Good evening. The regular meeting of the school board, Thursday, 06/12/2025 at 05:05PM is now convened. I would ask everyone to please silence your cell phones. A quorum of the board members is present in the board auditorium. I'd also like to recognize the room, Savant Moore, welcome. Placidio Gomez, is he here yet? There he is in the back. And we have, Myrna Goodrich, is she here somewhere. I know she's gonna be here later. Great.
We'll now be joined by, members of the San Jacinto District Boy Scouts of America Troop sixteen to lead our pledges. I'd like to ask Board Member Paola Mendoza to introduce our guests. Thank you, President Campo. Please welcome these four young men who comprise the Troop sixteen flag team. Two of our guests attend HISD schools, Prince Sanchez from T. H. Rogers and William Alvarado from Cornelius Elementary. We also have Christian Diaz and Javier Guevara. These students meet at the Garden Villas Park's historic scout house,
built by members of Troop sixteen over seventy years ago. They each began their scouting journey as a Tiger Cub and advanced through the ranks of Cub Scouts, developing a wide range of outdoor and practical skills including fire and campfire safety, outdoor cooking, marksmanship, hiking and trail navigation. Their commitment enthusiasm reflect the spirit of scouting and they continue to build their leadership skills and a strong sense of service within Troop sixteen. Prince Sanchez,
will you please lead us in the pledges? Color guard attention. Scout's attention. Audience attention. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please join me for the Texas plan. Honor the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one indivisible, two. Scouts at ease, audience at ease, Color guard,
dismiss, reform ranks. Thank you. Thank you, Prince. I'd like to begin this meeting by acknowledging a change in our Board composition. As the Commissioner of Education announced at the beginning of this month, the state intervention is extended for two more years. While impressive results have been achieved to date, there is much more work to be done. The commissioner also made the decision to welcome four new board members who are joining us here tonight. Edgar Colon, Marty Goosen, Lauren Gore, Marcus Rosales, who are here tonight. Welcome and thank you for being here.
We are grateful for the four of them accepting the call to serve Houston to the four outgoing Board members for their service, dedication and commitment to HISD. I would like to invite HISD conservator, Doctor. Anastasia Lindo Anderson to read remarks on behalf of Commissioner Morath and the Texas Education Agency. Doctor. Anderson, welcome. Good afternoon. On behalf of Commissioner Morath and TEA, it is a pleasure to welcome the new board members. We are grateful for your acceptance of the work and the sacrifice that you will
put in to continue the work that has begun here at HISD. We are also grateful for the outgoing board members who have helped HISD come this far. They have been professional, they have been committed, they have believed in HISD students and in Houston. And we are grateful for the time that they gave us and for the work that's being done. We are looking forward to Superintendent Miles' presentation this evening, so that we can all join together in understanding the progress that this district has made. Welcome. Thank you. We now have some recognitions, and Superintendent Reports to Share.
Superintendent Miles, you have the floor. Thank you, President Campo. I'm gonna gonna wait just one second for the slides. Alright. Thank you. June marks the end of the school year, and what a successful school year we've had. For this month's spotlight, we're going to take a look at some of our fabulous schools and recognize some of the outstanding graduating students who will be shaping the future of our community and the world. This spring, HISD Now started a weekly series to provide a window into HISD campus dubbed Campus
Close Ups. This series highlights teachers and students triumphs and unique features and programming on HISD campuses. We are grateful to the six campuses that participated to date and excited to start capturing more campus close ups starting in August. So to wrap up this inaugural season of HISD Now, check out these highlight reels. School is how much the students and the teachers feel. Yep. Feel passionate about it. She inspired me to take action.
I started doing this while I was in kindergarten. My My family, like, like, pretty much my whole family all will be kids guessing that the schools they give us the opportunity to do it in person. Campus Close-up. Bringing you stories about our schools from our schools. From dynamic programs that are preparing our students for the future. Kinda gives an outlet for those people who want to contribute, and contribute in a different way. To one of a kind clubs and after school programs that are building leadership, creativity, and community. We specifically moved to Garden Oaks, because of the school. And so we're very big advocates of public schools and supporting our neighborhoods,
supporting the city. I think what I love most about this school is that there's a lot a lot of wildlife. I think some things that make RLE special is its diversity and how open students are. Real life skills such as chess help students, learn patience. My favorite thing about color in middle school is how we learn and how we encourage each other. He's doing it. He's doing it. Oh, oh, there you go. Yep. It's alright. We had our high schoolers and it's wearing the middle schoolers. And then this year, we officially partnered with big brother, big sister. And I also felt like I was doing something to help someone else. And we're giving you an up close look at the high quality instruction happening in
our classrooms every day. And recognizing our incredible teachers. This is kind of like they call this the outdoor classroom. Sometimes we're making makerspace projects that's science for science objectives. Our focus every day is high quality instruction, but it's also preparing our kids to be successful. I was sitting here for about, well, pre k all the way to fifth grade, and then I had the honor to come back as a teacher. And then now I'm serving the community as an an assistant principal. So it's very much like a full circle moment for me. My experience has definitely it's challenged me in a lot of ways,
but it's also made me a better teacher. I just feel like it's a very great district to work for just because we wanna get the kids to the point where they believe in themselves. It's been great. I've built my community here with the other teachers. I've built my community with the staff, the clerks, also the admin. The students are phenomenal. And we are also celebrating student achievement from athletics to academics and everything in between. You can see all the great stories we did from our campus flips up series on the HISD Now YouTube channel, like this one of the only on HISD Now.
Thank you, Chief, Elizondo. Deserves a lot of credit for the communications of HISD Now and I know you have a whole team there, some of you saw some of them on the video. But good things are happening in all the schools all the time. That was just six schools. We're gonna do more of those next year and hopefully get, you know, 20 or 30 of them on HISD Now's campus close-up. But you can always go to the schools too and see some of the good things that are happening.
So our second highlight of the evening is to recognize HISD's graduates. I've had a chance to go to several graduations and it's always so much fun to see the kids walk across the stage. It just puts a smile on your face. If you've not been, you should. We're so proud of the class of 2025. These graduates are headed off to colleges coast to coast. Some are joining the military. Some are pursuing a career that will immediately add value to this community. So class of 2025, we're very proud of you. I'd like to take this moment too to recognize the twenty twenty five valedictorians
and salutatorians. These exceptional students have earned the highest academic honors in their schools. A reflection of their hard work, determination, and commitment to excellence. Many of them have taken our rigorous college level course work, excelled in athletics, performing in visual arts, and dedicated time to community service. And you see the salutatorians on the screen our high schools. These outstanding students have demonstrated remarkable dedication to their studies and have achieved exceptional academic success. Their leadership and perseverance have made a lasting impact on their schools and communities.
Please join us in celebrating their accomplishments and all that lies ahead for them. And just take a minute please on the valedictorians just so people can see their names. Salutatorians. Okay now HIC has over 10,000 graduates and it's impossible in a short set of remarks to capture all of who they are and who they will be. However, as one way to shine a bright light on the Class of 2025, we want to take just a moment to highlight four exceptional seniors. Just one from each division in the district.
And these four have demonstrated remarkable leadership, character and drive, but they're just an example of many of the other salutatorians and valedictorians in the district. These students were nominated by the division leaders for standing out in truly meaningful ways. Whether through academics, service, creativity, or resilience, each of them represents the very best of HISD. HISD. Now students as I read a bit about you, please stand to be recognized. So representing the North Division is Tamaya Curtis from Scarborough High School,
a determined scholar and community advocate who leads by example. Is Tamara here? Alright, grandma. And when she comes in if you can stop us and just we'll just say hi to her and applaud her as well. But I'm gonna read about tomorrow anyway, since Tamaya here, as you are here. So Tamaya earned her associate degree from Houston Community College while still in high school, becoming a first generation college graduate in her family. She plans to tutor other students in dual enrollment programs using her own experience to
help others succeed. Tamaya's volunteer work includes helping with the garden club, reading to elementary students, and distributing food with the Houston Food Bank. Tamaya is passionate about combining art and technology and plans to pursue an innovative path at the intersection of Fine Arts and Coding. After graduation, Tamayo will attend the University of Houston downtown to study Fine Arts. From the Central Division we proudly recognize Christy Roselle Linares of the High School for
Law and Justice. Her leadership service and initiative have shaped her campus community. Christie balances academic success with extra curricular leadership. Organizing Butterpuff Football Game and Senior Week while serving as soccer team captain. As a JROTC leader and student ambassador, she supports represents her school with distinction. Christie consistently steps up to serve her school community from coordinating law day to securing teacher appreciation week donations. She also produced a district wide Spanish language onboarding video to help families understand the
dual credit process and support their students. Christie has enlisted into the Air National Guard Civil Engineering Squadron as an engineering assistant. Thank you for your future service. From the South Division, we recognize Cesar Doron Mojica of Milby High School. Cesar is a focused and determined student whose academic journey reflects resilience and growth. Inspired by his mother's educational journey, Cesar committed himself fully to his studies earning the title of class valedictorian.
Outside the classroom he is a dedicated member of the Houston Dance Stars team where he performs professionally and hones his creative expression. Cesar is active in the National Honor Society and contributes to community service efforts that benefit his school and neighborhood. He plans to study accounting and pursue a personal training license beginning his academic journey at a community college. Congratulations, And then finally representing the West Division is Luke Castro from Westside High School.
Luke is a student leader who exemplifies quiet strength, innovation and a deep commitment to serving others. Inspired by the philosophy of Kaizen, Luke improved systems as historian for the National Honor Society, including automating service hour tracking and streamlining communications. Luke has achieved academic excellence with a four point o GPA, a fifteen forty SAT score, and a rigorous course load that includes AP and engineering classes. Luke's leadership spans multiple areas.
He is a peer tutor, robotics engineer, student council vice president, and concert band keyboardist. Following graduation Luke plans to attend Texas A and M University. Congratulations Luke. To Maya, Christie, Cesar and Luke we are thrilled for all that is ahead of you and again thank you for being among the best of HISD. Mr. President if I can continue we'll just move on to the Superintendents reports. So moving on to my monthly reports, we have an update on the Sunrise Centers, the results and accessibility of the Sunrise Centers.
And I'd like Najah Callender, Deputy Chief of Family and Community Partners to come forward to talk about it. Good evening. It's so exciting to hear what the students are doing next. Happy to be in front of you today talking about the Sunrise Center's report. As you all will remember, two years ago Superintendent Miles envisioned a Sunrise Center program, and, his words is that the Sunrise Centers were to be an embodiment of our community working together to support students, and to really meet their needs. So, in a pretty truncated time period,
we worked together to, open seven Sunrise Centers. And, they were across the city. And we really wanted to focus on how we could extend, students actually getting services and add that to HISD's existing continuum of care. So our first year we were able to serve about 30,000 families. And one partner that we leveraged very early on in this process was Rice University's Houston Education Research Consortium, or HERSC. And HERSC is a research practice partnership ship that has been a part of HISD
or working with HISD for the last ten years. So while our team had some initial ideas about where Sunrise Centers should be or what should be included in them, we really relied on HEERP to help us land that information. So for today, I'm going to ask our partners from HEERP. I'm gonna invite Doctor. Gabriela Sanchez So to, to come up and really tell us, a little bit about what the work is that we've done together, but also explain some of the impact that we've had in Sunrise Centers. Thank you so much, Nadia. Thank you everybody. Good evening. Thank you for having me here today. So,
yes, as Nadia mentioned, HARC has been working for quite a while with HISD, specifically focusing on the needs of students and many, many, many, many other topics. Today I'm gonna talk to you about some of the work we've done related to non instructional support needs, including the fundraise centers. HERC actually started this work on, wrap around needs, non instructional supports several years ago because we run a needs assessment survey in 2021 where we asked families, teachers, campus staff, and students about the things they needed and the barriers that they face to get
them. So from this needs assessment survey, we actually learned so many things. One of them is that most of most common family needs were related to enrichment activities, access to physical health care, and to mental health care. And a lot of the barriers, you know, you can see on the screen, but they will be very familiar to anybody who, is, in HISD. So the first thing we did with this information and for the Sunrise Center's team was that we put all of this information in maps. Right? We needed to help them understand where to go give students what they needed. This is an example of the maps we created.
Basically, it has the different high school theater patterns in the district, and the darker areas show you where families have higher physical health needs. We did similar maps for each one of the needs that we assessed. And we used then this information to help, face to figure out where Sunrise Centers should be put. Once they actually identified these locations, we actually took those locations and kind of reversed the analysis to understand how easy would it be for families to come to those locations to get services. So what we did is that we tested,
driving times. So we used basically, you know, ten minute driving times, five minute driving times, which you can see here in purple and red respectively, to all of the locations of the Sunrise Centers. And what we found was that eight in ten families in HISD can get to a Sunrise Centers within those driving times. We also, of course, not everybody has access to a car, so we looked at, what would it take for families to go, to take public transportation. Right? So, most Sunrise Centers, actually pretty much all Sunrise Centers have access to a bus stop that would get
them, the weird families, to the center within, fifteen minute walk to the bus stop. Now, of course, you know, the once we know the locations, once we understand the feasibility a little bit better, the next step is to understand who is coming to the centers. Right? So our goal here was to figure out once we knew people coming to the centers, where they were coming from and where they were going to. So we use here the ZIP codes and the addresses where people lived, families in HIV lived, who came to the Sunrise Centers to identify where they went to.
If you see here, the darker areas in the map shows you where more families were coming to the centers and the lighter areas, the opposite. As you can see here, most of the Sunrise Centers are represented here, and, people in HIV come from various locations. But, they're highly highly concentrated in the Northern and south the South Eastern areas of the district, which includes actually the most popular Sunrise Centers, which are YDC, the West RM YMCA, and, Missy Milby. Now the next thing we did was we actually wanted to understand individual centers. Right? We actually figured that families were willing to go quite a long way to attend
centers. This is just an example of it. We have Mission Moby on one side and the youth development center on the other. And what you can see there is basically in blue is every, air zip code in the city, in the excuse me, in HISD where families are visiting the centers from. So pretty widespread and this was pretty consistent across the centers. Now, of course, after we figured out that families are coming, we also wanted to know who they were. And what we figured out was that most families are families who are come,
from of students who identified as either Black or Hispanic. Most of students who attended the Son Center are actually coming from elementary schools. And nine in ten, or over nine in ten students who visited a Sunrise Center are classified as economically disadvantaged. Now that we know a little bit more who the centers are serving, we also have started using data to understand what this what impact it has on students. We very much want to know how well this is working for students. We found out that on average, the students who came to the centers visited about four times.
And actually, in some very preliminary analysis that we have conducted, trying to connect, outcomes with visits to the Sunrise Centers, we found out that students who visited a Sunrise Center multiple times, had benefits in their attendance and behavior. Like three or plus visits were related to improved attendance and behavior. Now I will highlight again, these are preliminary results that we're hoping to confirm as we get more information now that the school year has ended. And we continue to collaborate with with HIV and NADA's team in figuring out all
of these questions. Thank you. Thanks so much, Gabby. So I do want to share some of our results from year two, and, can't note enough that we're just closing the year out, and my team will tell you we have until June 30 to meet all of our metrics. But, this year we have really continued to grow. You'll notice that we've served about students served, so actual students in the buildings, getting resources. We've provided 27,000 plus We're focused on clothing and basic needs, so you'll notice the 9,000 families either got clothing or uniforms.
So we're really trying to help students meet those basic needs so that they can show up to school ready to learn. We do have work to do, and, I, I, we acknowledge that, but I am so proud of our team and the progress that they have made. And so I know that we have partners here tonight, but we also have the Sunrise Center team, so I'd like to ask them to please stand and just be recognized for their hard work and thank you so much for your time. Board members, any questions or comments? I just wanna say we appreciate your hard work and all that you do for the students in our community,
so thank you very much. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Mr. President, for the last part of my report, members of the Board, just want to go over briefly the STAR results. Last week you received the end of course results for high school. So STAR has two parts. End of course, that's Algebra I, English one, English two, biology, and US history. And then today, we got the preliminary results from TEA this morning, for the third through eighth grade STAAR.
So you're gonna get a lot more data, but today, I'm just gonna give you a big overview. And we the team just got it this morning. So, we haven't broken it down by subgroup and things like that. You'll get that. But today, I just wanted to go over the big pieces, and we can just already say that in, this year, every single STAAR exam improved, third through eighth grade. And so and the the state had mixed mixed result. Not only did we improve, but we did better achievement growth than we did last year,
which was all already, a remarkable year. So two years in a row has been phenomenal for our kids. And so two years, of this intervention has really transformed already the academic success of our students. And we'll talk a little bit more about what that actually means. So, for example, on the left, you see where we started. In 2023, in 20 exams of five high school, 15, elementary, middle. 20 exams. HISD was behind the state by a lot as you can see there on the
high school in all 20 exams. And you can also see, especially for our new board members who may may not have, gotten as much information about this, we had, in 2023, a 121 d and f ready campuses as you can see on this on the screen. That's a district that's struggling. We were struggling academically. So you already, even though you had this later, last week, I'm gonna just briefly go over it. Biology improved by 23 points in two years,
algebra by 17, English one by five, English two by eight, and US history by four. What is a good increase in STAAR? For a district this size, a good increase is two points a year. So somewhere around two or three would be a good thing in all grades, in all exams. Exams. The state also if, if the state does well, the state does one or two points every year. That would be good. So to have us doing this is has never been done in in Texas, and we're actually looking at,
other states to see if it has ever been done, the growth in proficiency in anywhere in The United States. Here's Algebra one, for example. 38 last year, 51 this year, 13 points improvement. That is incredible, and I hope we take a chance to celebrate our kids. In fact, let's hear it for the kids. Let's hear it for the kids. And then It's your first warning. And then for two years in a row, this is the growth that our teachers and students got. You know, no matter what else you believe,
at least take a moment to say the students did great because they were celebrating. They know what this means. The teachers know what this means, and it's great to see this sort of growth has never been done in Houston or in the state of Texas. That's how much improvement our kids did on third through eighth grade in a minute. Compared to the state now. Now if the state also grew 17 points in algebra, that then our results are good, but it's not,
you know, phenomenal. Check out in two years, the state went up two points, good for the state. 17 points for HISD. Biology, five points for the state, 23 for HISD. English won five points, and that would be good enough, but not that I wish the state goes down, but they did go down in English one, so we closed the gap with the state seven points. English two, also seven points, and then we closed the gap with the state in US history by seven points because we went up four and they went down three. And then this is probably the biggest, indicator of success for our kids.
Let's just take algebra one, for example. Back in 2023, we were 11 points behind the state average as you can see there. 11 points behind. And in just two years, not only did we catch up 11 points, we passed the state by four in just two years. Our Hispanic students, by the way, we we're gonna give you a lot more data on the subgroups. But just one example, Hispanic students get a 50% on algebra meets and exceeds, they beat the state average. So that's a sort of performance and here,
let me just stop for a minute to say what this actually means, unless people forget that these are just numbers. And behind these numbers, though, are real kids and teachers who got these scores. Good reason Houston put out a report about six or seven months ago, and that report was about livable wage. Kids who graduated, the graduates in this area, they graduated in 2017. Six years later, did they have a livable wage if they were in Houston? And the answer is only 17% had a livable wage if they graduated in the
Greater Houston area. Only 17% had a livable wage. And in that report, they said, what can we do about that? Well, one, you can start earlier and make sure your elementary and middle schools do reading, writing, math, and get them to grade level, but particularly algebra one and eighth grade English. Algebra one and eighth grade English. Why? Because if you can do Algebra one, you have a better chance of a high wage, high skill, high demand job in a year 2035, 2030. That's the difference. So when you see numbers like this where we're beating the state average,
when we grow 17 points, then you know we are changing the trajectory for kids. They will have a better chance at a high wage, high level, high skill job. They are unstoppable, and that's a fact. Let's talk about the next, the the three through eight star results. Because, again, it's not just Algebra one and English. Let's start earlier. By the way, Algebra one seventeen point growth, look at our eight grade math growth last year. Six to eight eight points last year. Those kids took the algebra test this year.
That's why it's such a a great growth in algebra one. I mean and also this year, the algebra students did well and the teachers did well. Let's look at the third through eighth grade exam. I'm gonna be fast with this. I know this is a lot of data on the slide. Let me just show you a couple of things to focus on. I'll use my cursor. The things to focus on are just a couple things. This column is where we started. And note that this column is behind the state in every single subject.
So we're behind. And then you look at this column, which is what we did this year, and you notice that we beat last year in every single test. Except fifth grade, we tied. The only other thing I would point out is this. The far right shows how much we gained on the state. So the state improved in some, went down in others. You can see that this column. Especially in math, the state struggle. We improved in everything but by a lot. So much so that for the first time in math, four out of the six exams,
we beat or tied the state average. We beat the state average. Yes. And we are one point off off in eighth grade math and one point off in fourth grade math. In reading, we're behind the state average. Yes. But look at how far we've gained, and we are now within striking distance. We might even hit that next year. So, the kids did great. Let me just say one more time. Even in elementary school, more kids are reading at grade level, not a little bit more. A lot more kids are reading at grade level than they did two years ago.
A lot more kids are doing math at grade level than they did two years ago. We're gonna calculate the thousands and thousands of kids who are who fall in that bucket, but a lot more. This intervention is working. The transformation is working. Not only that, by the way, in the in the high school exams, and I haven't looked at, elementary yet. But in the high school exam, we're and four out of the five exams were above the achievement level that this district scored in 2019 pre COVID. So not only did we gain the COVID loss back,
but we also did did better than the pre COVID scores. So that is the success of the the STAR exam. I know that's preliminary. Who has the first question? Board members, any questions? Go ahead. We got it. This is fantastic. Thank you. Tell me about biology. Why are those numbers so dramatic in biology? I I'd I'd love to understand that a little bit better. Yeah. There are there are two two reasons. Last year to this year, it's just good effective teaching and kids applying themselves. The first year so this year, we we went up nine points.
The state also went up, five points, I believe, or four points. So the state did well, we did better. So the same number of kids, the same, tenth graders this year, tenth graders last year. From the first year, instead of ninth graders taking it, the tenth many more, we delayed many kids from taking it in ninth grade. Not all schools had a choice, ninth or tenth grade, and more of them chose, and we encouraged them to choose to do biology in tenth grade. So that gave some of the kids a year more learning English,
and being able to, tackle tackle that test. The the state allows you to take it in ninth or tenth grade, so that first year, the growth, part of it was the instruction, part of it was that strategy. This year, it's all about instruction and kids just doing better. Anybody else? I'd just like to do one shout out that you missed, which was the parents. Congratulations to HISD parents for their students' achievements and the teachers' achievements. This is a team effort. It's not just one person or one teacher but it's a village that makes this
happen and I want to thank those folks as well. Thank you. And if I could, I'm remiss too because, yes, the parents. And I've, we should praise these kids because that's actually their scores, their work, work, and the teachers who are the most impactful on a on a child's education. But, sir, you're you're absolutely right. That means we also need to thank our principals Mhmm. And the whole leadership team who has done really good work to try to get this to happen. So thank you, team over there. Anything else, sir? I think we're good on that.
One more? Okay. Go ahead. Sorry. Thank you. The you noted that the the growth previous to this, I think that the the was it the state, like, baseline growth or average growth is about two points a year. Right? So we're so did I hear that right? So we're seeing just dramatic growth here. Could you make this real for me in that, you know, what does this mean for a kid when they're growing this much? You know, the the I there's something about the story there around getting away from just the data at two points and and and seeing this fantastic growth. Like, what does this mean for our kids? I yeah. Thanks for asking. Fantastic growth?
Like, what does this mean for our kids? I yeah. Thanks for asking. I I think I mean, I answered a little bit, but I I think more specifically is what you're asking, and and I I think it means this. When you have a a a student who is having success in reading early, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, that is going to compound. They're they are already not only feel more successful, that success and that feeling of success translates to their other subjects and translates to the next grade. Teachers will tell you too.
There are many teachers at the high school in ninth grade said, these eighth graders coming in, it was easier to teach because they already knew the material that they didn't have as far to travel. So I, teacher, in ninth grade was able to get even better effect. And so for the kids, that just grows. That feeling of success in school grows. It's only been two years, but that's we can already see that, that there's a compounding effect when you can compounding effect when you can read. And, ultimately, like I said, ultimately, I'm gonna have a better,
chance at a high wage, high skill, high demand job. Ultimately, I'm gonna have a quality of life, and a and a livable wage. Not just a livable wage, but a professional wage. Well, superintendent, I do see behind you, we have Tamaya Curtis who is here. Hello and welcome. Tamaya. Please be recognized. Once you get a good shot with her Yeah. Great job. We read your, your little bit of your bio, and your your grandmother represented you well. Okay, so next up, you're gonna be, Superintendent Miles is going to present the Board monitoring update on Goal three progress measure
3.1 and Goal progress measure 4.3 and the constraint three progress measures, right? A lot of that. We have more slides coming up. Who's doing that? Okay. Alright. Good afternoon, board, community. Today, we'll be doing Goal Progress Measure three point one and four point three. For the new board members, my name is Justin Smith. I am the Executive Director of Assessment, Accountability and Compliance, here at HISD. Just want to ground us in what the actual overall goal is for three. That goal is around the percentage of students who are graduating TSI ready,
with a IBC, which is an industry based certification, and growing that from 11 percent to twenty six percent. How we measure that, one of the indicators that we have is the eleventh graders that are needing TSI readiness certification in SATACT or TSIA, in both reading and math. So our target for this 17. Our end of the year preliminary data shows that we've already exceeded that we're at 20, percent that have met in both English and, reading and math. And so,
we have more data still coming in because students are still allowed to take SAT, ACT, so we only can go up from here, but we've already hit our overall target for end of the year. We just also wanted to show you this data, split out by reading and math separately. And so you can see that both reading, if you look at the far end, both end of the year for reading and math, we've already exceeded the target. For reading, we've exceeded more, we're actually at 38%, and for math we're at 22%. Just to reground us, the reason that we're at 20 now is because the goal is to be,
to meet in both. Okay, and now we're actually going to go into goal four, four point three with W. Chi Stacy Benson. Before you get, are there any questions about that? First one? Okay, great. Alright, good evening everyone. I'm here to report on the middle of the year progress for goal four, which is measuring students with disabilities in grades four through eight, who actually, made, growth one performance level in either reading or math. And so we look at the GPM 4.3,
which is really feeds into us, meeting that progress measure. And so as you can see on this slide that we are, from middle of year to middle of year, we are, moving forward in our growth and we have actually surpassed our growth. Our actual preliminary scores for the end of year in our which, they're not on the slide, are 33%. So we'll get that updated for you. But as you can see, we're already, achieving past the goal we set for end of year based on our preliminary scores.
And so on the next slide, you will see that looking at our middle of year data for '23, '24, and middle of year for twenty four-twenty five, all student groups have, surpassed that score and have had achievement. We specifically, if you'll look at the next slide, exhibit five breaks down that achievement between reading and math. And as you can see, the students who met that grade level standard actually achieved higher in reading than in
math in this area. Do you have any questions? Thank you. Alright. Thank you. Alright, I'll close this out by giving you all an update. My name is Alyssa Murray, Deputy Chief of Academics, on constraint 3.1. Constraint 3.1 says that the superintendent shall not make significant changes directly or indirectly to magnet or other specialized programming or school options without first conducting and communicating to the Board and the community in analysis. I want to just briefly share the process that we take to ensure that we
have captured all changes and that we inform you and the community of any changes that need to be made. In the fall, we run a centralized process for campuses to submit any intended program changes that would go into effect the following year. The changes are then vetted by the superintendent, chief of schools team, chief academic officer, and the division chiefs. And then the impact analyses are compiled, submitted, and any change requests that do require a modification to a magnet program are submitted as board items for a vote. So we do that in the fall so that families can see when the School
Choice application opens the most current and up to date list of program offerings for the following school year. Then throughout the year as needed, there may also be other changes that come up, and if those happen we, run a much shorter modified process, submit and compile those analyses as well. And my report just serves to show that we have submitted eight impact analyses this year and have not breached constraint 3.1. Any questions? Okay, looks good. No breach is, is good.
Thank you. Okay, we will, any other comments or questions from, the board members? Okay, great. We will, now hear public comment from public officials, student speakers, speakers wishing to address the superintendent's reports, and agenda items one and two. Please note that Spanish live captioning is available for those viewing the meeting via livestream and live Spanish interpretation, is available in person in the auditorium. 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 the School Board meetings are not acceptable as they inhibit the Board's ability to conduct business and the such who participate in such behavior will be given one warning and if the behavior is repeated, they will be asked to leave the meeting. Tonight we have 127 registered speakers who will be limited to one Each per Board policy as we have more than 30 people signed up to address the Board tonight. We ask that you stay on topic and refrain from naming individuals, especially students as their identity is protected under the law, that you may name your own child. I ask that you but you may name your own child. I ask that you be respectful of our procedures and the other speakers and end
your comments promptly when your time has expired and the timer rings. We will start with public officials. Will HISD Board of Education's Trustee Savant Moore, you're up. Good evening. Good evening, superintendent, president, board of managers, community. It's no secret that I will work endlessly to return this district to local control here and in the future in Austin, but I will continue to do it with decency. I choose to be radical by my daily work. Happy Father's Day to all fathers. We must show up and be the men we were called to be.
Our children are watching what we do, not what we say. To the new board of managers, one of you is a ranger. I'm class zero six zero nine. You remember the first day, and you also remember the last day of ranger school. This is the last day. We're in this for the long haul. Work with us, not against us. You will be tested today. Postpone your vote. Is it enough time for you to actually vote on this budget and you just got here? $2,500,000 to advertise for enrollment? Why waste that money? We did it the first time with the bond.
It didn't work. Work with the community leaders to increase the enrollment. In my district, we Thank you. Trustee Gomez? Thank you. A special welcome to the four newly appointed Board members. I wish you all well, hope you do a good job, and nothing I'm about to say changes that at all. So last week when TAE announced that not only was the takeover going to be extended, but also four of the board members were being replaced who just so happened, coincidentally, to be the four board members who had the most questions, who had the most pushback. Intentionally or not, TEA sent a message to the community that they don't see any value whatsoever in
collaborating with us or listening to us. I profoundly disagreed, and it would serve everybody here well to work with us, to listen to us. We could celebrate the success the success of our valoratory salutatorian, celebrate the success of STAR scores while also listening to the very valid concerns of the people behind me, the 127 who are about to come up. So it's my job as the, an elected board member to give guidance to advise you, so my advice is remember that your role is to reflect the vision and values of the HVAC community which is not necessarily the vision Thank you. Do we have Trustee Guidry here?
I did not see her, okay. Great, thanks for your service. We appreciate that. Next, we'll hear from speakers who identify themselves as students when they checked in this evening. Speakers, please state your name and topic when you step up to the microphone. Miss Smith, you can call up our speakers. Could I ask all 12 student speakers to come to the front row, please? We'll start with Hendrick Anderson followed by Marian Anderson. Hendrick followed by Mary Ann Anderson. Anderson's, are you here? Okay. Go ahead. Hendrick, go ahead. Microphone.
And pull it down. Thank you. Hello. I'm Hendrick Anderson. I'm here because I heard you're trying to fire my school librarian, Miss Garcia. Don't fire Miss Garcia. She has helped me learn and grow from Kinder to Fifth this fall. She has helped me learn to read and enjoy books. Normally, you have to wait a week between library times. I can't make my books last that long. I will go to the library during recess, lunch, after school, any chance I get. Also, why would you fire her for getting sick? It's not even her fault. It's ours. We gave her the sickness when we get it. This year, a bunch of kids didn't migrate, including me, got the flu.
Ms. Gracia missed a few days of school. So did I. Please don't fire Miss Gracia. She's the best. Here's what may become what I am now. Mary Ann Anderson. I know that miss Garcia should stay. Whenever it's library day, I hear all my classmates say, yay. It's library day. You know, without miss Garcia, we wouldn't have book fair, kids reading books, or one book with school. The school may even be bored without her. Maybe kids will be really bored. Maybe you don't think she's awesome, but I know she's awesome. So let her stay. When I when I came to Kendra,
I was lonely. But the library was my tabby place. And miss Garcia was so nice. She was my friend. The books were my friends. Why would you fire her for getting sick? She can't help it. Plus, let's see you be a better librarian than her. Face it. She's the best. You can't compete with her. Long live miss Garcia and the library. Hello. I'm Willow by out. I here for because you're I heard you're gonna fire miss Garcia. Miss Garcia is a great teacher who loves teaching us. Every year, miss Garcia is everything we imagine someone could be.
She does not deserve to to be fired. Just because she does not miss just because she missed some days, she still cares about us. I feel like HISD is being pathetic for firing one of the best Liberians we ever had. Thank you. Lula DeBlanc McKee followed by Lula Gandhi. Hi guys. So I am coincidentally also here to talk about the firing of my school librarian, except I go to Westside High School. Recently, my they my okay, so my Miss Corina Barbosa,
who is my school librarian is has exceeded the ten day policy by two days. And among the librarians, she is also our debate coach. So she dedicates every single weekend to us. She dedicates it to our community so that she can support us in more ways. And among that, she also goes to, like, choir concert and orchestra concerts. And so she she believes in us so entirely that we are forced to believe in ourselves. And I believe that it is completely unjust to fire this teacher who dedicates all of her weekends,
all of her time outside of school to extracurriculars, to things that she does not have to do. Because she, among the debate club, she also sponsors the the, Name That Blood Club and the Poetry Club, and she takes us to tournaments. And without her, I would not have even have the confidence to speak. Thank you. Next. Hi. My name is Lila, and I'm a rising fifth grader at Harvard Elementary. I'm here to talk about one of my favorite teachers, miss Garcia. Miss Garcia is the best librarian I've ever had. She commits so much to the school doing extra things like one book one school, 40 book challenge, and name that book club.
She cheers people up whenever they are feeling down. She is so kind and patient and always willing to help. She spends time making sure that each student finds the books at the reading level that's best for them. She always makes reading more interesting and fun. She deserves nothing but the best because she gives us her best. HISD needs more teachers and librarians as committed as miss Garcia. Please don't let HISD and Harvard lose one of its best. We, the students of HISD, deserve great teachers Garza Lopez. Leon Garza Lopez followed by Maya Garza Lopez? No? Morgan Goughney followed by Alyona Gottlieb.
Hello. My name is Morgan Gopney. I'm 11 years old, and I'm leaving elementary school and heading to middle school. I'm here to be the voice of my friends, teachers, and principals. We love principals we love and trust are being fired mostly at black schools. And for what? These are the people helping us grow, believe in ourselves, and learn in ways that matter. When you take them away, you don't just fire a teacher, you break trust. And the arts, they're not extra. They're essential. Music, theater, painting, these help us dream,
express ourselves, and speak up for each other like I'm doing today. Please stop hurting black and brown schools. We deserve the same love, care, and creativity as everyone else. Thank you. Thank you. Julianna Gottlieb. Julianna Gottlieb followed by Douglas Hurley and Lucas Marosi. 92 degrees. That's how hot my history classroom was after the air conditioner broke again last month. With four weeks left in the school year, my teacher reported it multiple times, yet no one came to fix it. We sweated through finals. This was a repeat performance of back in August when the air conditioner didn't work
then either. We spent months with large portable units blocking the whiteboards and roaring over our teacher's voice, making it hard to learn. In the winter, when I was taking my middle of year test, many of our heaters didn't work, so we needed to wear multiple layers of clothes just to keep from shivering. New board members, I wanted you to hear my experience as a student, but you've probably already heard similar stories from all over the district. Stuff doesn't work because there's no one on staff anymore to fix it. This is a problem this is a symptom of a bigger problem, which is mismanagement of district money. Instead of paying big bucks to folks sitting in this nice,
cold building, please vote for a budget that puts students first. Thank you. Thank you. Douglas Harley followed by Lucas Marosi. My name and I was a first grader at ASU. Now I'll be a second grader grader at Shadowwire. None of my friends will be there at Shadowwire. But most of my friend but some of my friends are, friends at school will stay, but a lot are leaving like me. At school, we had no more library and no more plays.
I was really excited to do the frog and toad in first grade, but no grade got to do any. And the field trip was a disaster, and we only went on one. I wish you would listen to us. We don't like NES. No one likes NES. Why are we still doing NES? Thank you. Lucas Maroci followed by Marcus Maroci. Lucas. Hello. My name is Lucas Marosi, and my topic is about miss Garcia. Good evening. My name's Lucas, and I just finished third grade at Harvard.
And I'm here to ask you, please don't terminate miss Garcia. She is not replaceable. I've known miss Garcia since kindergarten. She used to read to us when we were little, helped us find books we loved, and always remembered what we liked. She didn't just check out of books. She made reading reading cool and exciting. She listened to us, encouraged us, and always made made us feel important. Even now, she takes time to help us find the right books or to talk to us when we're having a hard day. She makes the library feel like a safe and happy place.
Her 40 book challenge had helped me try books I don't I didn't think I'd like, and I ended up liking them. Now I read all kinds of books, not just graphic novels. Miss Garcia can Thank you. Mathis. Mathis Marosi followed by Jasper Pearson. Mathis? Jasper? Name is Mathis Marosi, and I am here to speak about why you should not fire miss Garcia. She helps us get into books that we don't normally like, and but she the Foodie Book Challenge
help and expands our knowledge. It also and the other reading events help us find help us learn that reading can be rewarding. In in life, you can't just read everything off of a computer, because sometimes the Internet just lies. But when you read a book, and you know the person who wrote the book, then it's a lot easier to trust the information inside of the book. Thank you so much.
You good? Jasper Pearson followed by Ella Taylor. I'm a fourth grade student at Harvard Elementary. I wanna tell you about someone very special, our librarian, Miss Garcia. Miss Garcia volunteers so many things. I did the 40 book challenge and named that book because she is so nice. Because of her, I read over a 100 books this year. That helped me score in the 96 percentile on my reading math test. I wouldn't I would I never would have read this much without her. Also, when I had the flu in March,
the same week as miss Garcia, there's no soap in the bathrooms. We all got sick because we couldn't wash our hands. I missed three days of school, and a lot of kids were sick. Maybe miss Garcia got sick and missed school because HISD did put soap in the bathroom. Miss Garcia also organized one book, one school where we read a river story. She had a contest where we picked a quote and made a project. Me and my my me and my friend friended a Thank you. Ella Taylor followed by Emma Holt.
Hi. My name is Emma Holt, and I am from Elementary. I am here to fight for miss Garcia, all by Billian. I I I want miss dang it. I am here to make sure she is back at Harvard in the fall. Miss Garcia is a great teacher because she works hard. She's in charge of the 40 book challenge book, and she leads research projects and book sales. She helps me check out books and gives me book recommendations. I would be sad if she isn't at Harvard in the the fall.
She is one of my favorite teachers. Please don't take our library. Please don't take Nascosia. Thank you. Is Ella Taylor here? Ella Taylor? Any other students? Okay, go ahead, Ella. Hi. I'm Ella Taylor. Hi. I'm Ella Taylor, an incoming senior from Carnegie Vanguard High School. I'm speaking about the importance of teacher retention. Last year, HISD lost around 4,700 teachers, and we're on track to lose even more this year. By the end of the school year, two of my eight teachers were gone. At my small school, every teacher teaches multiple subjects,
so losing one teacher affects several classes. We lost my AP World History teacher who also taught AP European History at AP Seminar, my AP Physics teacher who also taught AP Environmental Science, my English two teacher, my English teacher, and my English one teacher who taught me how to write better than any other teacher in my school. Our teachers sponsor clubs during lunch, write our recommendation letters, and most importantly, they're good. My AP Human Geo teacher piloted the new project based curriculum, and my AP African American Studies teacher was one of the first to teach the course. Please don't tell our teachers how to do their jobs.
They know what they're doing. Make HISD a place they wanna stay. A place they're proud to work. Thank you. That's all for students. Thank you, students. If I could ask you to move another student. Your name. Go ahead. Okay. Go ahead. Hello. My name is Castell. I'm a fourth grader at Harvard Elementary. I'm here today because you're voting to fire the best librarian ever, Miss Garcia. Me and my three siblings are asking you not to get rid of Miss Garcia. If Miss Garcia were to leave Harvard, it would have a lasting negative impact on our school and its library. She organizes school activities such as the Harvard Talent Show,
Book Fair, One Brooklyn School, and projects that keep us creative. The forty Book Challenge keeps us interested in learning. Ms. Garcia challenges us to read 40 books in different genres. Over the year, a lot of students participate, such as me, and it keeps us eager to read more. I hope every family notices how she's always in a good mood with her cheerful voice. So where would we be without her? Fun fact: Right after Ms. Garcia was told the bad news, she went straight to help the one hundred and twenty two thousand two hundred and six Real Estate Troupe with the library art installation. And you couldn't tell. She was just
depressed or sad because she was always in a good mood. Another fun fact is right now she's in Boston on a fifth Thank you. Do we have any other student speakers? Okay. Go ahead. Can you give us your name, please? Hello. My name is, Leon, and this is, thank you for mister Natividad. My mom told me that, something that made me very sad. Mister Natividad, my favorite teacher, the one who worked at the library, won't be coming back next year. I may it made me sad because, he didn't just organize books. He list Keep going. Go ahead. Thank you. My name is Maya,
and I just finished fifth grade. This year, we were, four of our fifth fifth grade classes at they were four fifth grade classes at my school. Three had teachers from the start, but one class didn't have a teacher until miss Miller came. Miss Miller didn't just fill a spot. She bought calm, kindness, and real learning, and she worked with other teachers to make sure we all got the best education possible even when resources were limited. But, sadly, miss Miller's contract wasn't renewed. She was there when no no one else wanted to be.
She taught us and supported the other teacher. She made a big difference in school, and now she's being let go. First was miss Miller, and now two other more amazing teachers won't coming back next year. My school is losing certified teachers. Do we have any other students? How about Zoom? Do we have one on Zoom? No? Okay. Great. Well, I just wanna make a comment about student speakers. I think you all did a great job. It's really hard to get up and talk to people like this and you did
a great job. So congratulations and thank you for everything you said. We heard it loud and clear. Thank you. Okay. All right. So now we will, we will go to the regular speaker list. So, the folks who signed up for, for Agenda Item one and two or the superintendent's report, Ms. Smith is going to identify, our speakers as they come up. So go ahead. Miles. It is this, Mike Miles. We care about the Mike Miles. It is this, Mike Miles, we care about our kids' education and what we want as parents is what's best for our kids. I am here to say that you are not what is best for our kids
and their education. You are concentrated and focused on money and not the best ways to educate our kids. You paid millions of dollars to a consultant to help you pass the bond. Money that could have gone to our classrooms. We as parents didn't pay anyone, but we came together to make sure that your bond did not pass. You should have come to experts us because we know our kids' needs. Parents and teachers in our communities are who you should have consulted with. Please stop thinking about the almighty dollar and focus on our kids and the well-being
of our Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Hi. My name is Megan Freeman. I'm here to read an anonymous speech on behalf of one of Ms. Garcia's colleagues. As a teacher and colleague, I'm heartbroken over the unjust firing of Ms. Garcia, our incredible librarian at Harvard Elementary. She is not just someone who checks out books, she is the heart of our library and a constant source of support for both staff and students. Ms. Garcia celebrates our students' passions, encourages their curiosity, and ensures every child feels seen and valued in her library. The claim of excessive missed days does not reflect the reality of her commitment. What isn't being counted is the countless unpaid hours she spends outside of her contracted
time, planning, setting up, and running events like author visits, book fairs, reading celebrations, among many other things. She gives her heart to this school far beyond what is required. The firing of her is the final straw in what has already been a very difficult year at Harvard, dealing yet another blow to the community we have worked so hard to build. This decision is not just unjust. It's a loss loss for our students, our staff, and the culture that makes our school special. We are tired. We are devastated. We are angry, and we stand with this Garcia. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Kathy Beasley. I'm so tired of hearing from teachers about how exhausted and demoralized they feel.
This is one of the tragedies of what has taken place in this district. Another is cutting, wraparound services for students in the schools. The students in need, which is tantamount to, porophobia. Many of these students don't have transportation to get to the Sunrise Centers, unlike what we heard earlier, for clothing, food, and necessities. Therefore, these children, many of them immigrants, suffer, yet you decided this would be a good way to cut the budget. I honestly cannot believe how ignorant this board has been to the fact that students in HISD need immediate assistance at times. If you weren't used to working in an urban district this large with specific urban
needs, you shouldn't have taken the job. But we all know by now it's not about doing a job well, it's about glad handing and slaps in the back from Abbott and Morath. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Rob Krenz. I am here to read a speech on behalf of one of miss Garcia's former students who cannot be here today. To whom this may concern, I am writing this letter to tell you what an important person miss Garcia is to me. Miss Garcia is a very special kind of teacher that you don't see very often. She takes the time to talk to you, she makes sure that you are okay, and she always picks out the perfect books for you.
Miss Garcia significantly impacted my reading habits. When we still had a AR point system, I would read lots of books so that I could cash points in to be junior librarian with her. Her energy and love for her job made being around her a joy. She used to go out of her way to pick out books for me that she thought I would like to read. I always felt so respected and cared for in the library, and she changed the way I look at books. She made reading feel special, not just a homework assignment. I hope that you take into consideration the amazing things she has done and the lives she has permanently changed when you make your decision.
Miss Garcia is an essential part of Harvard, and it will not be the same without her there. Singing Thank you. Hi, my name is Anna Heinselman. I'm here tonight because families and educators want a stronger voice in how our schools are run. For years, the Side Panhandle has been overlooked and underserved despite having schools that are performing well in communities that are deeply invested in education. As an example tonight, the Sunrise Centers, they have a moderate level of need. However, the closest one to the West Side Panhandle is about thirty minutes away.
In recent state takeover has only made things worse. Decisions are being made without the input from those who matter, parents, teachers, and students. That's why we're supporting a home rule school district as one of the possible solutions. It would allow for more local control while keeping us within the public system. We've launched a petition to begin that conversation, which you can view at better website westideschools.com. There are other options on the table, including detachment from HISD. But our goal is simple. We want a simple, we want a system for all of Thank you.
Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jeff Hilton. I'm a community member. I've lived on the Westside for a long time, former business owner, and I hear from a lot of parents about their frustration from a lack of community engagement. As Anna just mentioned, there's a group of people who put together Panhandle, a potential for the Westside Panhandle to create a Home Rule School District. It's one of many methods, but in all cases we encourage you to listen to the community members. This particular petition is one of several benefits by which rare voice can be handed
to the parents of the students and help those students enable and energize them to achieve and be their best, whether it's to pursue their educational goals, their career goals, or whatever it might be. Thank you very much, I appreciate you giving me a chance to express my point of view. Thank you. Good evening, Cheryl Dansleit, librarian. Since 1986, the first librarian of the year was honored. Two years ago, we changed it to the library program of the year. I'd like to present our winner for the '25 '24, '25 library program of the year, Rosalind West from Cornelius Elementary.
Rosalind believes the library should be the heart of the school where literacy, collaboration, creativity, imagination, and exploration are the focus. All who enter are welcome and supported. And like the heart that beats, strengthens, and provides life, the school library grows and changes. She believes that a good library program can start constantly changing to meet the needs of all its patrons. Her winning program consists of readings for bike history and Hispanic heritage months, continuing the community with literature. The annual event was councilmen, police chiefs, and even school board members.
Cornelius has a legacy writers program which encourages students to become authors. Approximately 30 students' works should be printed into bound books and checked out in the library. Thank you. Hello. My name is Debbie Hall and I'm a retired librarian from HISD. And as you can imagine, you've heard a lot of sad stories tonight about libraries. It's very hard to, see what has happened. And the fact that we are now, an unequal school district. When I started with HISD, every school had a librarian. That's not true anymore.
That needs to change. I brought a book that I gave to a student about twenty years ago because he refused he said he never he didn't wanna check out a book. So the next time he came, I showed him this book. He came back. He checked it out. And two days later, he came back. More, please. That's the power. Thank you. And FERS. When Superintendent House arrived in summer twenty twenty one, 95 HISD schools had no libraries. That fall, he listened to the thousands of Houstonians who advocated for libraries in all HISD schools.
In February 2022, his five year strategic plan required every HISD school to have a library and quote, a librarian media specialist to ensure that students develop a passion and aptitude for reading, research and critical thinking skills. End quote. Then came the takeover. The inequity in HISD's and the 106,000 students, 93% of them economically disadvantaged, and 175 schools have lost access to print and digital books,
technology, literacy and research support, study space and more. These Thank you. After speaker 10, could we have number 11 through 20 move to the front row, please? Okay. Just state your name first, please. I'm Lisa Robinson, retired HRISD media specialist and ELA teacher. During COVID, HRISD applied for and received more than $19,000,000 in federal ESSER funds to revitalize its libraries. The district used those funds to stock its libraries with much needed resources, including new books and technology.
Since the takeover, this administration has overseen the loss of more than 175 HRSD total will continue to grow as more libraries are closed. I implore you, restore certified staff to all campus libraries so that these ESSER funded resources can again be available to HISD students. All students deserve access to these resources and to the unique expertise that librarians provide. This is an equity issue that must be rectified now as part of your budget discussions. Thank you. Thank you. Dorcas Hand. The NES extreme focus on science of reading does a huge disservice to students seeking
strong literacy. SOR skills, phonics decoding, sight recognition are not useful in isolation from content knowledge. Education week recently reported it's not just about the phonics. Sadly, NES version of SOR ignores the requirements of background knowledge, vocabulary, and language structure, not to mention disciplinary literacy, meaning science, history, etcetera. It's delusional to think that if students can decode, they are literate and star successful. They have no enthusiasm for reading or learning and they lack stamina to read anything
longer than the test link passages, which are all they are allowed during school hours. HISDSOR is not really teaching students to be successful readers or learners ready for higher ed and life? How can they possibly meet college standards if they never have the chance? Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Suzanne Lyons. I am a school library administrator with many years of experience in giving a kid a library. So what happens when you give a kid a library? In HISD, many people incorrectly describe a library as a room full of books.
We saw several examples of libraries in the HISD Now videos that we saw earlier this evening. So are they libraries? They might be, but without professional staff member there, a librarian or a certified teacher, maybe they are just a room full of books. In unstaffed libraries, costly resources can and do disappear. Please recognize that if you give a kid a professionally staffed library supporting the instructional program, everything can happen. HISD has squandered countless opportunities and has lost numerous highly qualified professionals.
Recent Libraryhood Program of the Year finalists, including last year's winners, have all moved on to other districts. We talk a lot about achieving standard. Thank you. Thank Thank you. Lynn Moore, HAIC parent. The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes agree that trust is a crucial factor in organizational success, employee satisfaction, loyalty, and performance. Humans learn more and perform better when there's trust. My daughter, a sixth grader at Lanier, was so upset to finish sixth grade because she wouldn't have her beloved English teacher, Miss Leslie Kilborn.
We later found out Miss Kilborn was cut from HISD. She led a class of high performing, highly engaged students who succeeded due to her educational prowess, ability to inspire, nurture, and support them inside and outside of the classroom. She led book clubs, the Jesus Club, and the No Place for Hate Club. She left as graciously as she taught, intent on driving home, that this was in no way related to the students' abilities and performance. We're all wondering how she could be cut by an evaluation system that is less reliable than a roulette wheel. Consistency builds trust. Confusion breaks it down.
If teacher turnover is of no concern to you, then you stand alone. Those students are succeeding in spite of you. 14? Group a. Quincy Buick ISD parents. I'm here asking for three things. One, please don't go for this budget. Two, please don't extend mister Miles' contract. And three, please don't waste the certification requirement. Next school serve about 65,000 students. Traditional school serve nearly 94,000. Yes. Next school allocated 96% of the funding given to traditional school, nearly the same amount of money for far fewer students.
That means next school cost roughly 30% more per student. You probably heard that the NES school serve higher need population, but let's look at the numbers. The total number of special education and economically disadvantaged students is split nearly evenly between NES and traditional school. That also, that doesn't explain why NES school received more than twice that funding per student. $1,696 compared to just 77 707 Thank you. You.
Thank you. Members, my I'm sorry. Go ahead. Okay. My name is Peter Manusi. I'm a father of four grader of twins at Harvard Elementary. Just gonna give you a bit of grim statistics. About fifty four percent of American adults between the ages of 16 to 74, they lack proficiency in literacy. That is a whopping one hundred and thirty million people in The US. When we consider how fierce today's global economic competition is today, it is even more important than ever to give the best possible education to our children. My view, we should be keeping librarians,
not getting rid of them. Now miss Garcia, she's not even not just a librarian. She's not just checking out books from the school, organizing bookshelves. She also teaches the children how to read and the love of reading. You all heard how much, she is loved and how much she is respected. No disrespect. In my view, honestly, it is unthinkable to even sit here and consider firing a teacher or a librarian for missing two days over, what's a lot, due to sickness. Please do the right thing. I do hope that you come to the same conclusion. Thank you. Michelle Williams, Houston Education Association.
I can see you all here. There's two types of data. HISD quantitative data, fuzzy math. And there's qualitative data that you're about to hear and you hear from, the community. HISD has an issue with discrimination against African American children and African American teachers. Patrick Henry, Nigger Butts. Nigger written all over the windows. Revere Middle, also has, issues with discipline. One of my members was Choate. The kids had to get her out get the boy off of her. Deshommes. Discrimination against Black teachers under a Latino principal.
Clifton Middle. Same thing. Rats. Not discriminatory, but they're running rampant in the library. I mean, in the cafeteria at, Marshall Middle, and instructional material. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Evie de Pekter. I am a parent of three students at Harvard Elementary in grades four, three, and kinder. Thank you for the opportunity to express my support for miss Garcia, our excellent, excellent librarian. The best teachers stay with us even after the school year ends and our academic journey concludes. Miss Garcia is one of those inspiring individuals creating meaningful impact in the lives of
our students. Her programs enrich classroom learning and enhance student achievements through high quality programming. You can already see glimpses into the lasting impact she's creating for students. She leads programs with depth, complexity, and high engagements. Programs like, One Book, One School, the 40 Book Challenge, and the library specialty class attended weekly by every student at Harvard Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Sandiata Rose, and I'm a former teacher at HSD. For sure, we may have had some increased growth,
but then that increased growth comes at a cost. Because, for example, we have no library, and then we are consistently micromanaged as teachers, and, some of our admin have power trips. And then we also have the IRT, which, any of our team like to use as a threat. And then also, there is a a lot of waste when it comes to the NES curriculum. For example, the LSA package, which, I was the only teacher at my campus who graded them in order to to assist my students in being successful.
But we gotta do better, especially since Thank you. Afternoon. My name is Kevin McKee. I'm a parent of a Westside High School student. I'd like to address the Board and simply say that removing librarians and removing libraries from schools is simply going to continue to have a catastrophic result. Librarians like Karina Barbosa, who not only go above and beyond the call, but teach multiple subjects, including such important things as political science, which teaches our children to engage with local governments and governments on the scale such as this one, and things like debate, which teaches them advocacy, which we've seen them practice here today.
Removing them removes their ability to do that. These dedicated teachers have provided far, far more than is required, and definitely far more than is paid for. And the district's own policies provide them with the ability to receive comp time for going above and beyond that call. So for the district to remove these teachers, in violation of their own policies and principles, and in contravention, these teachers in violation of their own policies and principles and in contravention of the idea of furthering education, as we all just saw you stand up here and clap yourselves on the backboard, just is completely Thank you. Excuse me. Could we have speakers 21 through 30 please move to the front row?
Good evening. I'm Catherine Estes. I'm a parent of two HISD students. Welcome to the newest members to the Board of Managers. As you listen tonight, I hope you'll remember the mission given to you by the TEA to improve outcomes for HISD students while representing the vision and values of this community. We are here to speak about possible termination of Ms. Dania Garcia, the revered media specialist and librarian at Harvard Elementary. We are sharing not just support for one educator, but also the values we want upheld in all of our schools. We want our children prepared for college,
careers, and military service. And we know that happens when they Are guided by dedicated inspiring educators like miss Garcia. Your role is to engage with stakeholders and ensure our decisions reflect our shared priorities. We're here because we care about this district's future. We want to build strong, respectful school cultures that attract and retain teachers, the best teachers. We hope tonight our voices are not just heard, they are truly valued. Thank you. Hi, my name is Megan Monks. Librarians are essential educators. Unlike classroom teachers who work with one group,
a librarian teaches every student. Supporting literacy, research, and critical thinking across the entire campus. Research consistently shows that schools with full time librarians see stronger academic outcomes. At Harvard Elementary, ninety three percent of the students passed the STAAR reading test last year, forty two percent at the mastery level. That's not a coincidence. That's the result of Ms. Garcia's dedication and our school's commitment to literacy. These gains show up across all student groups, regardless of income,
background, or ability. Libraries help close learning gaps and promote equity. But today, only 8% of HISD campuses have full time librarians? That's a missed opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. My name is Shivali Dhruv. At Harvard Elementary, we're lucky to have one of the very best librarians, Ms. Dania Garcia. She's not just our librarian, she is the cornerstone of our school community. Ms. Garcia has created a library program that strengthens our children's education and provides them with a safe, and provides them with a safe, joyful space to grow.
She's adored by students, as witnessed here by the many student speakers, and the heartfelt letters written in her support. Parents deeply value her, as reflected in tonight's strong turnout. Her colleagues look to her for leadership and inspiration. Named by HISD as Teacher of the Year in 2023, Ms. Garcia exemplifies what we all hope for in an educator. Passionate, inspiring, committed, and effective. Our students are thriving. Reading scores prove it. She challenges them. Thank you. Thank you.
Hi, my name is, Kate Anderson. All of us who are here today are here because we've seen the readers that our children have become under the Miss Garcia's direction of the library. But this isn't just anecdotal. Our school is an exemplar of what the scientific research that you just heard about shows. Ninety three percent of Harvard students pass the STAAR reading exam. Of those, seventy three percent of Harvard students are at meets expectations, which is a full 31 points higher than the district average. Of those, forty two percent are at master's expectations for the exam,
which is 21 points higher than the district average. Moreover, these benefits are widely felt across the school regardless of background. The percentage of students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds at Harvard who pass the reading exam is 10 points higher than the district average as well. Miss Garcia is delivering the improvements in test scores that you want to see because all kids at Harvard are Thank you. Hi. My name is Sean Kushiyama, parent of a third grader or rising fourth grader at Harvard Elementary.
Our community is here today because miss Garcia has been recommended for termination due to excessive absences, and yet she's not here to speak for herself because she's currently chaperoning a a four day student trip and is out of town on her own time. That's the kind of dedication she brings to our school. You may ask, how how can a teacher support students when they're absent? But that question ignores everything else that miss Garcia brings to the community. Yes. She took time to recover from illness and take care of her daughter as good parents would, but the formula used for this policy decision doesn't count the evenings, weekends,
and personal time that she devotes back to her kids' development, to the school success, and to the district's improvement. It doesn't count the book fairs, the reading programs, the talent shows, or academic trips that she leads. Programs organized in her personal time above and beyond the scope of her position, these are the things that change lives. Miss Garcia was a 2023 HISD teacher of the year for a reason. She shows up Thank you. Hi. My name is Christina Bedwell. I'm a parent of a Harvard student. One of the incredible programs led by missus Garcia above and beyond her regular duties is our annual 40.
You've heard from our students tonight and how much they love it. They're challenged by our librarian to select 40 books and read them throughout the year, touching a number of different genres. A child who may only read graphic novels is introduced to poetry, biographies, nonfiction, and many more. It's especially important to introduce young children to a wide range of books early on because as kids get older, their reading habits often decline. By giving them access to books now, we're laying the foundation stats already, I'm not gonna repeat them. But they're well above district averages. These results are no accident.
They are the testament to Ms. Garcia's dedication and the hard work of our entire teaching staff at Harvard. Thanks to missus Garcia, our school is a place where kids don't learn to read, they learn how to love reading. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Laura Wilcox, and I'm a parent of three elementary school kids at Harvard Elementary. Yet another wonderful program Ms. Garcia brings to our school is the Scholastic Book Fair. While many are familiar with book fairs, what makes ours special is the way she runs it. She's created a culture of young readers. My own children spend their birthday money at the fair because they love reading so
much. This spring, thousands of books went home with students and 25% of proceeds go straight back into our library and classrooms for new books. When campus budgets to our library and classrooms for new books. When campus budgets are being slashed, these funds are invaluable. But what truly sets Ms. Garcia apart is her care for every student. She ensures that no child leaves empty handed regardless of their ability to pay. She fundraises gives discreet, thoughtful support. Knowing each student personally, she'll quietly tap one on the shoulder and say, hey, pick out a couple of books. Thanks to Ms. Garcia, the book fair is more than an event.
It's a celebration of reading and Thank you. Good evening, Leah Kiefer, Harvard parent. For the last nine years, Ms. Garcia has dedicated an average of twenty extra hours a year after school and on weekends selecting try out books, preparing study aids, and hosting practices for the Name That Book competition. I was an athlete in college. Mr. Miles, I know you were as well. Like football or baseball name, that book is a team sport, a literary showdown, a competition that teaches commitment, communication under pressure, and valuable lessons and seven members, but Ms. Garcia drew 25 kids into the program last year because of her extraordinarily magnetic presence.
She made a place for each of them. Without a doubt, reading those extra 25 books certainly impacted positively their STAAR test scores, and it also provided something not seen or felt in the testing data, inspiration. She provided Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Rob Biales. I'm an HISD parent. Another place to understand miss Garcia's impact is to look to the Junior Librarian Club, a program she built from scratch. Each year, she selects 20 applicants from fifth grade who competitively apply by answering real world scenario questions. These students jockey to give up recess so they can help kindergartners and first graders
in the library, showing them leadership, at an early age to those kids. Miss Garcia isn't just checking out books. She's building future leaders. She's teaching our children responsibility, empathy, initiative, values that extend far beyond the library into the colleges, careers, and service that we are training them for. Her leadership does not stop with students. She coordinates over 40 weekly parent volunteers and organizes hundreds more during book fair season, an enormous effort that creates a real connection between families and our school.
Our library, through miss Garcia, ties together the student Thank you. Hi. My name is Bridget Kushiyama, and I'm a parent of an incoming now fourth grader at Harvard. Each year, miss Garcia partners with the PTA to create special experiences that are auctioned off at our annual fundraising gala. This year alone, her auction items raise enough to offset the cost of a part time interventionist, someone who supports student needing extra help with schoolwork to improve their outcomes. Funds that could also be used to cover essential classroom supplies that teachers depend on every day.
We know that fundraising like this is a privilege. Not every school community has the means to raise this kind of money. But what it highlights is how deeply loved and respected miss Garcia is. Families give generously because they believe in her and students are excited to win her auction items. Not just because they're fun, but because they want to spend time with her. And she does this all and she does this all outside school hours on her own time simply because she believes in these kids and in our school. Her commitment goes far Thank you.
Thank you. Speakers 31 through 40, please move to the front row. Hi, my name is Laura Holt, I'm an HISD parent. Each year fifth grade students at Harvard Elementary dive into the American Revolution as part of their social studies curriculum. As an IB campus, we use project based learning to help students explore different cultures, new perspectives, and ways of thinking. Ms. Garcia embraces these values by organizing a four day trip to Boston, where students walk the Freedom Trail, they reenact the Boston Tea Party, and they get to see places they've only heard about.
Miss Garcia cannot be with us tonight because she's in fact there with my daughter and 30 other students. HISD values this type of experience as it sponsors similar trips. As you know, these experiences deepen students' understanding in a way a classroom cannot, and it is only possible with the leadership of a teacher who has earned the trust of the students and the parents alike. Miss Garcia gives every student an opportunity to grow and to explore, and it is her time, her leadership, and her sacrifice that makes trips like Boston possible. Every student in school.
Thank you. My name is Judy Larson. Another program Ms. Garcia brings to our school is the talent show. Now this isn't tied directly to her role as a librarian, it's simply the magic she brings to our school community. It's about helping kids feel seen, valued, and connected. She gives her time voluntarily and outside of school hours to help lead this event. The talent show shows students a chance to shine in ways they might not otherwise. Through music, dance, theater, comedy and more. At our IB school we emphasize risk taking as a core value and Ms.
Garcia frames each performance as a chance for students to take brave steps in front of others. But it's more than just a fun event. Research shows that participation in the arts builds critical thinking and reading skills, both essential for academic success success and career readiness. Miss Garcia creates a space where kids feel safe to take risks. That leads to stronger thinking, better reading, and deeper learning, both in and out of the classroom. Every student and school Thank you. Thank you. Hi there. My name is Elaine Foo, and I have a daughter, and my daughter has a privilege to have Ms. Garcia as our librarian for the last four years.
I wanna just highlight another fantastic program Ms. Garcia has brought to our school, One Book, One School. Each year, she chose chooses a book for our every family to read together, one chapter a day. And this year, with support from the PTA, 680 books were distributed to families. Miss Garcia makes this more than just a reading assignment. Students answer daily questions to earn questions to earn prizes. There's an art contest with celebration for parents. She thoughtfully selects a book that appeals to both kindergartners and fifth graders, creates a daily reading plan, and reviews hundreds of question responses every day. This program encourages families to read together at home.
Research shows that reading just twenty minutes a day improves together at home. Research shows that reading just twenty minutes a day improves reading skills, writing, grammar, and test scores. It takes a lot of work, but more importantly, it builds a strong culture of reading and brings families closer. I've shared laughter, tears, and very thoughtful discussions while reading these books with my own Thank you. Thank you. Hi. My name is Travis McCarra. I have, two kids at Harvard, both who truly adore miss Garcia. A few years ago, miss Garcia noticed that some fifth graders were struggling with their IB exhibition presentations. Their work lacked the depth and polish that we typically expect most likely due to
the disruptions of COVID learning, but instead of just accepting that, she took action. Ms. Garcia created a mini exhibition program for our third through fifth graders to help them practice those essential skills earlier. Each fall, students choose a topic they care about, develop a central idea, and explore lines of inquiry just like in the full IV exhibition. They also conduct research in the library using credible sources and practice citing their information correctly. For many third graders, it's their very first time creating a slideshow or standing in front of a class to present. Miss Garcia works side by side with them building their confidence step by step. The results are clear each year.
Teachers see stronger presentations, more confident students, and deeper thinking. Miss Garcia Garcia continues to refine the program every year, helping shape our students into thoughtful, capable IB learners. Every student Thank you. Got it. Thank you. Hi. My name is Claire Wrigley. Miss Garcia is more than just a librarian. She's a person who stays late, works weekends, and shows up for every event. Her dedication inspires academic excellence reflected in our strong reading scores. This year, our campus has faced serious challenges. The flu spread rapidly, worsened by broken HVAC systems,
and weeks without soap in the restrooms. Many students and staff got sick, including miss Garcia. She took time to recover and care for her family. As board members, your charge is to ensure that students are well served. Tonight, we have shown how miss Garcia serves students with unmatched dedication and delivers real, measurable contributions to student success. She deserves our support and the opportunity to continue uplifting students. We urge you to recognize the value that miss Garcia brings to HISD.
Please do not terminate her contract. Every student deserves a librarian. Thank you. My name is Will Reed, and I chair the board at Mission Milby where HISD operates the Sunrise Center. Standing with me is Maria Aguilar, our executive director. And since 02/2002, our mission has been defined by our location because we are located between Milby High School and Deedee Middle School, and students can walk to to Mission Milby in five minutes after school. So our mission is to work together to improve the quality of life in the Milby feeder pattern through education,
support, and encouragement of students and their families. But we are here today to say that we to say thank you to HISD for locating a Sunrise Center at Mission Milby. It has enhanced our ability to achieve our goals and by working together, we are making life better for children, youth, and their families in the feeder pattern. In 2024, through the Sunrise Center and all the other programs that Mission Millby already had in place, we served almost 19,000 persons at Mission Millby. So thank you. Thank you.
Hi. Jane Frio. I'm a parent of a student who receives special education. You heard a presentation tonight on the improvement of, math and reading scores for students with disabilities. I urge you to take those numbers with caution. None of you were here when, your current roles when HISD had a special education audit back in 02/2018. But I was here. I've been in the district since 02/2010. You inherited a dysfunctional department when you came aboard that was routine routinely failing to comply with federal law, and we don't know what has really changed since then. The audit is still available on the HISD website,
and it revealed serious operational deficiencies in the special education department. Since then, there has been no clear outside public documentation of what actions the administration has taken to address those issues. They've all been internally reported. The audit made clear recommendations for what the district must do to improve, not what students need to do. I believe the community deserves another independent audit to ensure accountability rather than relying solely Thank you. I'm Mary Lopez from Work on Dual Language Academy, a parent. Let's say if you want to change the world,
start at home, but when the root of the problem is leadership itself, surface fixes won't be enough, mister Miles. You're at the root. As long as you remain in power, schools like mine will continue to suffer under a principle who disrespect teachers, staff, even custodians, who mislead parents and hide behind ignorant. Classrooms are staffed with uncertified teachers, and schools lack even the most basic resources like soap. It's not a concern that the board members like Rolando Martinez, who ask questions are no longer here. Under your leadership, control replaces collaborations, and loyalty is volume over the competencies.
Speaking of competencies, you've been uncertified for two years. Your waiver expired. Yet yet, here you are asking for another pass. Being an educator takes more than standing in front of a classroom. It takes training and a calling, none of which you shown. We truly want to change, we need we must start from the source. And the source is you mister Miles. My name is Jonathan Bryant. I'm a Northside High School History teacher and last year's Teacher of the Year. Next year, my school turns 100 years old. Over the past century, we've survived the Great Depression, World War II, struggles that have brought us closer and made us stronger.
But the NES model is doing what those hardships never could. It's tearing apart our school community. Since the takeover, over 60 educators at our school alone have been terminated or pushed out. Under NES, a set percentage of teachers are labeled unsatisfactory every year no matter how talented they are. The great irony here is that many of the teachers who produced the star results that we are celebrating were terminated, pushed out, or were looking for work in other districts. My campus has already lost over five hundred years of experience. No pay for performance scheme can replace the trust and care that built HISD.
If this continues, we'll lose all of the original staff in the school within the next two years. There's no continuity and no legacy under NES. We made it through the last century together, but we won't survive the next Thank you. I'm Jesse Dugan, a concerned parent. This month, our Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, and the TEA denied our community's demands to end the state takeover of Houston Public Schools. He denied to remove his unelected puppet school board and give the power back to our school board members, our elected representatives that are currently being locked out of their own jobs.
Instead of welcoming back our elected board members to their rightful position, Abbott served us up these fresh batch of boot lickers to serve on his puppet board. And what do you know? Know? They all happen to be rich CEOs and big law partners like mister Rosales here of Beck Reddit. Gotta say, you looked a little nervous tonight. Have you satisfied yourself that Mike Miles doesn't currently have a conflict of interest? After all, the TEA itself found he's still a signatory on his Charter Third Future Schools bank accounts here in Texas. It's a malpractice for you to advise a company to let someone be CEO who
is actively looking to tear the business down and buy it on the cheap. But that's exactly Speakers 41 through 50, please move to the front row. Jesse Moreno, mother. I'm just gonna be another angry and disappointed woman that you, you have in your life. I wanna believe that the new members are here for the right reasons, and not because they're just another shill from the TEA. My experience won't allow me to do that. All I see are people here for power, political gain, or seeking financial gain. Looking at you, Mike Miles. I do not understand how your backgrounds in finance and law have transferrable skills in any way in resolving a fabricated educational crisis. We are tired of unelected representation telling us what we can and can't do with
our family's education or our taxes. You cannot continue to wield the power you have not earned unchecked. So I hope you find this meeting very uncomfortable. It will be the first of many. In this scenario, we are not the frogs in slowly boiling water, it is y'all, and you must start listening to us. So I'm going to close with this. While you may be failing to enrich our children, ninety percent people of color and 62% Latino, you better not fail them in safety. You better keep ICE and other federal agents away from our kids when they are in their buildings or on your foot. Thank you. Hi,
my name is Brooke Pappas McKee. I'm a parent at Westside High School. And I'm speaking out because what's happening to Ms. Barbosa is just, it's just wrong. It's a loss our community can't afford. She's more than a teacher, she's a debate coach, a librarian, a mentor, and a lifeline for so many students. She's grown the debate team from eight to over 25 students, taken four to state to the state tournament, she's coached two times district winning named that book team, published two students' poetry on a national level, she gives up up nights and weekends without complaint just because she believes in our
kids. And everything I've just said, it's not just numbers, that's lives changed. We're asking Westside and HIIC to rescind the recommendation to terminate Ms. Barbosa and to honor the comp time she has rightfully earned. HIC has a comp time policy in place. She followed it and she's earned that recognition. That's twenty one weekends. Actually over and clocking in an average of nineteen hours each weekend that she does for our Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Sarah Miller. I'm a parent of an HISD student and a former school librarian. So my child is fortunate enough to have an operating library,
she loves going every week, and I find that the rigidity of the district curriculum makes it more important than ever that we have a library, because that's the only space where kids have choice in their reading and their learning. And fun engaging lessons that are sorely lacking in this curriculum happen in the library space. You know, twenty five years ago, HISD had two fifty librarians, and today there's less than 30 certified librarians in a district that serves 200,000 kids. So currently, every non Title I school has an operating library. So if you're going to close gaps in reading performance,
you need to give poor kids access to a certified librarian. If anything, they need it more. So, I want to impress upon you one final thought. If you wouldn't send your own children to a school that doesn't have a library, and fun, and engaging curriculum, don't put it on anyone else's Thank you. Hi, Christine Hurley. Doctor Martin Luther King Junior believed that a budget reflects not just numbers, but value. It tells us who and what we value. Tonight, this board, including four brand new, unelected, unqualified members, is being asked to approve a multi billion dollar budget that failed that moral task. You're being asked asked to pass a budget that reflects disregard for students,
teachers, and the community. It's a budget built on the harmful NES model that has driven enrollment into free fall and trust into the ground. How can you responsibly vote yes on a budget you didn't help create and don't fully understand? This is not fiscal responsibility. It is not educational leadership. It is certainly not moral. The community has pleaded with you to stop, to listen, and to lead with integrity. We are not numbers. We are not noise. We are the people you serve. We've spoken to you in meetings, in rallies, in writing, and still we're ignored. This is not just numbers on a page. It is a reflection of failed priorities and toxic leadership.
Do not rubber stamp this harm. Thank you. Speaker 45, Victoria Fredette followed by Ruth Kravitz. 46. Sarah Sam. Hello, new board members. My name is Ruth Kravitz. I'm with Community Voices for Public Ed. I spent my teaching life trolling the hallways for kids who are brilliant, who don't know they are, and supporting them on their path to their destiny. But under the takeover, Miles has chosen a different way. Last year to to inflate scores, the only kids who taught bio who took bio were pre AP students and the rest were put in remedial science to inflate STAR scores.
Today I found out that at some NES schools in under resourced black and brown communities, not a single ninth grader was allowed in pre AP this year. There are strong students in every school, in every neighborhood, this is bad bad policy. Last year high achieving eighth graders were denied algebra forcing them into basic math, inflating last year's eighth grade math scores. You talked about that earlier. And then they inflated this year's ninth grade algebra scores. We should not be proud to have denied kids an opportunity to take Hi, my name is Sarah Sam and I'm a community member. I received my master's from Caltech and during my time there I was appointed to
the Committee for Naming and Recognition. So I'm familiar with the naming policies of institutions across the country like Caltech, Stanford, Indiana University, Princeton, and others. Naming policies reflect institutional values such as inclusivity, historical transparency, and academic honor. But none of these institutions sell building names to the highest bidder, and none of these institutions have purposefully excluded students from the naming process like the changes proposed in agenda item 32. Requirement to a mere recommendation. Students must have a say in naming the schools they will call their alma mater
for the rest of their lives. I urge the board to Thank you. Thank you. You. Hello, Doctor. Ruth Hoffman Lack. You're about to vote on a budget that's gonna give like way more money to Special Ed in NES schools per kid than others and there's a lot of questions about that. I PIR ed some data, from TEA. I haven't had it yet for a total of forty eight hours. But here's what I can tell you, some things that are a little wonky you might want to look into before you pass this budget because you might be breaking the law. So, for example, at Benavides Elementary, the total enrollment,
according to the budget, I mean to the district, is 782 kids. Of that, 4.35% are enrolled instead. Guess what? There are 34 kids that are enrolled in SPED, and all of them, 100% are in self contained classrooms, out of 782 kids. So that's really problematic, Thank you. Thank you. Is speaker is speaker 42 here, Colin Boesen? Okay. Next is Mindon Tran, number 49. Mindon Tran. Minh Dawn Tran, number 49. Sir, your time is up is up.
Go ahead. Come up. Sorry to delay your speaking. Oh, no worries. I'm friends with her. Okay. Hi. My name is Mind Don Tran speaking on item 25. I'm a licensed HISD teacher. Thank you very much. Teacher at an NES school recently told me, quote, I didn't grow at all this year. I just learned how to not get in trouble. Students aren't learning in NES schools, and teachers aren't growing either. We have excellent professional career educators who truly want to hone their craft, but they're stymied by the stupidly rigid system of NES. Last year, the district lost over 40% of its 10,000
teachers. This year's numbers are still coming in. We know close to 1,000 teachers were non renewed for lack of certification. I agree that all teachers should be certified or pursuing their license. F Mike Miles should also be certified. In a recent video, Miles was heard boasting that he doesn't need certification because I know what I'm doing. He thinks he earned his $126,000 bonus. Lead by example, Mr. Miles. Get your certification or get out of HISC. Thank you. Speakers 50 through 50 through 60, please move to the front row. Speakers 51 through 60, please move to the front row.
Good evening. Speaking about the district's gains in algebra and biology in a recent, in the recent released STAR scores, Superintendent Miles said doesn't happen by magic. No one doubts that students, teachers, and parents worked hard. But if you pull back the curtain, the full picture appears about how these gains were achieved. They happened by Miles and company blocking 17% of eighth graders from taking algebra and putting them in remedial math. It happened by only allowing pre AP students to take biology the biology star test.
It happened by leaving kids behind. If Miles NES program is so great, so innovative, why manipulate outcomes in this manner? Also, why did overall SAT scores decrease in the same year? Could it be because these outcomes Thank you. I see some unfamiliar faces here tonight. Let me introduce myself. I'm doctor Denise Livings Wilborn. I am a literacy specialist, reading interventionist, and I currently hold several valid TEA certifications. I enter new relationships with trust and respect.
If and when that trust is broken, it is hard to get it back from me. So, to keep that trust, don't call us names. Don't call us the usual suspects. Don't. Repeat our fingers. Just don't call us names. Don't bully us. And don't tell lies about us. Nobody is paying me to stand here in front of you to advocate for public school kids. For kids. Just don't lie about us. When you ask for community engagement, mean it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Thank you.
Good evening. Melissa Yarbrough, Masters in Education in Curriculum and Instruction. I won't charge you $2,000,000 to tell you that the secret to stop the hemorrhaging of enrollment, is simple. It's easy. Don't treat students, parents, and teachers like we're just data on a spreadsheet, and start treating us like the community that we are. This is not vague, it's straightforward. People leave when they feel disregarded, and they stay when they feel respected. Maybe Miles thought our community was poisoned and he had to shake things up. It's a rookie mistake. For the last two years, he created a 43% teacher turnover,
and now, HISD is experiencing a 4% enrollment loss. To give you a specific example, last year, Miles replaced 70% of the teachers and 100% of the admin at my child's school, Pew Elementary. The devastation was followed by a 20% drop in enrollment at Pew this year. Rather than spend 2,000,000 to preteach team. Thank you. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Diana Candida, HIC parent, here to welcome the new board members. If your goal truly is to help Houston children, you need to listen to us, parents,
teachers, students, and community members, and closely scrutinize everything you're told by Mike Miles. Mister Miles manipulates data to make himself look good. By not allowing seventeen percent of high achieving eighth graders in NES schools to take algebra, he falsely inflated the pass rate by three percent. This intentional manipulation is bad enough, but worse is that it sets these children back in their academic path and future success. Forty three percent of teachers left HISD in the 2324 year. The exodus of excellent experienced teachers continued this year because of the toxic work environment
created by Mike Miles resulting in instability for our kids, a brain drain for Houston, and HISD is now spending tons of money trying to recruit. Firing wrap around specialists and librarians increases in equity. Enrollment is declining, but telling these schools with increases with the increases are the one Thank you. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Good evening. Brandy Dowdett, community member and librarian. The incredible student speakers tonight explained better than I ever could the importance and impact of a school librarian, yet that is now a rarity in HISD.
A 2021 Chronicle article showed that 58 librarians for two seventy six schools, certified Superintendent House listened to the community, and prioritized hiring librarians, especially Mister Miles Sir. Worse than the kids. Mr. Miles, I know you can't understand outrage that doesn't involve ego. You believe that we librarians are angry because we were fired. That simply isn't true. As a matter of fact, we are thriving in our new districts. We are livid because you have robbed. Thank you.
Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. We are going to start getting more I'm gonna give you one warning now. And if you don't okay. Let let me tell you something here. We are gonna stay in our one minute where I'm gonna start removing people. This is not fair to the speakers to this is not fair to the speakers who are behind you. So please, I'm gonna give you one warning, and they're gonna be removed for the meeting. Okay? Next speaker. Camille Brohm. As the parent of a child receiving special education services at an NES school,
I'm here to tell you that the NES model is not closing the achievement gap for SPED students, and even more so for those with fewer resources to tap into. It took my child an entire year to slow down during daily quizzes, ignore the giant countdown timer, and finally use his extended time accommodation. This had a huge impact on his grades. He didn't need rigor. He needed patience and persistence from teachers. Under NES, teachers are stretched thin and kids who need the most support are are slipping through
the cracks. The model prioritizes test scores and pacing guides over relationships and adaptability. It treats differences as a disruption rather than a strength. This model is not economically, academically, or frankly, emotionally sustainable. If you want equity, you must build a system that is Good evening. I'm Kelly Blickery, parent. To the new board members, welcome. You'll be told that your role under Lone Star government is to focus solely on student outcomes. Outcomes are more than test scores. They're stable campuses, trusted teachers, and lessons that spark curiosity and joy. You'll be told that those of us who speak out are just a few standing
in the way of progress, or that we only care about our kids. But what I want for my son, I want for all students in this district. We're here because we love public schools. We love HISD's kids and teachers. We love the communities, school communities that take years to build and can be dismantled in months. We've seen that damage firsthand. To the new board and those continuing, you hold real power. Use it in service of students and families, not just metrics and mandates. Don't retreat into secrecy. Laura Henry on the first of two speakers. Today, I was thinking about a third grade Art of Thinking assignment that contains seven typos
in one paragraph. Students were expected to explain how AI positively impacted critical thinking among Noah and his friends who used AI to determine whether they should create a video or a poster. The irony? Even though studies show that cognitive offloading of simple tasks to a AI weakens critical thinking, students in the class weren't allowed to consider that possibility. Also, actually making posters, videos, and decisions teaches kids. The data you saw didn't focus on do not needs. The students you are being told can't read can. The ones it can't read, you're ignoring. Masters for English two is ninety third percentile in the state,
and you're giving those kids test prep instead of novel studies. The approach of kids lack background knowledge. In order to learn stuff, you have to know stuff. Authentic learning gives students that knowledge. Yes. Constant test prep can raise short term test scores, but it comes at a long term cost. Thank you. Andrew Taylor, HISD Parent. Here are some things the HISD Board, can look at to help understand the community's discontent. One, read or listen to the audio version of Kelly Gallagher's book To Read Stuff, You Have to Know Stuff. It explains the long term consequences students suffer when you narrow the school curriculum.
Two, take last year's English STAR test yourself. It's accessible online. Actual English curriculum and examine a randomly selected week, not one cleaned by Miles' team. It isn't what HEISD parents want for their children. That's why so many are pulling them out of the district. The many people speaking here tonight represent many more. Spending millions of dollars on an outside consulting firm to raise enrollment is misguided. Following student enrollment in teachers are indicators of HISD dysfunction. Talk directly with teachers and families. They are the data you need to consider. What families want for their kids is
Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Elia Martin Albo, a parent. If the Houston Independent School District were a business, it would be in crisis mode and its board would be held accountable for declining revenue, high employee turnover and shrinking customer confidence. Funding is down. Enrollment is free falling. Families are choosing to leave the district, not because they don't value public education, but because they don't trust this district to deliver it. And it's not just students leaving. Teachers, our frontline professionals are leaving too. We're driving away the very people who make schools work because we've created an environment where their voices aren't heard,
their experience isn't respected, and their job security depends on numbers that don't tell the whole story. If these were a company, we'd say the culture is toxic. We'd say that morale is broken and the work environment is unsustainable. Yet, in the face of this exodus, what's the district response? A narrow obsession with standardized test scores and a surprisingly bad rebranding of its logo. Speaker 60 through 65, if you could please move to the front row. 60 through 65. Go ahead. Superintendent Miles and Board. Hi. I'm excited to introduce myself today.
My name is Carla Madadiega. I am here today as the parent of a four year old who will start kindergarten in the fall. I have been carefully watching you and the changes you have made to HISD as I weighed where we would enroll our child for kindergarten. For months, I have looked at test score data, spoken to parents and teachers, and listened in on board meetings. I am not impressed. In your tenure, I observed you close dozens of school libraries, fire beloved teachers, and eliminate wrap around specialists who are pillars of support in their specific communities. None of this is good for our students. None of this is good for our teachers. And none of this is good for our communities.
In spite of all of this, my family chose to stay in HISD. Why? Because of our students, because of our teachers, because of our community. So hello. I intend for this to be the start of a very long relationship between you and I. As long as you are here, you will be accountable to us. Thank you. Hey new board members. I hope they prepared you for all this. And I hope, but I also hope that you're here to listen to the community. I mean I know that you heard those little kids earlier pleading with you guys for their librarian, you know? That's their light. It was gut wrenching. These are real kids begging you to care.
And yet, some of you look like this is just another agenda item. We need libraries in our Black and Brown communities, our low income communities. Instead, you're removing them. I encourage you to take a drive through my neighborhood. Look around. Search for Little Free Libraries or even take a trip to our local library and look for music studios or high-tech equipment and fun engaging programs. HISD is just making things worse for our communities. My daughter is proof that NES is failing kids like her. Students with dyslexia, English learners, and economically disadvantaged students,
under the NES system, she was barely reading. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your time is up. Your lack of respect for the time is you have you're a warning now. Stop. Here's your second your first warning now. Excuse me. Before before you speak, this is about this is a real respect respectful we appreciate for the this is about respect for the speakers. Okay? It is about respect for the speakers. So the next person that goes over, I'm gonna remove from the auditorium. Go ahead. Yeah.
We'll reward that person. Go ahead. Letter from a high school student on the last day of school. Today, I completed my first year of high school. And to be honest, I feel drained. Right now everything feels overwhelming because I'm thinking and worrying too much about things all at once. Some of the things I've been thinking about lately is school making my parents proud and what I'll do over summer break. I've been feeling excited yet stressed because I'm scared about what I land in school and whether or not I wasted a school year, but I'm excited to finally sleep and not go to school anymore. My classes are chaotic. The one I enjoy the most is my reading class because I work with others
and I get to collaborate with theaters. The class I struggled with is physics because it was because I genuinely suck at science and because I shouldn't be taking classes like this anymore in my freshman year. Right now my closest friend is my sister. Because she just she understands me. One fun memory I've made with my sister. This year's being able to tell her all about my day as a rising sophomore. I'm trying to figure out who I am. One thing I've learned about myself is I worry too much. Something I want to work on is my academic intelligence. I want to grow in learning on how to value myself and learn how to appreciate my own personal efforts.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Will you please remove this person from the, from here? You have your second warning now. I warned before he came up. So just just so you understand, this is not respectful to the people in this room. We can be here all night, and we have no problem with it. But the rules say one minute and be respectful to the other speakers. We're happy to be here till one in the morning if you wanna do that, but it's one minute each. And if you if you violate that and start raising your voice because you won't,
you won't, deal with our rules, then you don't have to speak. Okay? So who's next? Anna Angeles, followed Hello everyone, my name is Ana Angeles, and I'm a Northside graduate class of 2022. I'm a proud Panther and proud to call Northside my alma mater. My experience at Northside High School was nothing but positive and full of growth because of the welcoming environment that allowed me to break out of my shell. My experience was made easier thanks to many of my teachers that helped me become who I am today. My teachers from the beginning of my freshman year to my senior year have given me a lesson to take with me into adulthood. Whether that's to practice my public speaking or garner my critical skills in situations we
see on a day to day basis. This would not have been possible without the essence of Northside, our teachers, who provide genuine and compassionate guidance that I have had the pleasure of receiving. Today I choose to speak up to call out the unfair how unfair it is to unjustly remove several of our teachers and potentially deny further students from receiving a proper education, and that's the same opportunity that I was given. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Dulce Rivera, and my baby goes to Briscoe Elementary. This year, Marcel started school after being homeschooled. I stayed in contact with his teacher who reassured me he was improving. The principal even gave me a form to waive summer school,
so I thought everything was fine. However, on graduation date, I found out my child wasn't being promoted. I saw the principal and the teacher with tears of happiness for the other kids, but all I could think about was how I had felt how they had felt my son. I wanted to scream in the crowd of happy parents. In the past, teachers would call me if my son was struggling and would work together. I now and now that that communication is gone. If I had known earlier he wasn't on track, I would have done everything possible to help my son succeed and I go through what we did that day. Schools and parents need to communicate better.
We need to be partners in our kids' education to make sure no child is left behind or like Mason felt on ceremony day, like he wasn't good enough. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. Yeah. I'm a mother of a, sixth grade, school. Sixth grade, student. And I want to share, what this school year has been for me and my son. He was diagnosed with a medical condition. He has seizures while attending JR JR Harris, which is part of HISD. His whole life, he has been in regular classes. He has had support.
But this year, he move he was moved to when he was moved to sixth grade, he was transferred to GESPREP. I found out that he was placed in an special education classes. But I was very furious when I found out because I was just, like, signing papers, but nobody explained to me what I was signing. And, when my son, found out that he was in a special ed, he was devastated. He cried. He begged me not, to leave him there. And when I Thank you. President Campo, we're ready move on to Zoom for Group A.
Okay. Let's move to Zoom then. Go ahead. Allison Chapin. You can unmute yourself. You may begin. Hi. My name is Allison Chapin. I am a former HISD teacher, and I just would like to speak today to the board asking you to refrain from voting on this bus budget. And I'm also asking you to retain the highly qualified teachers and librarians because students and every student deserves high quality education,
whether they're in public school or private school. And, I would also ask you to check check the, data because what comes from mister Miles' mouth is not always appropriate. So please do your due diligence, and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Whoo. Thank you for the cord. Thank you for the cord. Doctor Doctor Maria Benzon. Is Adida Sage Bender sing speaking as well? No. She's unable to speak tonight.
Okay. Please go ahead. For asking. Thank you. Hi. My name is doctor Maria Benzon, and I have a graduate certificate in data science and business analytics. The data in GPM 3.1 is incomplete and misleading. Back in November 2022, when we had an elected board and a certified superintendent, we received a far better reporting. Take exhibit four. Today, we only see percentages of eleventh graders meeting TSI criteria by student group. But in '22, that data was provided for tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders and included trends going back to 2017.
We could actually track progress and differentiate results by grade level. The 2022 report also separated data by school type, rise versus non rise. Today, NES and non NES results are merged. That erases crucial context. We used to see SAT, ACT, and TSIA participation rates with totals by grade, but now it's just TSIA percentages. No SAT, no ACT, no count. Mister Miles is giving you an incomplete report. The missing information compromises the entirety of the data and reads the manipulation and deceit.
Reject item two. Thank you. Sarah Terrell, you may begin. A funny thing happened on a funny thing happened on the end on the way to the end of the fiscal year. Sorry. I got a a funny thing happened on the end on the way to the end of the fiscal year. Miles promised to raise 80,000,000 in property sales, but he's $66,000,000 short. Who took the hit? Looks like mainly classroom instruction down 32,000,000. But that's funny. I thought we were paying our teachers so much more. Miles will get you to preapprove his fiscal moves through policy and budget approvals without giving you details. Take the naming rights policy. All the shells are now May,
giving Miles total control over naming rights and terms. Our only sales naming rights of HSPDA to the genders in 2016 did not go that well. The contract is perpetual, and HIC only received about 5 and a half million of the 7 and a half million promise. Naming rights are valuable. Perpetuity is no longer standard. But Miles you relinquishing your authority with no discipline. But you'll get used to it. Thank you. Clyde Bittner, please unmute yourself. You may begin. Hi. I'm Claude Bittner, HISD parent.
The data in goal progress, progress monitoring 3.1 is not only confusing, it's misleading. A small note says all historical data was recalculated using small note says all historical data was recalculated using new business rules, but the appendix provides no explanation for those changes. For example, twenty three to twenty four middle of the year data jumped from 4% in October 2024 to 17% of June 2025 with no justification. In fact, every single data point increased from October 24 to today with no transparency. Worse, the report only shows percentages, not total numbers. That's misleading.
10% of a hundred is 10 students. 10% of 10 is just one. We can't access impact without knowing how many students we're talking about. You can't make good decisions with bad data. I urge you to reject item two today and until the district provides clear explanations and complete numbers. Manipulated data concealed by fine credit. Thank you. Integrity and courage. I urge you to ask hard questions. Don't accept vague answers or rubber stamp decisions. This community deserves transparency, not behind behind closed doors leadership, not unexplained budget shifts, and certainly not silence when being asked for clarity.
We need leaders who will push for truth, demand accountability, and restore trust. You are appointed to represent families, students, and teachers, not to protect power or uphold the status quo. Please be the voice to the challenge, to bolster the question, and the change our community so virtually needs. We're watching, we're engaging, and we're ready to work alongside you if you choose to lead with honesty, vision, public service. Thank you. Thank you. Franklin Tamburello, please begin. Yes. Thank you. I noticed there are four new board members who have to vote on a budget
that they probably haven't yet had a chance to question so far. One good question to ask might be why do SpEd students at PUA school get just 42% of the funding that SPED students at NES students NES schools get? I don't think that SPED students need changes much because of what school category they're hoping to they happen to be in. I think you should question Thank you very much. Thank you. Doctor Anita Wardwell, please turn your camera on, and you may begin. We aren't able to hear you.
Doctor Wardwell, we're not able to hear you. We can come back to you in just a second. Liz Silva, please begin. Oh. You know, my third grader came home rushed repairs on through shows, not for the students, but for shows. Work kids were proud of was ripped off the wall. Classrooms were micromanaged all for appearances. How does this help student outcomes? It doesn't. It's meant to give message to kids that optics matter more than their learning. My son felt that a lot of students did. This is an ex at point with image management. When you build leadership that centers students,
not stage message and scripted success. That starts with a certified superintendent, not another contract extension for somebody cosplaying a superintendent. Our kids deserve better. Thank you. Thank you. Doctor Wardwell, can you turn your vol volume up? Can you hear me now? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Okay. I apologize. I was on the road. Hello. My name is Anita Vapa. I have two daughters in HISD, and welcome to the new, board members. I was just wondering about the budget item where you're considering spending $2,250,000
to give people in Dallas, insight into how to keep people in the district. You can pay us $2,250,000. We're here for you. We can provide you that for free. We provide it for you regularly. We'd love for you to hear what we have to say. The people closest to the problems are the people closest to the solution. So we told you it was not a good bond. Give us us a good bond, and we'll vote for it. We told you we don't have trust. Do the things that we're saying. I I say I like books. I've written books. My daughter likes books, but somehow we don't have a librarian.
Please listen to us. I know I sound so sarcastic. I'm genuinely not hateful towards anyone here. I'm just hateful of the action. Please listen to us. Thank you. That concludes our speakers for Group A. Okay. We've, we've completed the, Group one speakers. Before we go on to the other items, we're gonna take about a ten minute break. Okay. Okay. We're gonna go ahead and reconvene at 08:18. Okay. Remember, as we no. We aren't ready to hear yet. We so we are gonna vote on full progress monitors first. We have to I can flip it and then do it after that.
Since we're we got this? How do I get back to where I was? Yeah. Right there. There we go. Everybody's computer good? Okay. The first thing we're going to do, is we are now going to take a vote on the discussion and the reports. Do I have a motion to accept the Board monitoring update on Goal three Progress Measures 3.1 and Goal four Progress Measures 4.3. Is there a motion? Okay. I have a motion and a second. Any questions or comments? Okay, then please vote.
And the motion passes. Okay. Do I have a motion to accept Board Monitoring Update and Constraint Progress Measure 3.1? Okay. A motion and a second. Any questions or comments? If not, please vote. The budget and the proposed tax rate. Kenneth Miles, you have the floor. Alright. Mister president, members of the board, we're here to talk about the budget, but there's three different budgets we're asking you to adopt at the end. So at the first part of my presentation I'll go through very quickly. As we have had five budget workshops and board members new board members,
I know you weren't part of those five. You did have a crash course in budgeting a couple hours last week and then, I think most of you watched some of the videos of the budget workshops. And just like the original Board of Managers, the state law requires us to approve the budget in June, and so the original Board of Managers also only had, three weeks before they had to vote on it. This year, we also, as always, try to prioritize our resources so that we can indeed transform the district.
And, this year we also wanted to focus on sustainability since we started still, having said that, we did keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible. We prioritize our resources since they're scarce, and then we made decisions to be sustainable. And in order to be sustainable, you have to get close to a balanced budget, if not a balanced budget. And I said at the beginning of the budget process back in February, we were gonna try to get to a balanced budget this year or next year. So,
you'll see, we did a great job getting close to that. So these were the dates of the budget workshops. This is the timeline. The, Board of Managers, the rest of the Board has seen this slide five times, so I'm not gonna spend too much time on these. So we're asking for the adoption of three funds: the general fund, debt service fund, nutrition services fund. And I will be the one going over the general fund, and CFO, will go over the debt service fund and the nutrition services fund. Coastal General Fund is tied to property values.
You see there $241,000,000,000 in property values after the assessed valuation. What that means for us is $1,558,000,000 in maintenance and operations tax revenue. So on the revenue side, we received $1,560,000 on or billion dollars rather on our MNO. For our I and S, which is different fund, dollars $367,000,000
I know this slide is, tiny, but you have it in front of you, and we went over part of it last time at during the budget workshop. But let me go over the big numbers that you requested, President Campo. So these are the big numbers from that same sheet. On the revenue side, side, you see that we started, this fiscal year with $1,900,000,000 in revenue and then we also, added to that revenue, of course, the, taxes and interest earnings. From the state side,
the numbers you see there, we've given you, some indication of that but the legislature just finished, a little over a week ago, or a week ago, so we now know that the basic allotment and state entitlements is indeed $55 So these are increases to the budget from the revenue side. That's $83,000,000 additional dollars. The teacher retention allotment, that's the amount we were talking about regarding teacher salary increases required by the state under this teacher retention allotment.
That'll be $36,000,000 There's a support staff retention allotment, that's $50 per support staff person. That's $6,000,000 The school safety allotment, that also increased. You can see that there. And then this, fund or allotment called allotment for basic costs where insurance, utilities, those basic things that districts have to spend money on, that amount is $106 per student. So that's a that's sizable and that makes up for the lower basic allotment per
student that you see on that first line under state funding. We also will lose, money from federal grants so it's not an increase in revenue. That's why why you see it in parenthesis there. All total, our revenue, the revenue side increase, will be $175,400,000 So, that's a little bit more than what we had planned when we started back in February partly because of the basic, allotment for basic costs, partly because of school safety allotment and a few other things. Not far off, but a little bit more money,
than we had anticipated. That's a very good thing bringing our total estimated revenue to $2,000,000,000 dollars 82 and on the slide, of course. But in the, agenda or posted agenda, it says 2,000,080 or 2,080,000,000. It should be 2,082,000,000. So it's correct what what you have is correct. What's on this slide is correct, but on the agenda is 2,000,000. Doesn't affect the bottom line because, on our reports we we had it correct.
So that's the revenue side. On the expenditure side, you see at the top the expenditures anticipated for this fiscal year, fiscal year twenty five, estimated to, to use 2,000,000,000 a 176,000,000, and then you see the things that we're going to increase expenditures for. Pre k expansion, the district action plan, teacher pay raises, and you can see the rest there. And we've been over this in the last couple workshops, so unless there's a question I'm gonna keep moving.
So the increase in expenditures is 67,000,000. At the same time, this district went through, an exercise last year, and then this year we did the same thing to try to cut expenses at 29,000,000 from Central Office Departments. We also cut, from PUA campus because enrollment's going down, $14,000,000 From NES campus also because of declining enrollment and so that we don't have as many teachers, we won't have as many teachers, $21,000,000 One time expenses from last year,
because they were one time, are are decreased to the expenditures from last year. So you see a decrease of 12,000,000. And then last year, we paid for recapture. This year, we will not have to. So that's a decrease of $44,000,000 in recapture. All total, you see down at the bottom of the slide, we reduced expenditures $122,000,000 and therefore, if you take our increase in expenditures and then the decrease the reduction in expenditures, the total amount there is a decrease of decrease of $54,000,000
in expenditures. That brings the estimated expenditures to $2,100,000,000 So revenue side, this screen here. Expenditure side, this screen here. So you can see that again, the revenue expenditures. So we have, dollars 39,000,000 more in expenditures than revenue, however, we have other sources of revenue spelled out there in the middle section, which is is $25,000,000 So all total, we will expend about $14,600,000
more than on the revenue side, making our deficit 14,000,600 making our deficit $14,683,000. We went from $246,000,000 in deficit and by the way, I'm looking at the new board members. That seems like a big number. It is. We started the year off with 540 $528,000,000 less in revenue. How's that possible? The end of ESSER dollars and the enrolment catches up with us.
So between enrolment decline that was paid for by ESSER dollars in the past but needs to be paid for now by general fund dollars and the, recurrent expenses when ESSER finished, we had $528,000,000 fewer this year at the start. So being able to turn in a budget with an $800,000,000 fund balance and $246,000,000 deficit was what we had to do at the beginning of this year. Now, at the end of this year, beginning for next year,
we're only gonna be $14,000,000 in deficit, and we're gonna have, $800,000,000 fund balance that we'll finish this year, which means we'll have $785,000,000 next year. Jim Terry thinks we'll probably capture, recapture, that $14,000,000 by tightening our belt just a little bit this coming year, and we'll be right back at $800,000,000 by the end of the year. So essentially a balanced budget. That's a credit. For those on the board, you probably know that's a huge effort, and it comes at belt tightening but also good financial management.
And the the the CFO and his team doing a great job, in managing this these, funds in the district. That's all I have for the general fund, That's all I have for the general fund. Sir, do you want me to stop for questions on the general fund? Yes. Yes. Any questions? Go ahead. Sorry, Micah. You're trying to keep three to four months of revenue in the reserve balance, right? Yes, sir. Thanks for asking that question because TEA's guidance is ninety days operating revenue. That would put us at about $550,000,000 for a fund balance. We want to be at least four months of operating revenue,
in the fund balance. That's more like $650 almost $700,000,000 in the fund balance. So, we're well over that, but if we want to keep our AAA rating, if we want to, keep our, AA plus with S and P, then we should turn in a balanced budget, when we can. The key triple a rating is critically important to be able to ultimately when bonds are sold, you can get bonds done at the lowest interest rate and the most effective cost for the district. So that's one that's why we're keeping that excess funds there. Correct?
It will save yes, sir. It will save the the community hundreds of millions of dollars when and and if, the district goes out for bond, because of the AAA rating and a better, interest rate that we'll get. Other questions? I just wanna make one comment. The discussion that we when we started this budget process, we started with a $100,000,000 deficit when you're at the original kind of first draft. Of course, we didn't know what the state money was how the state money was going to come come out, came out higher. We took your,
your administration took the position of we need to tighten the belt and we need to figure out where we can be more efficient including with NES structures and the UA schools as well. And to get this budget deficit down from the original budget that was presented, which was $100,000,000 deficit to a $14,000,000 deficit is pretty amazing. And twofold, we have better revenue but also reasonable expense management. And reasonable expense management as well because, it is critical to have a balanced budget and to have a strong fund balance so that we can keep that AAA rating so that ultimately we can, in fact, rebuild our schools when we get to that point. So it's can in fact rebuild our schools when we get to that point.
So it's really important to not lose sight of the fact that, that it's not easy to do in this environment. And so I appreciate the team for the hard work that y'all have done to get us to this point. If I may, also there's a lot of worry about the legislature not coming through on the for the public ed side, especially after the vouchers class passed and then there was a back and forth from both the Senate and the, House on the budget. And, you know, we stayed focused on what they were doing.
Jim went up there a couple times, I went up there a couple times, and so did Matthew Giles and a few other folks. Rick, you, President Campbell, you went up more than a couple times and I don't know if the others did, but in any case, they also listened and to get more money than we expected, I think, is a testament to, the lobbying that or the advocacy, in our case, because you don't get paid, nobody here gets paid for that, for the advocacy and that the leaders hurt us.
Leaders, and I'll just praise, I'm not a politician, but on both sides of the aisle, Chairman Creighton, Chairman Buckley, Speaker Burrows, even Lieutenant Governor Patrick all, worked hard to get public ed, the money that you see on the screen. So, we're thankful for that. Better than what we predicted or expected, so, I'm thankful for the advocacy but also the legislature. Great. Any other questions? Go ahead. I just wanted to say thank you to the staff for taking the time to meet with me and answer my questions. As I was getting up to speed very quickly,
your availability and responsiveness was outstanding. Thank you. Okay. Well, let's go to the next fund then. Somebody else? I'm sorry, go ahead. You've got to wave your hand. Sorry about that. Just wanted to say echo what Mr. Rosales just said. Thank you so much for the crash course on budget and also thank you to your staff for giving us the resources and being available to answer our questions. Obviously, the four of us had to catch up pretty quickly and I think that we have. So thank you so
much. Anybody else? One last thing I would say is that whenever you do a budget like this, when you have to balance the budget at some point and you have the financial pressures of AAA ratings, bonds in the future, the cost of funds for rebuilding schools in the future, you have to make tough decisions. And tough decisions mean you have to prioritize where cuts are made and to the point that was made earlier, you try to keep the cuts far less away from the students or from the schools as possible. But there's no easy way to balance a budget like this without
cutting things and taking priorities and creating those, you know, tough decisions. And I know you all did that and we appreciate that you, making that happen. Then. Good. Good evening. Mister chairman and board members, thank you for this opportunity. I wanna take, just a second to thank Dan Daniel Flores who led led the charge in bringing the budget in, especially on the general fund side. And, Earl Powers, our treasurer on the debt service side, and Betty Wingmans on the, nutritional service side. So with that, let's look at the debt service. The debt service, which is called the INS, interest and sinking fund pays for,
our debt, that is essentially was established before, we came. The debt service, the tax rate is, point, one six six seven. It's been that way, for a number of years. We think that we can, maintain that and pay off the debt. As, the superintendent has pointed out, our Moody's rating is a triple a. There's very few school districts in, Texas that have a triple a rating. Standard and four is, double a, plus. And as was pointed out, that means that, when we go out for a bond and issue more bonds, we will pay less,
interest, which means, that will be a relief to the taxpayer. This here is essentially showing you, all our bond, series. And let me focus in on the graphs of the same, same graph, but it shows, the, debt payments that we have to make that's made up of interest in, interest in principle. We're less than eighteen years paid off, and our tax rate is probably the lowest tax rate in and around Harris County, if not in the state for INS. And also having a debt only goes out eighteen years is incredibly,
short. Most school districts are deaded up for thirty to forty years. This, here on the look at the Could you go back to that slide for a minute? Previous slide. So, if you look at the bottom, bottom, would be bottom left. The thing that's amazing about this slide to me being a financial person is the dark blue are principal payments. So you see that we are paying down our debt incredibly fast and with a substantial amount of our of this money going to pay principal, not interest. So the thing that's really important,
I think, for people to take away from this is that this district is going to be strong financially for a long time. So when we can get to the point where it makes sense to issue bonds to improve our schools and to improve air conditioning and heating and all the things that we know that need to be done, we're going to be in a position to be able to do that. And that will be good news and I think that schedule really shows shows us really clearly. Go ahead. I would also like to point out that, under the leadership of the treasurer, we did three refinancing.
This year, we saved the taxpayers close to $500,000,000 into the future and contribute another 9,000,000 into the, fund balance, for the, debt service. This here is the income statement, for the debt service. You will, notice on on the, right side, the bottom, is the, fund balance of a $100,180, plus, million dollars. So, we're in in good shape, because we know the structure of our debt. This, statement is, will be a real good reflection of what will happen in terms of revenue and
our expenditures. Let's talk about nutritional service. Nutritional service is the third fund that you will have to approve. And this again is the income statement showing on the far right, the proposed budget. We've got the revenue, followed by the expenditures. And again, the very last last number on the far right side is a $54,000,000 fund balance. We've actually been trying to, bring down that fund balance because it is more than healthy for nutrition services. They do just a great job in in conserving their,
cost and and bringing in a little extra revenue. They've got a little, catering program going on. So those are the three funds here that you are, it's a good thing I'm not driving. Let's see. There we go. Okay. Now I got it. So these are the three funds that you have to approve. This is the form that you have to approve. This is all laid out by the Texas Education Code, which means those numbers on the far far left are function codes. And the first one is the general fund,
the debt service fund, and the nutritional service. And that is what we're asking you to approve is the proposed budget, as laid out, Okay. Thank you. We are, going to now, go to, the remaining speakers that we have signed up to the rest of the Board tonight. So we'll go ahead and start that process again. So Ms. Smith, you wanna call the speakers, please? And please, as we as I discussed earlier, we're happy to be here all night. But when somebody goes over the one minute, you're disrespecting the other speakers behind you and the people who who aren't who don't
need to be here all night. So that's why I'm gonna call you out if you're over a minute. Okay? Group b speakers one through 16, if you'll all please come to the first front row on both sides. And speaker one, Josh Wallenstein. Y'all ready for the second round of us? We are. Alright. My name is Josh Wallenstein. I am, my son and I are products of public schools. And last year, this body rated itself a one out of 10 on community engagement,
the very worst grade you could have received. And you were right. Exhibit a is the state's replacement of almost half of your body with no local consultation and no explanation. This is not community engagement. What is your community telling you? What are these 127 individual speakers telling you? They're telling you that your model is not in the best interest of the students, it's not defended by teachers, it's not supported by parents, and it's not in the best interest of the taxpayer. Well, I'm also a lawyer.
I'm sorry. And I've researched the Texas Education Code to come up with strategies for returning local control to local schools. And one option is in your inbox today. We want local accountability. We want local control. Thank you. Hi, my name is Benjamin Mayer, thanks for the opportunity to speak. I'm gonna change my speech a little bit following your budget. I think what you need to do is, in addition to lobbying the State, you also need to go to the County and find a way to get more money. People need to start paying their fair share of taxes to go to public education, and that's where the priority needs to be.
Not cutting costs, but finding ways to get new revenue. The main reason I'm here today is to tell you that my daughter was going to HISD, not anymore. We have decided to go to private school at a huge cost to my family, changing our budget our priorities. We are making those sacrifices because she is not getting a worthy education at Lanier Middle School, which I believe is really one of the better schools in HISD. Sorry for those not at Lanier. So I'm really saddened by that we had to make this decision. I'm saddened that you guys seem
Thank you. Go ahead. Hi. My name is Austin Breyer. I'm a Harvard parent and a teacher. I'm here to speak on behalf of my colleague, miss Garcia, and to express my appreciation for the contribution she makes to our school community. Unfortunately, Dawnia's not here this evening to speak. That's because she's currently leading a four day school trip to Boston with our newly graduated fifth graders, a trip she plans almost entirely on her own, beginning when the students are in fourth grade. She goes far beyond her contract hours to make the trip happen, which speaks volumes about the kind of educator and leader she is. Donya, in many ways,
is the heart of our campus. As as you've heard tonight, Dania leads and organizes many school wide programs. Book fair, Name That Book Club, One Book One School, Literacy Fair, Talent Show, Spelling Bee, Harvard Hurrah, Storybook Character Day, forty book challenge, author visits, not to mention the other, countless celebrations and events that help make meaning for our students and community. This year alone, she has given over twenty one extra hours for these events, all of which would simply not be the same without her leadership. More than anything, Donya builds community. Please understand removing someone like Dania would be a profound Thank you. Hi, my name is Anne Eagleton and I am respectfully requesting that the contract for Groundwork
DFW be removed from the consent agenda. It is a very problematic contract. I pulled up organizations nine ninety. They have, they are related to a political action committee in Dallas. And they are doing community outreach in a time when we are having an election for four elected trustee positions in Houston. This is beyond the pale. It's horrible optics, and it further sows the seeds of distrust. You need to pull it off the agenda,
and someone needs to look into why we have political operatives masquerading as trying to help us with our enrollment. They have DFW in their name. That implies they are Dallas. Are we having the Dallas Cowboys come down and teach our the Texans how to play football? I mean, what is happening? Thank you. I'm Krista Michelle Brewster, the retired school nurse certified, thirty five years of service. Welcome newbies. I checked your CVs and it seems like you've had some professional, quality professional careers. But I couldn't see if you're caring and compassionate people.
Do you like school age children? Well I got a few questions. Are you ready to act like you care and bring back librarians and the librarians? Can you bring back wraparound? The kids can't get to the sunset center through some hoops they have to jump. They need services at the campus. Can you give me some busing services, real transportation, so you don't have to leave home at night and come back at night? Can you give me a maintenance department, a real one, where we can have cold when we need cold, hot when we need hot.
Can you do custodial so they can quit mocking whole floors? Are you gonna be our academic saviors, or are you gonna be academic destroyers? We know who sent Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Tumani. I'm the founder of the Grow For Care Alliance. Fourteen months ago, it was brought to my attention that an alleged sexual predator was removed from Worthing High School campus. Twelve months ago, I appeared here and shared information with most of you that the community had obtained information about this alleged sexual predator in the Worthing High School community. None of the board members offered us assistance at that time. One month after that initial appearance,
I invited all of you, well, aside from the new board members, to a Zoom call to learn more about what we had learned. No one accepted the invite. One month after that, we learned more information. I invited you guys to a second Zoom call. Nobody replied to that. From the time I first appeared here fourteen months ago, evidence came to light, evidence that was signed by mister Miles, that there was, in fact, a sexual predator on the Worthing High School campus and in the Worthing High School community. I've emailed all of you copies of the evidence, and you should have it as a handout this evening. Many things have fallen through the cracks,
and we like to know why because this predator is still in the community. There is much this board can do Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Felicity Ferreira. I'm an HISD alum, Jobib on the Northside, and I'm a mom to a future HISD student who's zoned a Jefferson Elementary, an NES school. I started researching what life was gonna be like at an NES school, and I became really concerned, not only for my own kid, but for kids all across the district. And you don't even have to be an HISD parent to see the chaos that has erupted under Mike Miles' installation as an
nexus of community engagement and data science. So I understand how to measure what works and what doesn't work. And the data is clear. Just take it from Houston's own Kinder Institute. Quote, There is no research evidence that state takeovers improve academic outcomes. End quote. Our children deserve educators who are empowered to meet students where they are, and a board that is accountable to the community. And I'm here tonight because our children deserve better. Thank you. Hi. I'm reading a speech written by Rachel Walmer, a teacher at Harvard Elementary.
I did not come here to speak when you walked my principal, assistant principal, and magnet coordinator off campus with no explanation, or when you changed our principals twice in one week with not so much as an email to staff. But I stand here now to speak in protest of the proposed termination of Dania Garcia Giampetro. Dania is everyone's favorite teacher and colleague. She is a model employee and unfailingly positive. She can't be here to speak for herself because she's with fifth graders in Boston on a field trip she organized. I also want to speak on the district's rigid absence policy,
which is why Dania is being targeted for termination. Teachers are disproportionately working mothers. We and our children are constantly exposed to illness and should not have to choose between our jobs and taking care of ourselves and our families. Please retain Dania Garcia at Harvard. The loss of her would be catastrophic to our campus, which I fear is exactly the effect Thank you. Speaker nine, Lisa Riley. Okay. Speaker 10, Lisette Kreswich. Hi. Hello to the appointed Superintendents and appointed Board of Managers. Many contested and uncontested decisions made at all levels of government have brought us to
this moment. Long before you sat in these chairs, our kids and schools faced obstacles. Many caused by social economic circumstances beyond our control. Despite this, the will of the parents, principals, and teachers to advocate for our students has never wavered. In what capacity we can, we show accountability to our kids. Whether it's through fund raising, to close financial gaps, volunteering our time and skills, or community engagement. Advocacy and accountability go hand in hand.
You are appointees. Who do we hold accountable for the mass exodus and firing of teachers? For the loss of libraries, removal of a Thank you. Speaker 12, Jose Cantu, followed by Greg Kier, 13. Isaiah Martin, followed by Noelle Ruchan. Y'all hear me? Yep. In the 50 HISD schools with the fewest low income families, 88% have libraries. In the 50 HISD schools with the most low income families, 10% have libraries. 88%, 10%. In Brown v.
Board, 1954, the Supreme Court determined where a state provides education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right, which must be made available to all on equal terms. 88%, 10%. Sound like equal terms? The fourteenth amendment of the US constitution says no state shall deny to any person the equal protection of the laws. 88%, 10%. Sound like equal protection? I have a hunch every individual on this board might need a lawyer.
I am Every school Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'm Isaiah Martin, and I decided for the last school board meeting in a long time, I wanted to give you guys a report card. You get enough. Nobody voted for you. Nobody voted for you. And you stand here today, I watch you as many of you sat on your phones, and so many people came on and to talk to you today. And the reason is because you already know exactly how you're gonna vote. Nobody voted for you. And you forget that in this country, you guys have to go and be accountable to the people of our country.
What we have right now is taxation without representation. Yeah. You forget that. You forget that you're the ones that serve us, the people. And every single day, we, the people, are gonna be counting down the days until we get you out because those days are coming whether you like it or not. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. I thought on the way here what I was going to try and talk to y'all about, what I was going to try and say that could make a difference. If this hasn't made a difference yet, then nothing I say will. So instead of complaining or vitriol or anything else,
I propose a challenge. HISD employees get a thirty minute lunch break. Every single one of you needs to, in this coming summer and school year, take a single thirty minute HISD lunch break, find one of these people, and engage conversation and listen. That's all they want. Everybody that's come here tonight to speak would be willing to give you all thirty minutes. And all we want is to give y'all would want to have just that time with us to listen. Not sixty second sound bites,
not making us watch a countdown clock because there's this many of us that want to have a discussion. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm a first time person speaker, so I'm a little nervous. I thought of of what topic to bring your attention to, and I was honestly overwhelmed. What to prioritize in sixty seconds? Is it the lack of funding for our schools to have adequate learning environments? I. E. HVAC systems breaking down on our children and teachers sitting in Houston humidity and heat? Is it the rising number of non certified teachers filling the hundreds of open slots,
I. E. Letting go of and running off seasoned teachers who have years of report in their schools that would detail create lesson plans that are hands on and interesting and not a worksheet on a timer? The wiping out of custodial staff and much needed wrap around specialists. Is it the rising number of schools being stripped from libraries and librarians? Or is it the poorly managed budget across the district starting with the useless NES curve? Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our in person speakers. We have one speaker on Zoom.
Audrey Napp. Please unmute yourself. Hello. My name is Audrey Nath. I'm a parent of a student at Wharton dual language, and I just want to express my frustration, at the removal of wrap around coordinators and librarians. These are essential. Librarians do so much more than checking out books. My son is dyslexia, and librarians have helped him come up with books that are appropriate for his reading level and really giving him that confidence to learn to read. So I'm just expressing my frustration as a parent that we need our librarians and we need our wraparound specialists.
Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll consider action items on the agenda. Board policy requires Board members to abstain from all discussions and votes pertaining to contracts that might involve conflict interest. Board Policy BBFA defines a conflict of interest. Conflict of interest, as any circumstance that could cast doubt on a Board member's ability to act with total objectivity with regard to this district's interests. We have an item held from the consent agenda. Without objection, from my colleagues,
may I have a motion to approve item three which is approval of the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six recommended district budget as amended. And we made that $2,000,000 amendment was 2,000, do we are we, computers? So we're gonna get a motion here in a second. Are your computers up? You go to sleep. Alright. Everybody's up? Okay. So I'll repeat this again. So, the item is approval of the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six recommended district budget as amended. And just to be clear, in the actual board document,
the revenue number is $2,800,000,000 instead of $2,820,000,000 So there's a slight discrepancy. We have amended that from this document. So everybody understands that? Okay, good. So there's a motion and a second. Any questions or comments? Alright, please vote. The motion passes. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the remainder of The motion to approve the remainder of tonight's agenda by consensus, passes. At this time, the Board will recess to closed session under Chapter five fifty one of Texas Government
Code Open Meetings Act, subsection 551.004 through 551.089. Should Board final action, vote or decision on any matter considered in the closed session be required, such action, vote or decision shall be taken at the open meeting convened by this notice upon the reconvening of this public meeting or the subsequent public meeting of the Board upon notice thereof. The Board good evening. This meeting is reconvened at 10:12PM. We're ready to consider items discussed in the closed session. Are there any motions? Okay. Yes. First,
I move that the Board approve the terms of the amended and restated employment contract of F. Mike Miles on the terms discussed in closed session. Is there a second? Okay. Any questions or comments? If not, please vote. Motion passes. Okay. I have one more. We we have oh, you have one more? Okay. Go ahead. I move to elect Angela Lamont Flowers as vice president of the board and Paula Mendoza as board secretary. Okay. We have a motion. Is there a second? Alright. Any questions or comments? If not, please vote. Vote. Alright. Motion passes.
Alright. Do we have any, any reports from board members or questions or comments before we adjourn? I would like to say a few words. First, I wanted to thank, the board members for allowing the Boy Scouts to come and do our pledges today. They're part of our one of our schools and the partnership with the Boy Scouts is wonderful. So thank you for that. I also, want to say how wonderful all the graduations were that I attended. We have some in December, so if you you should attend. So you can see, the number of students that we have graduating and the partnership that we have with HCC and the students that are graduating with college credits and associate's degrees.
Actually, before they get their high school degree is just phenomenal. So we have some wonderful kids out there, and it and it's nice to see so. Thank you. Awesome. Anybody else? Well, I just want to, to thank, and welcome our new Board members again. Thank you for, for, being here at your first meeting, and I know we're gonna have a few more. We appreciate, everything you are doing, the commitment you're making, and we're gonna, I think, do a lot of good meeting is will be held on 08/14/2025. So there being no further business, this meeting is officially adjourned at 10:15PM.