Development Chair at Briar Grove Elementary School. Complaints against the district employees are to be held in closed session unless employee who
is subject to the hearing requests an open hearing. If both parties request an open session during the course of this hearing, the board will go into closed session to consult with the attorney of the terms of the Texas Government Code Section 551.071. If any Board member wishes to seek advice from counsel, please make this request known to me. For the record, Ms. Shields is present. Corey Rush with Spaulding, Nicholls, Lampas, Lengos represents the administration as present. Katasha Woods, HSD general counsel is also, present. Miss Shields, do you wish you have an open or closed session?
I it can be open. It's fine. Open is open is what you choose, that's fine. Thank you. Okay. The issue before the school board is whether the board policy or administration and administration procedures are correctly applied to the grievance and whether the administration has violated those policies or procedures. Ms. Shields, since you asked to, ask the Board to hear this matter, you will proceed first. You'll be allowed to make a ten minute presentation to the Board followed by a ten minute presentation by Mr. Rush. Ms. Shields, you may reserve a part of your ten minutes for rebuttal to matters presented by
Mr. Rush. Both sides will be available for questions from the Board after the respective presentations. And after deliberation, the Board will render its decision. Are there any questions about how the dispute resolution hearing is going to be managed? You're good? Okay. Ms. Shields, how would you like to divide your time making a presentation, today to the board based on the transcript? So you're saying I can split it You can say you can You have ten minutes and you can split it between however you want and then, sort of make a rebuttal after I would love the opportunity to split it, yes. Great. So how would you like to split it then?
Three minutes first and the remainder of the time depends. Perfect. Three minutes to start and seven for the remainder. You may begin. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, Board. Thank you for having me here today. My name is Tori Den Shields. I am a, former employer or employee of HISD. I pulled the agenda last night, and I saw that I'm listed as employee. I suppose that's procedural because I was an employee when I filed the grievance in November of twenty twenty three.
I had the level one, hearing, at the November. I was dissatisfied with the response, so I requested level two. The level two hearing was in February 2024. I received a response from, the hearing officer on February 21. And everything from level two is in the transcript that you all should have received by now. And so I received a certified letter last week stating that we had all arguments
have to be, restricted to this transcript. So I'm gonna do the best that I can, to do so. Everything that I listed as a concern, that was in, this grievance that I filed, was valid. After the first, or the level one hearing, the hearing officer responded with moot for every single item that I requested resolve for. After the level two hearing, the hearing officer, accepted, the first and what really ended up being the bulk of my,
response, or rather my complaint involving another coworker that I was concerned about and the administrations, my campus administrations, what I thought was failure to respond to my concern. So I just want to, point out that, I didn't get the opportunity to have a rebuttal, in the level two hearing and, Attorney Rush, I believe, he commented about my including some students' names, within, documentation that I submitted for the grievance.
If by chance I happen to be, reprimanded for that, I do want to say that part of that information included, some sheets that I received from my, appraiser and the appraiser was the one who included suit Okay. That's that's your three minutes. Mr. Rush, you may make your presentation to the board based on the transcript. You may begin. Good afternoon, Mr. President and fellow Trustees. Suspect that after the three minute presentation, there may be some confusion as to what this, this matter is about.
There may even be confusion if you've gone through the level two transcript and the level two decision, and there may be confusion if you've gone all the way back to level one about what this case is about. I'll confess to you that I think of myself as a fairly reasonably smart person. I sat in level two, I argued level two, and I still, standing before you here today, can't tell you with the greatest certainty in the world what it were here complaining about. At level two, Ms. Shields was still an employee, so we were talking generally about some terms and conditions of her employment.
And she disagreed with some spot observations she had. For example, and some memoranda she received. So for example, there was a contention that Ms. Shields was upset that she received a reprimand on the third day of school, last school year for the twenty three-twenty four school year. Somehow making that as improper or some unfair surprise. But in the record, you can see it in front of you, there's a it's behind tab three on page 41, there's a text message conversation between the Briar Grove Elementary administration and the Shields showing
that the expectation district wide was that instruction started day one, and there weren't going to be excuses for that. So when instruction did not go forward on day one, Ms. Shields received a valid write up. There was no surprise from that. When this Sunday before school starts there's an actual in writing conversation saying, instruction starts day one. There's no confusion there. With spot observations you can look through this record and most of, they are behind tab three with the spot observations Ms.
Shields received while she was employed. There's a lot of through line consistencies about, issues that were going on in the classroom, such as not posting the, objective for the day on the board. That as long as I've worked, representing HISD, that's been an expectation that learning objectives are present in the classroom from, bell to bell. There's a failure to submit lesson plans on time and some allegation from the Shields that that was surprising that there was a deadline to submit lesson plans, but on page 40 of, behind tab three page 40,
is an excerpt from this campus's handbook last school year that dictates exactly when lesson plans are due. So when it comes to the job performance documentation, the level two record is very clear that Miss Shields was just held accountable as we would expect, I believe, at every one of our campuses that teachers are held accountable to do their job. All employees, not just teachers, are held accountable to do their jobs. So, but with Ms. Shields no longer being employed, I think that does largely, to steal a word from the lower decisions, largely moves that part of the grievance.
But just so the record is clear, I wanted to highlight a few of those things. The other thing we talked a lot about at the level two conference was the workload. And I believe that I said this at level two, and I'll say it now because it's a core truth for me. Teachers are the hardest working people on this planet, and have 90 jobs to one. Right? You know, that that's common. I wish it were different. We all wish it were different. And Miss Shields was also on top of that, the, department chair for special ed at the campus, and that comes with extra responsibilities,
not to mention that just being a special education teacher is a lot of work. There's so many requirements put on special education teachers with paperwork and with ARD meetings, and just all and helping most importantly our students who need the most help, their most vulnerable population we have. So of course, to to do anything other than acknowledge that working as a special education teacher in public education is is not a hard job would be foolish. It's a hard job with a lot of work. What I will say is that the record reflects,
that the administration was very supportive and attempted to aid Miss Shields and other special education professionals in getting the job done and getting it done on time. One thing about the IDEA and special education is that there are a lot of deadlines and those deadlines are very important. We have very little time to waste, and our meetings need to be efficient. And in order for ARD meetings to be efficient, there needs to be quite a bit of pre planning, so you're not walking in ice cold,
and you're not learning as you go, which could end up disrupting the process. But that's exactly what happened with miss Shields, is she came to at least one art meeting seemingly unprepared, left at some point, came back and started asking questions that the rest of the art committee had already moved on from. So the administration stepped in and this is, on page 66 behind tab three. This stepped in and advised miss Shields that, sure, this is a lot of work, but you need to do some pre pre planning, some pre preparation before our meetings to make sure that they go efficiently and gave
very detailed, thorough, and thoughtful instructions about how to accomplish that. And the campus also, out of their own budget last year, engaged a retiree hiree paraprofessional, that was not from the SPED budget, that was from the campus's budget, I believe I'm correct. In order to assist this assist that department in getting up to compliance with special education requirements as well as a paraprofessional from the special education department budget. So this was not a campus that was unsupportive of the special education department as a whole or miss Shields individually. Finally,
the big elephant in the room on this grievance is about this conversation that seemingly happened between miss Shields and one of her coworkers where miss Shields received and these text messages are throughout the record. They start on, page 12 and go for many pages thereafter behind tab three. Where Ms. Shields got these text messages and believed that her coworker might have been experiencing some sort of mental health episode or being in distress, out of respect for that person who was not here to talk for themselves,
I'm not gonna mention the name, I'm not gonna go into the details of what distress may have been present. The bottom line is, Ms. Shields did bring her concerns about this coworker to the attention of her administrators, and they did the only thing that the administration can do, can rationally do, can reasonably do, and can thoughtfully do, and that they did a welfare check. They called this particular employer, went to this particular employee, asked if she was doing okay. When she confirmed that everything's fine, that's they took her word for it.
That's all we can do, is make sure that our people are okay, offer help, offer offer support, offer services. That's what they did. And then they confirmed that we've reached out to this employee, confirmed that she's not having or is saying that she's not having, any sort of, distress. Is there anything else you need to tell us? And that's kind of where it stops. So I don't know what response Ms. Shields would have preferred in that situation. On a situation that's like, I understand that she seemingly was pulled into the middle of it,
but once she handed it off to the administration, frankly, that's no longer miss Shields' business. And once the administration checked on this employee and confirmed to their satisfaction that this employee was actually doing okay and did not need, any intervention, it was frankly none of HISD's business what this woman was going through anymore. So I don't really know what we're here to fight about. I do know that the level two, record is replete with information that supports that HISD did not violate any policies or procedures or law with regard to anything
having to do with miss Shields' employment last school year. And given miss Shields' ultimate termination from this district at the end of the school year last year, the requested remedies in this case are plainly moot. So with that in mind, I will hand back my about minute remaining and thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. Ms. Shields, you, now have seven minutes. Thank you. Thank you. So, I want to discuss some of the items that Attorney Rush mentioned. First, or delve in deeper to explain.
There was a retiree that was brought onto our campus, under the guise of helping me become more familiarized with the special education system. When she got there, it was not at the start of the school year. I'm sorry, let me back up a little. I was a new hire or return employee for HISD, in August of twenty twenty three. When I got to the campus, there were urgent arts that were necessary.
And the district had a strict mandate about those arts being held and completed before the first day of school. I had to go through two modules, two sets of modules in order to get certified to gain access to that special education system. And once I did, I had to pull student parents' name, contact them, schedule the meetings, send out the invitations to everyone, that would be a part of the IEP committee.
And, and then hold or prepare the paperwork beforehand. When the meetings were held, I had to facilitate the meetings as well as take minutes in the meeting. And so essentially, I received a write up, because after that initial set of urgent hours that had to be ready by day one, we had an additional three that had another deadline in the September. I, the first week of school, was the August.
I believe the start date was August 28 of that year. We went into the weekend, came back, at Tuesday after Labor Day, and I was presented with my first memo or write up. And this was in regards to, the the urgent hours and being compliant with dates and all of this. I had, shared with administration that I didn't know the system. They did hire someone who was supposed to come in. I wasn't as familiar with the system.
And that person, that retiree, was brought on at the September. Up until that time, I had sent the invitations, and served as Special Education Department Chair, and also serve as students to the best of my ability. Another, thing was, the reason why I have these two bins here. There was a lot of paperwork that carried over into my tenure when I arrived. And these are two bins that I walked into my room and found that had
zip ties to tie them down. And when I cut the zip ties, they were filled with safe folders of kids, paperwork. And I had a massive amount of load on me, yes. And I also believe that that is part of the exhibit that was, submitted in the level two hearing as well. You all will see folders and paperwork on a rug where I placed sticky notes with alphabets on them. And as I pulled papers out,
my attempt was to get them organized. We had students who no longer were in our district whose papers were inside of those bins. We also had students who were currently on our campus whose paperwork was inside of those bins. That was done before I got there. And so, needless to say, even though I saw this, I had or attempted to just take the deep breath, dive in, and try to get this done thinking I would have support enough from campus administration. The principal, Ms. Jones, seemingly,
was supportive. However, my appraiser at the time, Ms. Samuel, the assistant principal, was not. She began writing me up and also giving me low performance scores. What is not, what was not mentioned by Attorney Rush, those performance scores, or rather, I'm sorry, the first day of school, I received a text message the Sunday before after having talked with Ms. Seniou about the first week and how the first week was going to go, which would be my going around introducing myself to students,
and then going back to the my class to get everything organized. I received a text message from her after completing the urgent first day arts that Friday before the first day of school, I received a text message from her that Sunday, the day before school, in the afternoon, saying, Teaching will start from day one. So, after having talked with her, and having had an agreement with her that I would go and introduce myself to students, and then work to continue getting organized,
especially considering I was backed down and bought in a lot of arts that had to be done by day one. To get that text message, it was it was a shocker. It was upsetting, disappointing. And so needless to say, I showed up day one, and I continued even throughout all of the attempts. Thank you. Parties, are there any questions for colleagues? I've got one question. Ma'am, are those documents, these two bins, are those your exhibits?
Are those are the those are student records? Okay. Okay. These are empty. Okay, thank you. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, the parties have completed their presentations and it's now time for the Board to make our decision on the issues before us, we must apply only the facts presented in the transcript to the applicable policy or law and make a decision. If there is any dispute between Ms. Shields and the administration as to what the policies and or procedures mean, then it's the Board's responsibility to determine the meaning or application of the policies and
procedures. The record of the Level two hearings must support any action we take that is if the record supports the position of administration or the position of Ms. Shields, we may find accordingly. Is there any discussion? Anybody need to close the session? Okay. And do I have a motion? I have a motion and a second. Members please vote. Well, you need me to state it. I'm sorry? Yeah, go ahead. I move that we deny all requested relief not previously granted by the Level two Hearing Officer and uphold the decision of the Level two Hearing Officer. Okay, we have a motion and a second.
Please vote. Voting is closed and the motion passes. The board, at this point has voted and we will be sending a letter notifying both parties of action of the Board and shall be and the action of the Board shall be prepared and signed by Executive Director of Board of Relations as soon as possible. This hearing is concluded at 02:19PM. Thank you. Okay. Board members, we're now going to address one item on our business agenda. Do I have a motion to approve item four, authorization to negotiate and execute interlocal venue rental agreements with governmental entities and Texas public
institutions or higher education? We have a motion. Can I? And a second? Any questions or comments? Can I have a second? Sure. No. I just wanted to. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Let's please vote. Motion passes. Okay, we are now going to take a brief, break. We will reconvene at, I think we're taking a fifteen minute break, correct? Okay. So we will reconvene at, let's do it at, what would that be like? Let's try like 02:40, I could even okay?
Thank you. We stand adjourned. This meeting is reconvened at 02:42PM. We will now address our workshop topic, the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six District Budget. Superintendent Miles, you have the floor. Okay. Mister president, members of the board, we're here to talk about, the budget, and this is the third workshop. I will do a presentation first, if you don't mind and then when we get to questions, as I need to call staff forward, we'll call them forward and they can address the Board from either these chairs of the podium. So as you know, we've, done a couple already.
This time, we're gonna be looking at just a broad overview of the department budgets, the school budgets, the NES budget, and then some legislative updates. Keep in mind that the workshops at this point in the year are an overview. They are draft, and they will continue to change as we said back in January or February when we did the methodologies and assumption report, they'll change mostly for two reasons. One, we don't have, finality on the legislative allocations.
So the revenue side changes. And when the revenue side changes, that changes what we have to cut or expand. So we're in draft and that's what this presentation is also, it's a draft of the budget. Super tentative, can you explain that a little bit in terms of so, once the legislature puts in the let's say it's the final number signed then we'll adjust the budgets to include that. So if the average allotment goes up by X then that allotment will flow through the schools? Yes sir. So,
for example, the one you just intimated was the basic allotment. That impacts the PUA. And so the board will recall that last first of all, in the budget methodology and assumptions report that we did in February, we had to take a guess at what that might be. And we said it would be around 200 our estimation was $250 increase per student for the basic allotment. And so that is in the house in the senate now, having passed the house, house bill two.
So looks like we're gonna get better than that. And then at the in a, three weeks ago, based on that assumption or the likelihood of passage, we increased the school's PUA by two fifty dollars per student. If we get more money then we can increase it even more. If but yeah, dollars 75 per student because if the basic allotment goes up $250 then that equates to $75 per student for the school budgets. If the legislature comes out with more,
which is possible, not likely, but possible, we'll increase that even further. If they decrease it below $2.50, for the district, then most likely we'll have to decrease the PUA amount. That's also unlikely, but that's that's how it impacts. So that's why this is draft, for almost every part of the budget. Alright. So here we are. This is the third workshop. You see what we're doing there, and you can see what we did last time and then what we'll be doing next time. The high level budget, which Jim is Jim and team are working on,
won't be done until June. But, I mean, the budget won't be done until June, but we will give the board a high level budget next time. And there's there's a timeline as you see. So by state law, the board, needs to pass a budget, in June before the new fiscal year. Our goals are still the same. We're supporting transformation budget to follow actions. So you had a briefing on action planning, and so we'd stay true to that. And then also as the board has been concerned about ever since last year, we need to make sure our budget is sustainable. As part of that sustainability,
we told the board, we will try to have a balanced budget either this year or next year, and we're gonna stay true to that. Which meant last year, we had to cut a whole bunch of positions and a lot of purchase services even to get to the deficit that we have. We'll most likely be similarly, making some cuts either to, positions or and and, contract or purchase services for this for this next year. We will continue to keep cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, so you won't see a huge increase in class size,
for example. You won't see a lot of decrease to, the number of teachers except as it relates to enrollment and things like that. We will prioritize resources as always when we have scarce resources, and we will keep in mind this notion of long term financial stability sustainability. Alright. So let's talk first about central or office, budgets or department budgets. Again, I I'll I'll say maybe three more times throughout this presentation. These are draft. But you see the budgets there on the left that they currently have budgeted.
For example, facilities and operations, a hundred and $8,000,000. You can see also that almost every department is being cut. I, talked about since February, '30 million dollars worth of cuts from central office. It might have to be a little bit more, might have to be a little bit less. We'll see what the legislature comes in at. But you can see that every department is being reduced. Now, given the size of the budget, the reduction is fairly small relative to the size of their current budget and also
relative to the cuts that we had to do a year ago. And then on the change, you can see the change from the two budgets, the first column of, fiscal year twenty five versus the second to last column of fiscal year twenty six. We pay particular attention to the k. That's thousands of dollars versus million. We didn't want you to miss that. You you see what I mean? So it police is not being reduced $17,000,000 to $17,000. A huge difference. And then this is the rest of the team.
Same, same story. So almost every budget is cut. Chief of staff is a little bit different because we're doing the data integration team. All total, again, draft is on the right hand side down at the bottom is $24,900,000 almost $25,000,000 And remember, we're not done. We, we we wanted to get to 30 and, you know, probably be a little bit more than that. Again, it all depends on the legislature, but, we're still working on department budgets as we speak. But this gives you the an idea of the scale.
And the scale is not like last year. I'd, remind the board that a year ago, we cut almost 1,400 central office positions. This year, you look at the numbers here, again, this this is gonna change. So, I just wanna note that, but it shows you the scale is much larger. Down at the bottom line there, you'd see the hundred and three. Those are hundred and three cuts to central office staff. So while that might be larger, it'll be nowhere close to what we did a year ago. Sir, I'm done with this part of the departments.
Maybe I should take questions or I can keep going. Sure. Board members, any questions? I have a question. On the chief of school's office, that seems to be the largest percentage change. Can you just tell us what's what's going on there generally? Just high level. Yes. So, in this I've talked to a couple of Board members about or talked to the Board before about data integration team. So, we're at that point in the district, it's been two years now, where we've gotten the departments fairly strong, we've got some ways to go to make sure the processes
are squared away in each department. Now we have to definitely align cross functionally. We've started that, but now we're at a point where we can do that in earnest. And so the data integration team is a data integration and alignment team to make sure that we're working cross functionally aligned and that our business rules are in place and the service level agreements are in place and that cuts across all departments. Hence, the increase in the Chief of Staff's office meaning that Chief of Staff Monica Zoralevskiy will oversee that data integration team,
that's what that reflects. I'm sorry, I may not have said this right. I was asking about the Chief of Schools office the decline of almost 10,000,000. Yes. So the Chief of Schools is losing, dollars 9,800,000.0 and the reason is, while we cut 800 teacher positions a year ago because of decline enrollment and because there wasn't a cut during the ESSER funded years, we still didn't cut the Chief of Schools central staff. So the divisions were staffed at a higher rate than usual because of the number of positions there were,
even though the enrollment had gone down. So, knowing that we had to cut central office, we also cut the the the staffs at the division level, which falls under chief of schools. That's what that is. Okay. Just a quick follow-up. So then when we look at the next page, which is the one on the FTE, is that is that accounted by for by the 49 people? Okay. Got it. Thank you. Go ahead. Thanks, Mike. To to make sure I understand, what expectation could we, should we have around the point that this is a draft. Right?
And that depending on the direction of the legislature's decisions, later this year, this will change. But but in what way can we expect these changes? In other words, is it a percentage up or down, or are there certain programs or teams that would significantly change based on on those numbers changing? Yeah. Thanks for asking. It gives me a chance to clarify a little bit. So, the departments have turned in their budgets, but it's an iterative process. Meaning, we're looking at the department budgets, we're looking at the district budget and what we're getting in and we're looking closely
at whether we have to cut some of the positions or services. And that's iterative and what we ask the departments to do is turn in a sixtytwentytwenty budget and by that they have already prioritized 60 the top 60% of their budget is things that they absolutely need to get their job done and meet the goals of the district that had been set. The next 20% is something that if we were to cut would significantly, they would still be able to get work done but not to the level that
we need when you're in a high performance culture. The last 20% and we know we're forcing it, the last 20% is if we need to find more money to balance the budget or to get close to a balanced budget, we're going to be looking closely at that bottom 20%, not the whole 20% but things item line items within that bottom 20%. And so in that way, we're able to say look, I'm making this up, the legislature didn't come through, we still need $10,000,000 and so we're going to look across these bottom 20% to find $10,000,000
The other thing is right now the various departments went through a version of modified zero based budgeting last year. They're doing the same thing this year. What that means is some functions, some departments, some sections, lose in priority versus what we're actually trying to do. So for example, you can't cut curriculum that much because we're still trying to improve our curriculum and add more, subject matters that fall into the curriculum. So that's not a department you can cut,
but there may be another section that doesn't have quite the same priority and that might be cut. So, the scale is about this. You're you're gonna see you'll see more cuts or in either people or programs, but it won't be, I don't wanna give you a number because that that'll tire our hands. But it won't be near the scale that was last year. Everybody good? Okay. Go ahead. Thanks. Alright. And and again, we're gonna talk more about the the overall budget, next time. So we'll have more opportunities to ask questions about.
I know, right now the schools are dealing with their own budgets. School budgets are due April 28. So I wanna talk a little bit about that. You've gotten, some of the spreadsheets that show what every school is, dealing with, the PUA schools. And so this is you've seen this slide before, this is a quick overview. In twenty three-twenty four we held harmless. There was no time, we just, the budgets were actually already set, when my team got here. So that was held harmless. This current year, which is 2024,
'20 '20 '5, middle column there, we eliminated hold harmless and we we went with the the way budgets are done, POA times ADA times enrollment. The difference, this year, this current year is we capped the loss, if there was a loss, at, 12%. And then just like always, we trued up. We we do a true up in, late October after the team's report. So that was this current year. This next year for the schools, as we talked about last time,
we multiply PUA and we didn't change the PUA times enrollment, projected enrollment times ADA. And then we will true up what we and then we're we're if you lose money, we give you 10% of that loss, that difference. So we add back only 10%. And, of course, we will true up in October again. And there have been a few schools that have come and asked, hey. We disagree with the enrollment number. We think that's a little bit too high. We make a good estimation and then we we meet them halfway or something like
that so that we give them the money upfront even though the projection let's just say the projection is a hundred kid loss, so we we may have changed that to 50. And then if it comes out that is a hundred student loss, we will true up in late October. You follow me? So schools would rather have the money upfront and then lose money in October, you know, second half of the year than for us not to give them that money so they don't have to true up. You follow me? So,
anyway, so we're helping all the schools, but we will true up in in late October. Again, this is this is how it's calculated. And by the way, this is how we get the money. It's a projected enrollment or it's actually the actual enrollment. We get there is a projection. Then actual enrollment times ADA times, PUA. And in this case, we added, remember, $75. So that's the top line. The $24 -twenty 5 allocation this year minus what is going to happen next year is a reduction. We take that reduction and multiply it by 10%,
we add it back into the allocation. So, you you all have this list for every school, every PUA school. And so I just wanna go over four examples quickly. Number the first example is Field Elementary School. They actually have increased projected enrollment. And so you can see that that third column there is 37. That's the increase, the change in enrollment. So they're adding 37 kids. Their ADA is good, by the way. It's 96.2. That's average daily attendance.
That's that's good. That helps them get more money. So their PUA from 2425, you can see there's, $5,344. And so their allocation for the 2526 school year is 2,800,000.0. That's an increase of $255,000 They don't have a 10% add back because they didn't lose any kids. Or they're they didn't lose any budget rather. Alright. So that's example a. That's an easy example because you increase enrollment.
This one is This one is the, similar enrollment. So here you have a loss of one kid, so that's similar enrollment. This is Bastian Elementary School, by the way. So you can see their ADA, by the way, is low, 91.7. So their budget this current year was almost 3,000,002.9. You see that? So the PUA will change, right? So we added $75 to their last p last year's PUA. That's what that 5,049 is. So that's $75 more than last year.
And then times the, 88 and projected enrollment gives you 2.939. So hardly any change at all. And then there you can see their total allocation. Again, we didn't have to add back any money because they didn't lose any money. Now this is, Westbrier. This is a decrease that's, in this case, less than a hundred $50,000. So in this case, the school lost 42 students. Their ADA is, average, but their, so their budget this current year is $4,875,000 Their PUA for this next year is going to be $75 more than what it
was last year. So it is now $5.02 $7.01. You multiply that PUA times their projected enrollment times their, ADA, you get, 4,731,000.000, which is a hundred and $43,000 less. Because the budget is less, we add back 10%. So we add back 14,000, and that gives you the total allocation of 4.745. So that's what is that? That's, a hundred and $25,000, something somewhere around there.
Hundred and $30,000. So a hundred and $30,000 is what they're losing. They have 952, students. So, that's not I mean, schools will think any dollars a lot, but a hundred and $30 with a school with a thousand kids is not that much. They'll be able to figure that out. And then the last example is, the 16 schools that have lost more than $250,000 out of 200 or out of the all the PUA schools, sixteen, nine of which are elementary. In this case,
it's a Herrera Elementary School. Six hundred eighty seven projected enrollment, that's a decrease of 35. And then the ADA is 93.6. But the ADA last year was 94.5 or yeah. 94.7. So they lost no. Ninety ninety four point five. They lost almost a full percentage point. So, 80 remember, the the total budget there is the new PUA, which is 5,086 times the enrollment times the ADA,
which gives 3,270,000, which is $301 short or not short, different from the year before. We add back 10% of the loss and that gives them $3,300,000 So they're $270,000 off their budget from a year ago. And we have 16 schools in this category. So, I mean, you can go through the the whole spreadsheet. We are working with a handful of schools that are, struggling to to make ends meet,
so to speak. And the the the finance department is helping them with that. Same with the chief of schools office, they're helping to see if they can do it. And I'm not talking about the small schools. I'm gonna talk about that in a minute. But there's some other schools that, are having a hard time making ends meet with some of the cuts. So we're looking at that. A lot of it has to do with enrollment. So we talked about a school today. They're losing a hundred and some kids. So we're gonna we're gonna project only 50 kid loss. And so we'll let them do what they can do with only 50 kids lost,
and then we will true up in October. Do you follow me? So that helps them, yeah, with their budgeting process. Alright. And then finally, small schools. There's a small school subsidy that hasn't changed, but I'm talking about other schools that are not small by design, but are so small like the 220 kids or 96 kids. It's almost impossible to to make ends meet when you have so few kids. So we are working to help them. We're not gonna run a school and then not support it to make sure that
it's successful. So these are the small schools, for example, in the, elementary orbit. So Briscoe, we probably will have to help even though they they'll they're projected to increase enrollment by 19, but they're still under 200. So we will probably have to subsidize that school. Meaning, we will for example, we we probably will give them an AP, or we will give them another teacher, or something like that so that they can hold all the classes. That's what that's what we'll do for Briscoe. Every school is a little bit different, so I don't wanna say exactly what we're gonna do for each school,
but, we will take a look and make sure that they can run a good school anyway, even if we have to subsidize that. These are the middle schools. Keep in mind that, some of these schools are in in fact, most of them are small by design, So we want to be careful and they've been supported and they still get the small school subsidy. So we're not just going to jump at and say, what do you want and we'll just give it to you. We're going to look at each program specifically. And if they need more money, then we will look closely at it and make sure they can run a good
program at each of these schools. 300 I'm not too worried about schools with over 350 kids, but even those schools may may need some help. And you can see that it's not really about enrollment because enrollment is not decreasing that much, except for the high school ahead academy, but that's a different beast. And so that is, again, small by design, and we will support it to make sure it can function well. And these are your high schools and you can look at these the same thing. Most of these are small by design, they probably will not need help but,
we're looking closely at each one of them. We'll be talking to the, the division chiefs and the principals to see if they need any help. Again, it's it's not a matter of enrollment. There's only two up there that are losing twenty one and twenty three schools. The rest are less fewer than 20 kids. So, most of these are small by design. I'll stop there. Questions about the school budgets? Questions? Thank you, superintendent. A lot of information, first of all, to digest. Thank you for this. You mentioned small school subsidies. Can you remind me what that amount is?
Do Do you guys have that amount in your head? So it's not a safe set rate. It varies by school. And what what do you what do you look for when you determine that formula? What what is what information are you gathering at that time? And does it does the allocation that you the formula that you, shared, does that include this small school subsidies? Can you guys But the vaccine in 2023 when these, all the way It's locked in the PUA. Yeah. In addition to. Okay. I think you have Alex right behind you. Okay. That's okay. I I heard you. Did everybody hear him? And and can we get another handheld out here,
guys? So, again, so it's it varies by school. You have a discussion, not a set formula. At at some point, superintendent, it might I I would like to see what the small schools are because you did mention that there's by design. Right? And so I don't want well, actually, I don't want any schools to suffer, but I I get it. But, but those are by design. We need to make sure we're supporting them. Right? Yes, sir. So what I was saying earlier, every school on that list, we'll we'll look at closely to see if they need help financially, and we'll make sure that they can run their programs and the actual design of
the school with money. And I've you know, we made a commitment not to close any schools this coming year. So, not going to let, you know, some of the smaller schools that aren't suffering because of programs, but suffering because of just low enrollment, not to be able to run an effective school. So, that's where the subsidy comes in. What Jim was saying earlier is that the PUA amount included the small school subsidies from the past, and we didn't change the PUA amount. But despite that, this year and next year, when a school says they don't have enough money I'm trying to think I'm pretty
sure it's Pleasantville and Port Houston where we added to their budgets anyway, even this year, to make sure that they could run the program they're supposed to run, or run a school effectively. And so, we'll do the same thing. And if a school isn't on this list and that for some reason feels like they can't get it done, then we'll look closely at that. I mean, it's not just formulaic. I mean, I know several schools I went to this year where I thought they should have an additional AP. Because to run a school even under 300 that doesn't have an AP,
even though you should budget for that, But if they didn't feel that they had the money to do it, I insisted that they put an APV there or at least a principal apprentice. And so, that's the kind of support we're going to give regardless. Yeah. And I think that's good to hear, because to your point, some of the feedback at least from I go back to the high school senior engagement but this was last year as well. Some of the things that they were missing for some of these specialty schools were like more counselors because they had to share counselors and that may not change but but it's important to know that that is important for those particular campuses. I wanna go to,
I don't know if you have this document. It was actually the document that, we it was shared with us with regard to, let me see, curriculum for PUA. It does say that, for all PUA campuses, HIS curriculum I'm sorry. Let me go back there. The central office will fund core curriculum. So does that mean that even non HISD they're going to fund non HISD created curriculum, central office will still fund that? So there are, there's a list of three curriculum in Language Arts, Math and Science. And Social Studies. And Social I'm looking at Kristen. Can you come up here just in case I have questions for you?
And if they select one of those, those are vetted, then we pay for it. But if you have another curriculum that and if you're at defined autonomy three four and three, and you have a curriculum that you purchased that you want Singapore Math because you've always been using Singapore Math, then you have to buy Singapore Math. Okay. Is that did I get that right? That's correct. We essentially fund anything on the approved list. And that's that's I think that's the list that we kind of approved at the beginning of school year, right? The high quality instruction materials, I think. It's on that list.
Okay. Alright. Perfect. And then, and again, I always wanna go back to board. Right? So outcomes. How does it impact outcomes? Before, one of the it says supplemental curriculum and digital resource. I know we've talked about this. What it would be nice for me to see is perhaps resources that were Once, provided by central office or by the district administration to schools that are no longer going to be paid for by the school. So I think about this. It says central office will fund the following supplemental resources, and it talks about zero and math, RLA, submit K through 12, but it references only for NES campuses and PUA special focuses.
So what options with those schools? One is how does that tie to outcomes? I can from experience, I can see where Zearn, my kids use it. So it has helped them, but they're not in any school, not PA specialty focused school. So for those schools that will not receive these resources what options do they have and how do we make sure that they're still obtaining those outcomes that we want to obtain? Yes, so far, we are getting the outcomes we need for PUA. Yes. It has improved. But there's a fine balance between defined autonomy and resources.
Meaning this and we're not charter, but if you were a charter school and have ultimate autonomy, then you pay for everything and you have your own program and you figure out a way to get the outcomes you need. We are giving X amount of autonomy and so, to the PUA schools, especially if you're autonomy four and three, and you put your own budget together. And you make the choices to try to get the outcomes you want. Because, yes, we want outcomes, but we're giving you the autonomy to pick your resources.
So, the answer is if you want Zearn, then you need to pay for Zearn. And that means you don't have something else that you want. And you don't but you don't have to follow the curriculum. If you want if you don't want to follow a free curriculum, then you pay for the curriculum and things like that. So, you could choose to have a free curriculum that we pay for and then pay for Zearn, or you can choose not to have a free curriculum and then don't pay for Zearn, or things like that. So, it's choices that principals make. And we will keep striking that balance between,
you get to run your school, and running your school a certain way costs X amount of dollars. Okay. Go ahead. All right. The last thing is the NES campus budgets. So, right now, I'll come back to that slide. What we do in the NES orbit is we have a pretty defined staffing model. Teachers, learning coaches, apprentices, There's not a lot of extra programming, except for the programs that have already been there, the magnet programming. And, there's not a lot of extra staff. They're very slim. The money comes in on the right hand side there where you see centrally funded.
The biggest dollar amounts are the teacher apprentices and the learning coaches. There is one teacher apprentice for every 100 kids, and one learning coach for every 100 students. And so that you can just kind of estimate a school with 500 students is going to have 10 additional adults running around. And that's where that's the difference in the two. So we are right now in the process of doing what we call the crosswalk. We also look at projected enrollment. We also look at ADA. We look at all of that and then we determine how many kids or how many staff members you should have based on that number.
And then after we get that number and we know the real enrollment, that's when we or we know the projected enrollment, that's when we hire teacher apprentices and learning coaches. We do a true up in the fall or sometimes as early as September. If a hundred kids didn't come, let's just say, then you're going to lose a learning coach and you're going to lose an apprentice. And that happens early on in the year. So, there's a true up process there as well, but their budgets are easier in the sense that it's a pretty set template.
You use the HSC curriculum, which is doesn't cost anything at the school level. You get apprentices, you get it's all formulaic. So, that's how we know what the budget will be for NES. And we're going through that process now. Questions on the NES budgets? I have a question. I just want to make sure I'm following. On teacher apprentices, I think you said one per hundred students, and then the same is true for learning coaches? Correct. And then, how about teachers? What is the ratio? We shoot for one to 25. I'm looking at any difference there?
Nina, Chris, and Sandy? One to 25? Right. One to 25 for teachers. And then, okay. So in the administration, what's the So administration, I it depends. So in middle school, almost always there's one per grade. And then for others, I think it's one to 400. You guys have Monica? Okay. Thank you. And, I mean, you don't that is not a question that has to be answered right this second. But, I mean, if you've got it, we'll take it. If not, we can take it later. Four staffing ratios. So for middle schools, the assistant principal's one to 200.
We do a minimum of three. So one per grade level. Counselors are one to 400. And then in high school, APs, we do one to 200 with a minimum of four following that same rationale of one per each grade. And then counselors, we do one to 300 with a minimum of four. And we include a lead counselor in that for the high schools. We can send this to you as well. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. I have one question. Go ahead. Okay, see. Thank you for the information, Superintendent. Back in I was trying to pull up on my computer back in,
I think it was February, we got budget assumptions. Mhmm. And we were I have a question around enrollment. I think we were projecting well, let me ask you. What are we projecting as far as, enrollment declines? Is it 6,000, guys? 6,800. 60 eight hundred. Okay. So, I don't see it right now. I thought it was higher than that. So 6,800. Okay. And then the the PUA number was around a little less than 1,500 based on what you sent us. So the balance of that, would be the NES schools. I'm assuming. Right? Okay. So, for that then,
what are we does the small school subsidy also apply to NES schools or is just that something for PUA because we're setting the budget for NES schools differently? We're setting it differently, but it they will be subsidized. The small schools also will be subsidized. For example, you heard one to 200 for APs or two fifty. And even if it's a small school in NES, it most likely will get either, AP or a principal apprentice. Okay. Okay. So, things like that. And they will still get a nurse,
or share a nurse with another small school that's close by, things like that. Okay. Okay, thank you. And do we have a do we have and so we're calling a small school three four hundred and below? Is that what it is below, 400? So, in elementary, yes. And for middle school, I think it's 800. And then for high school, it's no, middle school is 600 and high school is 800. Okay. Thank you for that. But keep in mind, regardless of that, if they're struggling because of, let's say, they're you know, $3.20,
we will still entertain to see if they can we can still run a good school. Got it. Okay. Thank you for that. I wanted to go back. I was trying to, hop in after Rolando. The term special focus schools, I've heard special and unique schools, I've heard magnet schools, we've heard please define special focus schools. Special focus schools are the 25 PUA schools that had the lowest scores on accountability. Two of them have Fs and the rest have low D or a D
rating or low C. But there are differences for why they have that accountability rating. And so those are the is it 25 or 24? So the 24 special focus goals are the non NES goals that are C, D, or F. And that was mainly because, well, we should do it anyway, but the board, multiple times in board meetings last year, made a big push to what are we doing to support PUA schools? We're doing all this for NES.
What are we doing for PUA? We wanted to make sure that those CDF schools did not drop. So we put a lot of extra effort with support, leadership development, taking them to other schools to see what other principals are doing so that those special focused schools could improve. Is it all C campuses? C, D, and F, right? Okay. I'm just asking if it's all C. PUAs, schools with a C. If they have a C, they're a special focus. Okay. I thought I heard low C. So, C. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Thank you for that. And then a question back on the curriculum. How many schools do we anticipate will be purchasing their own curriculum? I mean, if we have a list of high quality instruction curriculums then because we're talking about it like there are some schools that want to purchase or they will be purchasing their own. Kristen, do you have that number? I can while she's coming up here, they, most of the schools, overwhelming majority, will either will use HISD curriculum and then most of the others are using Amplify
or the approved vendors. Do you have an idea of how many are using that will be paying for their own curriculum? It's going to vary by content and sometimes even grades, so we can very easily just pull a report for you from that lens. But I believe the report was 83% in some way where we're using HISD curriculum. So that gives you a little bit of a sense of that. But those that's 83% of all schools, not just PUA. So that would be NES plus PUA. And the latest principal survey had 95%. We'll use it next year. But again, it'll vary by course and subject,
so we can pull that for you as a data pull. Okay. I think that's all for now. Thank you so much. Anybody else? Good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation. And, I have a, I guess, a couple of little follow ups. Some of the question is regarding kind of the big picture because I was trying to put everything together and sort of amalgamate, like, what is our total, budget that we're going to see reductions. So one of the things I see just at the big picture is we got 25 coming from Central, eight coming from PUA,
something coming from NES, but I don't know what. When we added all a lot, can you just sort of paint that picture, at a at a high level? For the total budget? So the total budget is, varies little based on the school budgets. Do you guys have an idea as far as the savings or cuts from the schools? Yeah. You have to understand that, you know, what the total budget is is really dependent upon where our revenue stream is, coming in from the state and other sources like I don't want to get too
technical, but the state also forces us down in terms of our tax rate. And so that means less money coming in. And remember, we also have a decline in enrollment, which is one of our major drivers for how much revenue we're gonna see. So, but, you know, as I say, we we are at a very high level, and we're not locked in yet. And, you know, it is now just the April, and, in May is by the May, we'll have a pretty good lock in number.
I wish I could say, you know, exact number at this point, but it's, you know, legislative here. Yeah. Yeah. Big picture we have reductions in, the teaching force and the school side as you saw from, chief of school's office, you have reductions there for the number of teachers based on enrollment. If we lose 6,000 students, that means we're going to lose teacher positions. That's what this crosswalk is about. So you're going to have some teacher positions moved out and some chief of school's
office moved out. So, that's one portion. And again, that will vary a little bit by enrollment. What's happening with the PUA budgets right now, if their enrollment goes down, as you saw a couple of examples, more often than not that means a teacher position or maybe two teacher positions in a PUA school losing enrollment. And because that's where the biggest part of the money is, is in salaries. Having said that, most of the money that will be cutting from expenditure side will come from central office expenditures.
So either in programs, purchase services or people. So we're going to be losing quite a bit on that side. And now, we right sized quite a bit. We're not done with that. So we're going to lose people on that side as well. So, the combination between central office expenditures and then the decrease in staff as a result of enrollment. And most of that is in the NES side. Got it. Got it. Yes, and that helps somewhat. It will be good like as we continue to hone our math there that we
just continue to help think that bigger picture. It will be helpful for me. The other aspect of what I was considering was around so we've got a lot of services that we do at the central office. And, so it's an extensive list there. As we go forward, and perhaps there has already been a study of some sort, but alignment with the outcomes that we're trying to achieve, and the objectives that we've laid out in 02/1935, etcetera, it will be helpful if we had a bit of a crosswalk there as well,
that just shows like, okay, here are all the things we're doing. This is why they're there and how effective they are and what they're supposed to do and how we're measuring them for success. And perhaps, you've done some of that already partially or in full. I mean, it'd be helpful if you just shared a little bit of your thought process there. We can do more, but essentially, this is how we get the outcomes we need. The outcomes that we have, the board goals, and the outcomes to get out of intervention status are around student achievement.
And so the whole organization is tied to getting the outcomes and supporting the schools. So, the metrics, you can't tie a metric in the groundskeeping to an achievement, but you can tie that metric around the support of the schools. And you can tie the metrics around transportation to the support of the schools and getting the kids to school on time. Having a crosswalk with how they get the ultimate goal achievement, is probably not going to be a reliable study. Still, we are in the process
We've done a good job with department goals, but now we have to do goals for individual people within the department, and that's happening. That's also part of our data work. Thank you. Can I ask a question about enrollment since that's what defines our budget so much? I'm trying to understand it. I think you said that we're working towards 6,800 as an estimate of loss of total enrollment. Is that right? That's correct. And why it's varying a little bit, it's the individual schools that come back to us.
We have, we employed a demographer this year who has, many, many years of school experience behind her. And she has given us the original, which you all saw. But as we work through the budget, you know, we talk about programs and needs and then their input, we make little adjustments. So and I think the original number that was one of the assumptions was about 8,000. So it sounds like that's come down by about 1,200 just right now. Is that that's a that's still a work in progress, I take it? Yes.
And so you're But we're pretty close. Okay. And, the just, what miss Bandy said a moment ago, the the PUA when we got the chart, it looked like it was a decline in about 1,400 total students. Is that that's based on the demographer plus input from the principals? Yes. Most of the decline was in NES schools, not the BUAs. Do we have any clarity with regards to the NES schools, whether that's primarily in the older grades, younger grades? Is it driven by demographics and what's going on?
It's driven by demographics and I think her comment to me was, I can't believe how many babies are being born. So, but we can break it down where the numbers are coming from. Because I think last year, the enrollment declines we saw were were larger in the middle and high schools than in the elementaries. And so I'm just wondering if that if we're seeing that trend continue or not. I haven't looked at that, but I will provide that, for you. I can tell you over the last,
four years with our current projections, we're down about 17,000 kids. Thank you. I have one follow-up. Go ahead. We mentioned, actually special focus schools. I know, do special focus schools, can they come off being considered special focus schools after a certain I don't think we talked about that piece before. So let's say, for example, this year they become an A school. Does that mean that their budget now moves differently? How does that work? So the no. The PUA budgets for the special focus schools follows the same methodology. What we do though is on top of that,
we'll add supports if we see that it needs support. And so they have more supports, but they also have more monitoring and more guidance on how to improve schools. So coming off isn't there's still PUA, they still have a certain level of autonomy. We haven't changed their staffing model, things like that. At the same time, we're providing supports. So, if they still need the support, we'll continue to provide the support and there'll be a special focus school. But we're going to for example,
we're going to wait to see what happens at the end of the school year. We'll look at the makeup of the staff, we'll look at the STAR results, the counter daily results, and then we'll determine new special focus schools if we need to. And then last piece, you mentioned one teacher per 25 at NES schools. Does that sound right? Yeah. The class size of 25. Invariably, that means you actually have a lower, per teacher ratio. Just like right now in the district, I think it's one to 16 or one to 15. And that's because you also have elective teachers.
That means you also have other classes that are not full, things like that. Okay. Thank you. I think we're good. And the last thing, sir, is legislative updates. You probably know as much. Looks like we'll get a School Safety Allotment. None of this is passed yet. Actually, the school safety allotment may be on the way for signature. I'm looking at my team. Anybody know? So, if the school safety allotment passes, this would be huge for us because we need the police officers,
and we need some of the safety, infrastructure items put in place. So that would be a great help if that passes. And then House Bill two did pass out of the House. It's going it's at the Senate, I believe. It does show an increase in the basic allotment, full day pre k funding and hold harmless. Senate Bill 26 has yet to be entertained. That's the teacher pay increase. That would be it will be budget neutral because we will be paying teachers, increasing their salaries. It has to go to teachers' salaries.
So, it will be a good thing for teachers. It doesn't really help our budget that much. And then the final thing is the SHARs. The School Health and Related Services program does look like that is going to pass. So, again, we're giving you an update, but really, you gotta wait and see. Okay. Any questions? Questions or comments? I have questions. Go ahead. Sorry. When we talked earlier, you were telling us that the, 75 additional to the PUA number is based on the assumption of $250 Okay. And so we don't know what's gonna happen. House Bill two has an increase of more than $250 Do you have any,
thoughts preliminarily about what are we gonna do with that additional $145 So, if it increases, we'll do the formula like we did the $250 So, the reason you get $75 is that 40% of any increase in the Basic Allotment has to go to salaries. Of that 40%, seventy five % of that where is it 7075% of that 40% has to go to teacher salaries. So, you multiply 2.5 by 0.4 times 0.75,
and that's why you get $75 so we'll do the same. If the basic allotment goes up, and if it doesn't conflict with Senate Bill 26, we'll see what happens there. Then, we'll increase the basic allotment or the PUA per school. The rest, we have lots of needs. We'll pay for curriculum, we'll pay for central office staffing, we'll pay for Hazel Health, things like that with that money. Thank you. Thank you. Quick question about Senate Bill two sixty.
I do see that it was, passed out of the House as amended. Are there any constraints about how the additional funding can be spent? I don't know the answer to the question except that, in the original legislation, most of that has to be spent on actual security, like police officers or perimeter fencing, vestibules, things like that. I think let's wait to see what the legislation says in the end. But it'll be limited to that. And since we have enough need, anyway, you know, police officer increase, we need a lot of perimeter fencing, we need vestibules.
I mean, this will not this will make it this will be helpful, but it won't solve all of our security needs. Okay. That's all I have, sir. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Sylvia, Miles. Any other comments or questions, board members? I guess we have our next meeting coming up here. Just thank you. I know this is a lot of work, so to your entire team, thank you for doing this and I really appreciate the pacing of the workshops over the spring to allow us to focus on certain topics. So I just wanna extend my thanks to each of you for all the contributions you're making into this budget process.
Thank you, ma'am. Okay. If there are no other comments, we will, adjourn the meeting. Time is 03:46.