It's Wednesday, 02/25/2026. The time is 05:00. This is a regular monthly board meeting of the Keller ISD Board of Trustees. All trustees are present with the exception of vice president Washington who is homesick. Now for the pledge, Bryce. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Here the leaders in the pledges are some of the amazing students from Parkwood Hill Intermediate School. Immediately following the pledges, Principal Pascal Decharti will come to the podium to introduce his students. To the flag of The United States Of America, and to the Republic which it
stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas State of God, one indivisible. Well, good evening. Good evening, President Burt, Superintendent Wilson, and trustees. Thank you for this opportunity to present some of our stars here at Parkwood Hill Intermediate. I'll first introduce some of our house council members. Here we have Noel Isokari, we have Charlie Naveron, we have Henry Pritchett, and we
have Clara Soika. So our, House Council members, these are students that demonstrate remarkable leadership by by representing their peers and are actively contributing to the culture of Parkwood Hill. Their enthusiastic participation fosters a sense of unity and empowerment across our campus. The next group we have are our JAC students or junior associate counselors. Those students are Reese Carligis, we have Mackenzie Freitas, we also have Colton Jensen, Evelyn
Kelly, Chloe Snapp. Wonderful, so these students are our sixth graders and they're nominated by their teachers for their notable responsibility and leadership on campus. These students serve as mentors to new students, supporting peers in our life skills program, and nurturing just positive relationships across our campus. Their presence today is clearly a testimony of who we are and what we aspire to be at Parkwood Hills, so I thank them for being here and thanks for the privilege. Have a good evening. We'll now move into, a prayer before the meeting, if you bow your heads.
Holy and merciful father, please give us the guidance, wisdom we need to effectively execute our responsibilities as trustees of this great district. I also pray for the well-being of these trustees and their families. In Jesus' name, amen. Awards and achievements. Bryce? Yeah. In your board packing, you'll find student staff achievements on pages four through six tonight. Photos will be taken directly following each award inside the boardroom in front of the backdrop in the sort Southwest corner where our board members will join award recipients for
a quick photo. During this time, we ask that guests remain in the seating area and we invite you to take any personal photos outside in the courtyard, following the awards portion of the agenda. All group photos taken inside the boardroom will be shared via the Keller ISD Facebook page. For our first two awards this evening, I'd like to invite Trustee Coker down to join us as we honor our January and February Hard at Work Employees of the Month. And Trustee Erickson, we'd appreciate your help at the photo backdrop as we celebrate these outstanding team members. Keller ISD's Hard at Work Employee of the Month for January 2026 is a special
education teacher from Keller Compass Center. She was nominated by her colleagues Lauren and Scott Townsley, who highlighted the many ways she shows her heart, noting, Rachel goes above and beyond to ensure every student at DAEP and New Direction finds success. She has a remarkable gift for connecting with each child in a safe, supportive, and non judgmental way, helping them recognize their potential while challenging challenging them to grow. She builds meaningful relationships, creates a foundation of trust, and uses it to stretch their learning and confidence. Brand Pact reaches far beyond the classroom.
She's a steady, encouraging presence and a daily example of unconditional love, commitment, and excellence. Ladies and gentlemen, please let me congratulate our January 2026 Keller ISD Hard at Work Employer of the Month, Keller Compass Center's Rachel Sanchez. Keller ISD's hard at work employee of the month for February is a speech language pathologist at Woodland Springs Elementary. She was nominated by KISD special education director doctor Lisa McDaniel who shared, when her campus SLP partner went on leave, she went above and beyond to ensure continuity of
services for students. She proactively offered her support by providing clear technology guidance, organizing therapy schedules, and assisting with documentation so that the transition was smooth and efficient. Her willingness to step in, problem solve, and support both staff and students reflect her dedication, teamwork, and commitment to high quality services. Ladies and gentlemen, please let me congratulate our February 2026 Keller ISD Hard at Work Employee of the Month from Woodland Springs Elementary, Sage Kalichman. We are very grateful to our staff for taking the time to recognize one another
throughout the school year and giving us the opportunity to share the stories that truly make our district special. We encourage you to keep those nominations coming. You can nominate a colleague for Hard at Work Employee of the Month by visiting www.kellerisd.net/haw and completing a You've Got Heart online form. At this time, I'd like to invite Trustee Campbell to join us as we recognize this month's substitute spotlight. KST substitute spotlight program sponsored by RBFCU highlights the essential role substitute teachers play in keeping learning on track. These honorees are dependable, adaptable, and committed to creating a positive experience for both students
and staff. Tonight, we're proud to recognize our latest RBFCU substitute spotlight winner. Currently pursuing her alternative teaching certification, our winner has made an impressive impact in her first year as a substitute in Keller ISD. She is recognized for her professionalism, strong classroom management, and ability to maintain a productive learning environment. Please join me in congratulating Taylor Bates. We are very grateful to all of our substitute teachers. Their willingness to say yes when they're needed most makes a meaningful difference in the lives of students and the strength of our schools, so thank you.
Up next, may I please have Board President Burt and Doctor. Wilson come forward to celebrate our latest Keller ISD Star Educator Award winner. This month, we're excited to recognize a Spanish teacher from Keller High School. Her nomination highlighted the following. Miss Swan, or Sisne as her student's color, is known for creating a warm, family like classroom environment where strong student connections begin on the very first day of class. Her classroom is lively and she thoughtfully designs lessons around her students' interests and experiences, ensuring learning is not just content driven, but meaningful and memorable.
Her dedication, creativity and genuine care from her students truly set her apart. Let's learn a little bit more about our winner from this brief video. For me, it's really about interaction and relationships. I think that when kiddos come into my class, they feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves, that they're part of a family. And it's a family that, yes, we're gonna learn Spanish, we're gonna do all the world language things, but it's a family that we can grow together, when needed, we can be there for each other and support each other. Hey. What's that for here? L o o o. When you have a classroom that is completely in Spanish, your kiddos will will have
that same goal. Oh, well, I can do it too. Right? It empowers them. I think about what, again, experiences will help them best with interacting with the material, producing with the material, and engaging with it. So I like to take field trips. I think it's fantastic to get out of the classroom. We'll go to the park sometimes, and we'll we'll just walk through the halls sometimes, and we'll just we'll just have these conversations with each other, just natural real life things. We play a lot of different games. We do some different things besides just sitting the whole time.
Hey. It's never, like, a bad day in her class. We're always doing something, like, interactive. I actually learned in that class because of her, like, teaching style. It's, like, very efficient. She makes it really easy to talk to her in Spanish, and your families also are, like, with you. It's, like, a very comforting environment, and I don't feel judged at all. She's kind of involved in our lives and not just, like, a Spanish aspect. I wanna know these kids outside outside of of class. You know? You you can find me at track meets at volleyball games and basketball games. I mean, I like to be there and and interact with them in their life.
I hope that they feel how special they are to me. Gracias, tuesday. Please help me congratulate this month's Keller ISD Star Educator Award winner, Keller High School Spanish teacher Misty Swan. We We are proud to continue shining a spotlight on the exceptional learning happening in our classrooms throughout through the Star Educator Award program, as this month's recipient, Misty, will receive $500 to invest in her classroom. Congratulations once again on this well deserved honor. For our final award tonight, may I please have Trustee Kelly join us up front,
and as we invite Fine Arts Director Kim Bland to help us recognize outstanding state achievements in orchestra, band, and choir. Good evening. TMEA sponsors the Texas All State audition process to promote student dedication to their musical knowledge and skills and to encourage educators to support their students in this development. Beginning each fall, over 70,000 high school students across the state audition in their TMEA region. Individuals perform selected music for a panel of judges who rank each instrument or voice
part. A select group of musicians advances to compete against musicians from other regions. And then those advance on the highest ranking musicians judged at the TMEA Area Competition qualify to perform in one of 18 Texas all state ensembles sponsored by band, orchestra, and vocal divisions. Earlier this month, Keller ISD sent 23 talented student musicians to San Antonio to rehearse and perform alongside their fellow musicians. Each year, more than 70,000 students across Texas audition, but only the top 3% are
ultimately selected as All State musicians, making this recognition the highest honor a Texas student musician can receive. Congratulations to the following students. Art orchestra from Keller High School, Stefan Raganovich. Stefan is under the direction of Adam Pratt. And as you know, orchestra is relatively new in our district, so we've only ever had two all staters. One last year named Stefan Reganovich, and one this year named Stefan Reganovich. He is well on his way.
Congratulations. And our band results. From Central High School, the CHS band actually had four all staters, and they also have been hit by the flu. All four band kids are home sick tonight, but we're very proud of them. Fossil Ridge High School playing the flute, we have Ty Al under the direction of Brad Allen. Keller High School band, we have August Fernand playing the trumpet, and Daniel Serrano playing the trombone, under the direction of Daniel Bloss and Connor Koryath.
And for our choir results from Central High School, we have Brinley Barker, Sydney Payne, under the direction of Aubrey Kistler. Choir at Folsom Ridge High School, we have Jaden Wynne, Ali Sanchez, Ariana Severino, under the direction of Claire Nelson. In Keller High School, we have Lillian King, Ally Owen, and Emily Phillips under the direction of Aaron Schmidt. And a special recognition for Emily Phillips, who is a four time All Stater.
Timber Creek High School choir, we have Daniel Kiros underneath the direction of Adrianne Kirtley. Congratulations to our Allstate musicians and to all of their parents who are here taking pictures and videos, paying for all the private lessons, picking them up, and driving them everywhere, we're really proud of you guys. So take a a few, seconds to do president's update. First of all, thanks to all of you for being here and for those of you watching on online. I'm pleased to share that Forbes recently released its list of the 500 best midsized
companies and Keller ISD ranked one thirty three and is one of 26 companies based in North Texas. Mid size includes companies with a thousand to 5,000 employees and the rankings were based on survey respondents who were asked if they would recommend their employer to others and rate the company on a wide range of criteria. The responses were tallied and reviewed with survey data from the previous three years to
determine consistency over time. Ultimately, each employer was given a score. Our overarching goal is is the education of students, but we also collectively strive to make KISD a great place to work. Just thought that was, notable and worth sharing. Later in the meeting, the board will discuss the potential process it will use to fill, the place six vacancy. And lastly, I wanna once again thank all the long range planning and bond advisory
committee members for their work. The second to the last joint meeting between these two committees is March 10. And as a reminder, the public is invited to attend as observers. I know the other committees are also meeting and thanks to those committee members as well. Doctor Wilson? So just a few things. It it has been a busy couple weeks, a busy couple months, but, I can tell you that it truly is a great time to be in Keller ISD. Just a few of the things that we have been able to do in the
last couple weeks and really it's it's our community and what they've been able to celebrate that their kids are doing. We have state champion swimmers from Keller High School. We have state, state some of our kids placed at state in wrestling, but just to make it to state wrestling is obviously a great accomplishment. So real if you were with me last week, when we were able to celebrate I see Clarence over there mister Scott, I'm sorry. Last week we were able to celebrate our Vietnamese Lunar New Year over at Park U up Parkview.
If you haven't had a chance to do that, I encourage you to do that next year because it is it is so much fun. And they feed you really good food afterwards, so definitely make sure you head over there. We also had our Battle of the Books this weekend. We had the Kelly Awards on, Friday night, I believe, and then last night, our Keller Girls played their third playoff game, although it was the last for the year. They did a phenomenal job and we're really proud of them. Not only is it so much fun watching the kids, but it's it's really fun
to see the parents, and the family involvement and how much they enjoy being with their kids and with other families in the community, it it it really stands out and it's, one of those one of those really it stands out to me and just because of of the of the community itself and how how much it means to our community, the things that their kids do through through our school district. Also, I wanna provide you a quick update, regarding our joint committee meeting last night
with our long range planning and our citizens bond advisory. So last night is when they came up with the final criteria that they want us to use to create our list of consolidation. And so I want to share those with you tonight. The first one that they want us to prioritize and this is probably at the top of the list, was they would like us to look at district wide grade alignment and configuration. And so what that means is right now, as we've talked about before, we have a we have a hodgepodge of k four, k five, six eight, five eight, everything
else. And so they would like us to take take that into account and try to and try to use that as we look for how we can find efficiencies with our campuses moving forward. They also want us to look at the campus occupancy and utilization rates. That's gonna be one that that we'll have some more conversation about because you don't wanna get them you don't wanna fill them up too much where you don't leave any capacity for growth in the future because, you know, we we all know that if if the housing market changes and interest rates drop low, then you're gonna see
some movement and we're gonna see some kids move in. Also, we have special programs and we have, our pre k now on our campuses which takes up space, but doesn't show, doesn't reflect in that occupancy. So we'll walk through that a little bit more. We also talked and one of the criteria was the cost to bring in facilities to compliance. So that's kind of a secondary factor that we look at. If we're looking at two campuses and having to make a choice which of these two campuses are we going to close, it would then factor in what is the cost to bring that back up to normal or whatever the term for that is,
to bring it back up to compliance with all the standard facility expectations across the district. They also asked us to look at transportation and the reason that takes place is because transportation is expensive. So it has to factor in as we go through. Prioritizing facility costs was another one. Cost of locating special programs was another cost. Another factor they'd like us to look at. The conditions of the facilities themselves, as we talked about earlier. And then lastly, limiting the amount of staff and student disruptions.
So there are plans that we could come up with, I think John told them last night, that we could come up with a plan that every single person in that room, including us, would hate. And that that is something that, we have to be cognizant of and we have to look at how much disruption do we truly wanna do while accomplishing our overall goal of realizing, savings and become more efficient in the operations of the schools. So we're gonna take that information or these criteria and then we will be putting
together several options or proposals that we are then going to present back to the group on March 10 for feedback. Once that is complete, we will take their feedback and then put together our final proposal to bring before you all for approval. I don't believe we're gonna be able to turn around on March because we have spring break in there, So I do anticipate it being April before we bring that back to you guys, for for approval. I also wanna talk a little bit about, a meeting I had last week with
principals. You'll see on tonight's agenda, there is technology. I wanted to I wanted to preface, I wanted to I'll just share with you guys what I shared with them. Technology is a great tool, but it's it's a tool. And it should not and cannot replace our teachers. Because my opinion, our teachers do a better job than any device is ever going to do. So there are a lot of smart kids out there with computers, and we need to make sure that they're using them appropriately. We also need to make we need to make sure that we are monitoring students,
actively. So with that, there's some expectations that we set in place with our principals who are working with their teachers right now. I don't want a I don't want a fully digital environment because that's not what's best for our kids. What I want it to be a tool that we use because because we need to, but we need to make sure that that it is just a tool and it is not taking up attention or disrupting or any of the other things that technology can do. And so our principal's aware and they're going to be working with our teachers on
that, moving forward. Also wanted to talk a little bit about, so earlier this year, I believe it was November, we talked about KCA and are we going to be able to bring over a freshman class. So the the cost driver that was so out of whack with KCA was transportation. It was about $490,000 What we are able to do is pair that down to where it's essentially we're going from 490 to what we're estimating is about 50.
And so that brings the cost of the program down significantly, which makes it viable for us to bring a freshman class next year. That doesn't mean that we won't do a program evaluation because we're doing that with every program we have. We will just do it without a long range planning once they are done to talk about long term, long term. But that is that is the update there. A couple other things that are going on that I'm gonna have Jennifer Price update us on with related to STAR, artificial intelligence or a failure topic and then summer
offerings. Good evening. Doctor. Wilson asked me to give the board and community an update on stars. So if you'll remember in the last legislative session, house bill eight was passed and the discussion was stars going away, stars going away. So it's tricky because, with house bill eight, what it says is the term star or the star test will go away, but it will be replaced with something called
the SST, which is the student success tool. So, it's funny because we wish for something and we get something else. And so STAR, as we know it, will continue to be administered this spring and next year. So the SST or the student success tool will not, be implemented, from the state until the 2728 school year. What is different about this new assessment is it will be administered three times a
year. A beginning, a middle, and an end of year. There is also, a writing section that will be administered separately in April. So one of the questions is, what is this gonna look like? That's those are good questions. We don't really know yet. We also know that there's another legislative session that will occur between implementation of this and, our upcoming legislation next year. And so we'll wait to hear updates, but for anyone who's asking, are we still
taking the STAAR test? The answer is yes for this spring and yes for next year, and then we'll see what's coming, when the SST is implemented. Any other questions about that? A topic that we have been continuing to have in the district is around AI. And, mister Campbell, and, missus Kelly, they are part of our DEIC. We have teachers, community members, and our last meeting, we spent a good portion of
the meeting discussing AI and really, from the teacher lens. And so, what what do we think of when we hear about AI in schools from a teacher perspective in three years? What would we deem as success, from the AI realm. And really, we engage the committee in discussions and they shared out about what kind of training would teachers need, what are things that teachers would feel comfortable doing as
far as, task management, respond responding to emails. We had conversations about, using AI sometimes to write, admission letters or, projects that they're working on, in the classroom. And so it just we just started a open dialogue with DEIC. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I I think our our teachers did as well, and it was an engaging discussion. Quick question.
For the SST, have has there been any are we are we aware of any changes to the requirements for administration of that test? Because right now, I know the law dictates that STAR has to be done online. Has it are there any amendments for the SST? Do you know that? I would it is an online test, because the beginning of the year and middle of the year are required to be adaptive. So MAP right now is adaptive, and so you have to administer that online in
order for it to be adaptive. The follow-up question, that we're getting a lot, is MAP going to be is the state going to use MAP for this new test? And that we don't know. The the other portion of that, Chris, is there's a requirement in statute now that your turnaround has to be much tighter. Yeah. I can't remember it. It went from months to I can't remember the exact thing, but it's quick and the only way to do that is through tech.
We can't the paper pencil won't it takes too long. Turn on time and what? Implement like implementing the test or Implementation testing. Get your data. Yep. Your student results. So right now, students may test in April and we don't get their scores until late May or June. With this new test, we believe it's a seventy two hour turnaround of results. Okay. So you mean they're gonna give us all results faster? Mhmm. Yes. I was at on I don't know if you can just give them the results, but okay. So I think the the the theory from the state was if we're able to
test multiple times a year and get the data back quicker than interventions or extensions. Get that useful. Yes. Yes. That's nice. Thanks. And the last thing I wanted to touch on, we are beginning planning our summer academic opportunities and I wanted to provide an update. We will continue to offer, summer credit recovery. That's for students who need to recover credit because it was not gained during the
school year. So we will continue to offer that. We will offer, dual credit, summer courses through Tarleton and that will be communicated shortly. Students will have the opportunity if they so choose to participate in correspondence courses. We have been in discussions, we offered five to six online courses last year. These are courses that are offered in person during the regular school year. We we have been discussing not providing those virtual course options in the summer and
students will still be allowed to take those during the school year. They can, sign up as a correspondence course or a dual credit course. So we are, finalizing our communication just so that students are able to plan, but I wanted to reiterate the courses are still available for students. They can take them during the year. We are just, in discussions not to offer those in an eight week session during the summer. And it's just five to six courses that we're talking about here.
So I wanted to provide the board with an update on those three things, and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. And I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Is there the opportunity to with the map testing that we're doing and the sun of star that's gonna happen at '27, '28 with the three times a year, will there be an interface that allows us to send our data from maps up into
the I forget what you call it. The s s s s t. S s t a. Or are we gonna so in other words, the kids will maybe have to take six tests during that period as opposed to just doing our map and then we upload our results. So if the state does not adopt map as their vendor for this new test, then yes. That would be MAP three times a year and the SST three times a year. Would there be if they really can't get the results back to us that much
faster, I mean, is there I mean, I love map. I think it's done wonders for us. But if they can get the results back to us that much faster, does it really give us the same kind of data we're looking for that that map does? We are not sure. So there's a lot of unknowns with this SST assessment. And so that's a hard question to answer because we don't know. So there's a possibility that it could. And if it does, then that's something that, you know, maybe, a possibility that it could. And if it does, then that's something that, you know, maybe, I guess we'll just
have to see what the results come into and then maybe there's a possibility that we don't have to do map anymore. I don't know. We'll see. But thank you. You're welcome. Is anybody, floating the idea that it could potentially be MAP? I mean, is that something that we've heard that that is something that they're considering? So it's my understanding they're taking proposals and it's it's just like anything that's adopted at the state level. There'll be proposals, committees that look at this through the vendor lens, and then they'll adopt something. Okay. We would love for it to be map.
That's why we're asking that. Musings that it's map Or anybody has a lot of chatter action? When we saw the language in the bill adaptive assessment, we were like, that would be great if it was MAP. So let me ask you this too. Is there a way that we can advocate that it's MAP? Who makes that decision? Is that board of education? I would say it's at the commissioner level. There probably will be a committee. Yeah. There there will probably be, as with the majority of the things, a public comment period. There'll be a committee who evaluates all of these things, but we can reach out
to our legislators. That would be that would be good. Don't trip anyone. I Just have one last question on the AI. Yes. Two questions actually. So does it it appears that the implementation of any or adoption of any kind of AI would be kind of directed through the DEIC? I I would think it would it would be a discussion, and we would when we get to that point of looking at AI tools that we would support, we
would wanna have a committee of people making those decisions with teachers and our curriculum department, our technology department. And so that would be once we get to that point, we'll definitely engage DEIC, but we'll we'll probably look at having a committee of teachers and staff members who would be involved in that. And lastly on the on the AI front, there's a lot of platforms There are.
That are, AI based or Yes. Whatever. And, so there are some in the community that said, we just really need the barrel ahead and then which scares me. And then there are some that say we need to do a slow and go, appropriate to KISD implementation. I'm I'm assuming that we are taking the slow and go approach. Yes. So mister Vlennik, our chief technology officer, and I think you would agree with this
sentiment. We do not wanna be the first, because there are a lot of guardrails that need, and I'm not speaking the technology language, but we need to make sure that there are guardrails set up for our data privacy, when you're typing things in into chat g p t that's out for everyone to see. And so we wanna make sure that when we are students are protected, our staff
is protected, and so that'll involve our two departments pretty heavily working in tandem. So, I think that's something I may be able to help you guys with. We we just built this software. You you as an AI in the medical space that, has the same guardrails you were you're referring to. It isolates some specific databases. It tells it where it can go with the data from. It tells us what it can do with the data, where it can go. And there are there's pretty cost effective tools, out there that exist.
They it could be built in house pretty easy. You don't have to be a servile to do it. I did it, and I know nothing about coding. But and it can be done pretty well. So, I think that is something we could probably do very cost effectively, very, very cost effectively. So I'll meet with you guys about that. And we have there's a lot of options, but to missus Price's point, we we do wanna go slow because we've seen other districts adopt AI quickly, and it's a disaster because you can't. Hey. What are kids doing? You can't control it. Once you open it up, it's like opening up the floodgates.
So very interested in seeing the solution that you're talking about. We're looking at everything so that we get this right when we do launch. Okay. I would just caution. Let's not go slow necessarily. Let's be intentional with it and because it's already out there, it's already prevalent everywhere. So if we can just make sure we're intentionally moving forward so we have those safeguards and not taking forever, I feel like it's already out of the bag, like people are already doing it, so Sure. Let's just make sure we do that, please. Yes. I think that was what was so interesting about having the conversation in DEIC was a very robust conversation.
It was it was great to hear the different perspectives, from teachers across the district. So, it it's definitely intentional and it's, ensuring that it's utilized as a tool, again, just like our technology, but utilized as a tool and not something that is doing the work for us. Correct? So, yeah. Again, I just wanna say thank you so much for facilitating those conversations. I've been very surprised with the conversations that we're having, pleasantly surprised, with the conversations we're having in DEIC this year.
And, again, like I said, it's just it's wonderful to hear from our educators and and what they see kinda coming on the horizon, and AI is definitely one of those. So I know for safety and security, that is a big concern for us. So if we can figure out a way to, drive that bus forward but do it safely and ensuring that our students are utilizing it for all things when it comes to their work, that would be really good. So I appreciate you guys. Thank you. All good points. Thank you. As we begin the, rest of our meeting, I'd like to highlight, the school board
meeting, protocol. Any violations of these exceptions will result in, a request to be removed from the meeting. No signs are allowed as this presents a safety concern. Applause, heckling, booing, and verbal disturbances of any kind will not be allowed or tolerated during the meeting. Please refrain from side conversations during the meeting as it serves as a distraction. Attacks of a personal nature and name calling against district staff and board members will not be tolerated. Members of the public will not be allowed to approach or walk in front of the diocese at any time during a meeting unless invited to do so.
The business of the board begins with audience with individuals. This portion of the meeting is specifically for members of the public to address the board. Your input is encouraged and will always be thoughtfully considered. Please address your comments to the board as a whole rather than to the audience or any individual. Trustees may not respond to audience questions or inquiries, specific complaints or grievances against an individual should be addressed through the grievance process and not in this venue. We expect everyone to act similarly and with respect. Individuals who wanted to speak were required to sign up before the meeting began.
We had nine individuals, sign up pursuant to board policy BED local. The amount of time each speaker may, receive may be adjusted for effective meeting management. Tonight, each individual will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will be visible on the screen and will change color to indicate that you have thirty seconds, remain. Each speaker will be speaking from a standalone microphone to your left. In order for speakers to hear when they are called and to be heard, we ask that audience members remain quiet and respectful of everyone.
Bryce will be calling each individual up to speak as well as the individual who will be coming up next so you can make your way to the microphone and be ready when it is your turn. Bryce, please call the speakers. First, we have Elizabeth Casey followed by Adam Standridge. Good evening. My name This this. Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Casey. I have a seventh grader who attends Hillwood Middle School. My son is neurodivergent with a five zero four and IEP in place for his disabilities and behaviors. He rides a special education bus for behavior and safety at my request.
Since the beginning of the school year, he has been jumped in the bathroom, violently assaulted in the lunchroom, and is most recent sexually harassed by having his pants pulled down to his ankles during a fire drill. Amongst many other verbal bullying incidents and interactions, he has continuously felt scared, not believed, and retaliated against if he reacts. Incident one, he was jumped by three students in a bathroom even with student witnesses and teacher noting the marks on his neck singing him to the office, nothing was done. I was not notified. Intimate two, I was called by an AP to let me know my son was
involved in a play fight in the lunchroom. My son seemed okay, but she wasn't the AP on duty so the other AP would give me a call later to give me the details. I I never got another call. The call I did receive the next morning from the Tarrant County juvenile corrections officer called to ask me the status of my son, if he sustained injuries, or if I had sought medical treatment. As the blood fell from my body, I asked what are you talking about? The school told me he was in a playful incident at lunch. He continued, ma'am, it's noted here that your son was punched five times in the
back of the head and body slammed on the floor. I am checking for the status if he is okay. Why was I not notified when my son was physically assaulted to the point of a juvenile corrections officer calling me? I received victim's assistance paperwork from Tarrant County. What did I receive from Keller ISD? Nothing. The other student was not even given a stay away order and they were still placed in the same classroom at times. Incident three. During a fire drill two weeks ago, three boys, one of which was the prior assaulter, crowded around my son during a fire drill and pulled his pants to his ankles.
My son notified the teacher who was turned around. She did nothing nor reported it. He went inside and found an AP and reported it the second time. The AP did nothing nor were it reported, investigated, and again I was not notified. My son came home and told me. The next day I went to the school and was rudely dismissed with I don't know what you're talking about by the OP. I followed with did my son not report to you that his pants were pulled down? He said yes. And I said, and you did nothing about it? He told me go talk to the principal. I said, were there cameras out there?
He said nope. I went inside and was greeted by the police officer who took me into a room and my son explained what happened. He asked if my son notified anyone. We explained yes. Two admins were notified. He let me know there were cameras there and he would go look. The prior AP who dismissed me came in to let me know there were indeed cameras and he would go investigate. I asked why did it take me to come to the school to get this investigated? Why is Keller ISD not investigating a sexual harassment act to my special needs son? For legal record, pantsing is a title nine violation and schools are mandated to respond
to these reports to mean a safe Time. Ma'am, just reminding me what school is this? Okay. Thank you. Adam Standridge followed by Stuart Winnie. My name is Adam. I'm in seventh grade. I'm at Hillwood Middle School. I've been picked on and bullied all year long with no one helping me. I get in trouble a lot when I'm upset that kids say stuff or pick
on me because I play around sometimes. I'm working working to be better. They tell me if something happens to come to the office but when I do they don't believe me or do anything. And kit and then the kids call me a snitch, cuss at me, laugh about how they don't get in trouble. The kids hate me.
They call me a normal. But I'm just trying to make them love. Love. I hope things will be better because I am afraid of getting bullied more like more I like school, but I'm afraid. That's it. Stuart Winnie followed by Hannah Keeter. A few of you could do with having the dignity look ashamed at hearing that report. The sheer chutzpah of a member of this board to suggest that financial decisions made four to five years ago were what put Keller ISD in the position they're in now is laughable, except the member in question is a self appointed financial expert.
The whole blow in the KISD finances by the 2324 budget dwarfs anything else going. The 2324 budget was approved in June 2023 by a board comprised of Rancleve, Walker, Smith, Burt, Coker, Keyes, and Young. The eagle eyed among the attendees and viewers know who is still here. Then there was the laughable statement about expertise in private sector accounting allowing insight into public sector accounting. The differences are daunting, and a person who doesn't understand that basic fact is far
more of a danger than a layman. GAP is very clear as to responsibilities of managers in the public sector and highlights the number of differences from the private sector. It is incumbent upon board members to make fiscally prudent and intelligent decisions that support the district, not toss dollar bills at private lawyers like drunken sailors after six months at sea. A private sector board might be justified in tucking $100 bills into mister Davis's garter belt, but only for reasons that are absolutely antithetical to the public sector.
The basic responsibilities and duties of the board trustee in Texas include such things as accountability, prudence, and transparency for the TASB and Texas Education Code. The Radcliffe rump has been fighting against these very principles for months, if not years, while this new built boil gets steadily more inflamed while waiting for the inevitable lancing that will spew forth all the sordid details of fiscal and legal malfeasance that are involved with the pestilence that is Tim DeSkin Davis.
Gamifying the Texas School First Reading System is an interesting sideshow. But while the Texas Bond Guarantee Program is important for AAA bond rating that Keller ISD wants to issue bonds, the First Rating is part of that application. The apparent suggestion of some board members that we could increase our rating by taking financially improved actions is horrifying. Now that was the end of our message, but I just listened to this abomination of a report against this district by a parent and a child, and no one
up there looks even the least bit ashamed. Hannah Kater followed by coach Hogan. Hannah? Coach Hogan followed by Laura Romano. Laura Romano followed by Richard Golliver. Since I have a little bit of extra time, I just wanna say I am so sorry to that mom and son. As a mom, it absolutely breaks my heart that your kid has to go through that every single day, so I am so very sorry. He was so brave to come up here and be able to speak up for himself, so you are doing a great job. But it's also so disheartening to come here and watch us talk about once again being in a budget deficit.
What's even more discouraging is that it's a statewide problem. We were discussing taking out missing a bomb so students can have the luxury of standardized tests or air conditioning in August. It may be easy to point fingers. I know that there are some in this room that would like to blame frivolous lawsuits, some of us blame the state for failing to properly fund public education, and some of us still blame Tim Davis and the board's irresponsible spending. How many of these bills could have been avoided if it not for Tim Davis? It has been nearly fourteen hundred days since we, the taxpayers of Keller ISD, have been gifted the presence of Tim Davis.
In the past fourteen hundred days, the world has seen a new monarch in The UK, survived multiple global catastrophes, during the debate in Bardug versus Oppenheimer, seen the Chicago Bears actually make the playoffs, seen as Pitts Getting your head coach into a total solar eclipse. This district has barely survived a discussion and a polarizing split. We've gone through three superintendents. We've elected new trustees, have multiple trustees resign, and one trustee resign and then take it back a few minutes later. And we have generated national headlines in not in a good way.
But in this past fourteen days, do what we haven't fourteen hundred days, do what we haven't seen and RFQ for the never ending gift that ends in Davis. Trustee Campbell asked one for six months ago. In the past six months, there has not been any effort to make this a reality. Congress released a batch of files faster than this board has decided to act. Act. This board is more than happy to approve blank check after blank check, but so far it has not had to send data to any accountability. It would be fantastic if by the next solar eclipse, this board actually took a chance to comply with its own policy, with its with members' wishes, and with its
taxpayers' wishes as well. And while we can play partisan politics and make your donors happy, we all need to remember that this November, we have a chance to make our voices heard. We have a chance and to everyone in this room who is watching or at home or is going to be a recap tomorrow morning, this is our chance. We have a chance to elect a board that's going to support our staff and students. We have a chance to choose state and federal officials who value public education. Please make sure that you vote in this primary and again in November. This is our chance, and our voice counts. Thank you. Richard Galiber followed by Anaya Marie Carter Esparza.
Good evening. I'm glad to see the board is considering revisions to be local regarding items being placed on the agenda. There have been multiple instances where trustees have requested agenda items, and the board president has simply not placed them on the agenda. This undermines the ability of those individual trustees to represent their constituents, which brings me to possibly a related point. A member of this board recently posted a public statement, later deleted, announcing their planned departure from the board and candidacy for Kellogg City Council. In the statement, they wrote, quote, I have reached the limit of my effectiveness on the school board. I have to wonder, are these two connected?
If a trustee feels they can no longer be effective, is it because this board isn't functioning the way it should? But I'd also ask the more basic question, if you've reached the limit of your effectiveness, why are you still here casting votes that will shape the district for years to come? The statement was deleted, but the words were clear. We deserve answers, not silence. Second, regarding the place 6 appointment process, I'm looking forward to seeing how that process unfolds. I would note, however, that given the unknown status of another trustee indicating they will conclude their service on May 2, the board should have a clear plan not just for Place 6, but for ensuring stability and continuity on the board going forward.
And finally, I would like to echo what doctor Wilson said at the beginning of this meeting. I fully support, investing in devices and technology that meet our students' needs, but I would ask the board to think beyond the hardware. We're spending significant taxpayer dollars on technology, and we have a strong plan we need to have a stronger plan for how it's actually used in classrooms. Students are watching r rated movies on their district issued devices during middle school classes. They're playing pirated games on district hardware in the middle of school day. If we're making this investment, let's pair it with a review of how digital content and devices management are actually being implemented across the district to ensure that these devices
are tools for education and not distraction. And to the AI of it all that we were talking about earlier, I would just propose maybe the idea that we treat it like keyboarding used to be. It's a skill that our students need, and doing it in a meaningful and intentional way like that and not just saying, hey. We're gonna sprinkle it across everything might be a good thing. And to that point, maybe bring back keyboarding too because I know we give them devices, but if you go to any of the schools, you'll see this, which is not typing. That's all I got. Thank you. And I am Marie Carter Esparza, followed by Lainie Hawes.
Lainie Hawes? Hello. I'm Lainie Hawes, mom to four in the district. I'm here this evening to talk about agenda item 11 b, approval of computer lease agreement. I wanna start a really important discussion tonight about these devices and our children's access to use them in and out of school. I come to you as a mother of four children in this district and I've seen how these devices are affecting our home and their education. Many of you may have seen a recent data recent data from a neuroscientist, Jared Horvath, that has made waves across America.
Horvath has spent years reviewing standardized testing results across age groups. He's sounding the alarm. Gen z, our children's generation, is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standard academic tests than the one before, than us, their parents. The declines are across attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive function, and general IQ. One major recommendation, dial back screens in schools. I haven't read all of his data, so I'm not going to profess that it's all correct nor have I read all of the data out there.
But I can tell you one thing for sure, I'm a mother to four in school and these devices are affecting our children and as parents we're sick and tired of it. We hate them, truly. We hate them and what they're doing to our children. I've spoken to hundreds of parents, dozens of educators, and we all agree this might be we might even agree more on this than we did on the bad idea of the district split. This could bring us all together. We want less time with these laptops at school and really no time with these
laptops at home. We are begging the school board and this administration to come up with a plan. I have a few very bold suggestions, but our district needs to take bold steps, and I hope you'll take them seriously. Number one, we do not want our children to bring these devices home over the summer. We don't want them in our homes. If someone needs them, a child or a student might need them, come up with a plan to check one out. I don't know. But I don't want them in my house anymore. Number two, we don't actually want our children to bring them home at night either, especially our young children.
Fifth, sixth, seventh grade, we don't want them home. We don't want them in their backpacks. We don't wanna see them. They've become a distraction, maybe even eighth grade. Number three, and this is a hard one, but as I suggest a plan, to use them less in the classroom, much less. This plan would need significant educator input. Not only are they spending too much time on screens and in front of screens, and there's abundant data out there of why that's problematic, But our children are also accessing inappropriate content and just time waste time wasted content, pirated games.
All of our kids are quite intelligent in this area. They can get through all of the safeguards that you have and We have a public excuse me.
We have a public hearing this evening. Miss Price, we present the Texas performance reports, academic performance reports. Yes, Mrs. Nahara and I will be co presenting the taper hearing together. So as we're waiting for it to appear on the screen, I'll give you a little bit of background about the taper report. It is produced or published annually, by TEA.
It's 34 pages of lots and lots of data, so you'll find all kinds of data in this report. This report is you'll find a star assessment results, desegregated by grade level, demographic, the state, our neighboring, Region 11 districts, you'll find information about college and career readiness, you'll
find information about SATACT, you'll find information about, teachers, what are, percentage of years of experience. You'll find information about financial days. So there's lots of information in in this report. So the hearing is is to summarize this 34 pages of data into a few slides. Just one of the things I forgot to start with is the data that we're gonna be presenting is not new information.
We present our star results to the board of trustees. We did that this summer. And just as a reminder, you'll find in the taper report star results, by the state, by region eleven and Keller ISD. This is a three year trend, or not a three year trend. I'm sorry. This is a 2025 trend, that analyzes the state, the region, and Keller, all subjects, reading, math, science, and social studies. Keller ISD is in the green bars, and the state is in the blue, and
yellow is Region 11. You'll also find information about graduation rates, you'll find past graduation, graduation rates. It's important to note that especially, graduation and post secondary, it's a couple of years behind. So, this report reports our class of 2024. We just graduated our class of 2025 last May, and so a lot of the post secondary and graduation data is a few is a few years old from this
date. Something that we worked really hard on the last couple of years is our college career and military readiness. We want all students to be college career and military ready by the time they're leaving Keller ISD. There is around 11 indicators that TEA deems as college CCMR rates. And finally, I'll end with our AP exams. One of the things that we look at is our number of exams One of
the things that we look at is our number of exams taken, so how many students are taking those exams, and how many students are scoring a three, four, or five. So as we've talked about before, students can earn college credit for the the the course that they're taking the test for if they score a three, four, or five. So what is great is over the last, few years we're seeing an increase in our number of students taking the test and our number of students scoring a three,
four, or five. For the staffing portion, again for 2425, on this slide and the next, we're gonna see a trend, of course, of three years. So you'll see here for the '24, 25, the percentages for our professional staff. But professional staff does include teachers, professional support such as counselors, librarians, diagnosticians, instructional coaches,
district and campus administrators. So you will see that, we're about 5% higher than the state average. But again, I wanted to point out that these are head counts or FTEs and not dollars. For the turnover rates, this is teacher turnovers, in Keller ISD compared with the state, again in a three year pattern. I want to, talk about the high percentage for the 2425 school year in comparison
to the past two years. So these counts are what we had last year and years prior, which was adjunct teachers, adjunct educators. And the adjunct educators, were not eligible for rehire this year due to not obtaining the required certification by the end of the contract term. So those that is why you see that, percentage being higher than the past two years. Most of these, adjudicators did return this school year as long term substitute teachers in
our classrooms. And as such, as long term substitute teachers this school year, they are they are not in a category to be counted next year. So you'll see that difference next year as well. On this slide, we can see the teacher experience information, for Keller and, again, the state. In twenty twenty twenty one, wanna remind you that the twenty one to thirty year range was added to this report along with the thirty year range. And then you will see that these two rangers in particular continue to grow in
Keller as well as the state, which contributes to the turnover rates, because they include their retirements. In this last slide, it is just Keller teacher experience for 2425. And notice that, again, that eleven to twenty year range has become the highest percentage for the past three years. This concludes the staffing portion of the table report and we'll be glad to answer any questions you may have. Can you go back to the slide that, showed the when it compared Keller to right there. Showed the when it they compared Keller to right there.
So, can you walk through the slide reports one more time? So last year, the 24, that big jump in percentage that you've seen, last year and even the year prior, we had adjunct educators. These were teachers that were in a alternative certificate certification program, but they had not completed the program, meaning they were not fully certified. So we employed them as we could, through our DOI because they were in the
program. So this she last year at the end, those there were about 84 of them did not complete their certification, meaning they were not fully certified by the time we ended the school year. So this year, we did not bring them back as adjunct educators. And then starting next year, we can't do that with new legislation. Okay. So that 84 is what you're we're anticipating to see the big that's why we see the big jump in percentage. Yeah. Why do you think that's still I mean, we can't be the only district in
the state. Does that mean? I don't know this. I don't know if that's I'm assuming that we can't be the only district in the state that has the same similar issue. No, sir. We're not. But one of the things this is the last year that, any district can employ, you know, a teacher in the classroom that is not fully certified. We chose last year, at the end of the year, to employ fully certified teachers this school year. So many of our surrounding school districts continue to employ them this year.
So that's why you're not seeing that jump for other school districts. So we are seeing expectation is we'll see that likely see that jump for them next year. And so so I can speak to that a little bit. Just because that was a decision that that we made at the beginning of the year. Part of the push from TEA is fully certified teachers. We heard that loud and clear. And then by 2030, I believe it is, we are not allowed to hire anybody without full certification because that's kind of what, ideally you want to do. So the issue with adjunct is particularly in special education what we're running into is
TA would tell us that does not count as a teacher. So that's that person's not certified, therefore you're not providing the services that you that you are expected to provide. And so we had the conversation and I and I had the conversation with Haley, with Rash Gallegos of if that's the case then would they prefer us to have a long term sub? The answer was yes, they would prefer a long term sub over an adjunct educator. And so that was their preference but it was also of we we gave the folks a year to get their certification and at the end of the year, they
didn't. So then we were told we we rolled them up to a long term sub status. So alright. So they are okay with long term subs who are not certified, but they're not okay with adjunct teachers that are not certified. Is that what you're correct? Okay. I mean, at the end of the day, there's a lot of things that they do and say that to me make no sense at all, and I think to a lot of people in this room as well. I think that's important to note though because, I mean, we I think for everyone here on this dais, we we've seen images of this circulating around members of community
attempting to paint, colorize, seeing the light where teachers don't wanna work here, and that's what's causing that issue, which is a complete contradiction to what we got from the Forbes magazine, which I find interesting. But so I thought it was important that, you highlight that so that the public knows exactly what's causing it. But but also, remember that is part of it, but we when you look at let's just look at this one right here, that 20 to 30 range, those are
the folks that we're seeing retiring. Those are going to count as well, so even if we're not looking at those, that number keeps growing for us and the state. Yeah, that makes sense. Yes sir. Just a real quick question, just to reiterate. So out of the 84 adjunct teachers that we had, how many came back with us this year out of those 84 as long term subs? It about 51 or 52. Okay. And out of those, looked last week about 20 have actually completed their certification.
Okay. So we still have a pool of adjunct teachers that are just now long term subs. They're long term subs. Okay. And that and some are still actively trying to pursue that certification. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. I'll add one more thing and that's just kinda to Chris's point. You know, you're gonna have these data jumps and and the the frustrating thing about tapers and those types of things is it doesn't have context. And there's a there's a heck of a lot of context that goes into all of these things, whether it's on the academic side or the the staffing enrollment side.
This is we we expect this to be a one off. We've identified what we believe to be the reason. There's no other indicators that show us that we have a bunch of people leaving because they don't wanna be part of Keller ISD. We just haven't seen that. That's out of the norm that you have for for the past, five, six years. It it that's not that's not the data or experience. And I understand when the data comes up that obviously we go, you know, I had I had emails and I had texts and I had, my, you know, conversations.
So people say, well, what is that all about? And then it's okay. Let's check into the data. And so I feel good about it just because, we feel we have the the, the issue identified, but also just because every all the other data that you see, you know, you look at this is actually when you look at the number of beginning and one to five year teachers just on this slide, it's a small portion of the overall. So, our experienced teachers, we continue to have those folks stay with us, but they
also come into our district and that is a good sign. So, thank you for for sharing that. I have a similar question I guess to, what Chris was talking about. I mean, when you look at that slide without the context, it tells one story. And then when you put the context in, then it then it makes more sense. So what I'm gathering that there this was, and correct me if I'm wrong, that
TEA wants us to have, and all districts to have, certified teachers, and this was part of legislation. And we made a conscious decision instead of kicking the can down the road to go ahead and turn those adjunct teachers, educators into long term subs. Yes, sir. So it was driven. I guess the genesis what I'm getting at, the genesis was the TEA, the statutes. Yes. Change. And then next year, those 50 or so teachers you mentioned that are certified or
became certified, Will they then now fall into So to clarify non engine. We had about the 50 that came back as long term. Not all of them are still today certified. I know that we had about 20 that have completed their program and have become certified. So they'll still go through the process of, you know, being hired. And if they do, then they'll be a teacher. And then next year when we do teams again, then they'll be in this category.
But those those 50 did not start the year as a full time employee with us, so they wouldn't start our accounts from the beginning. Is the district incentivizing these, long term subs in a way to become certified or whether I don't know if there's a cost involved for them to do that or is, it I'm assuming there is and are we incentivizing these individuals to become certified? Long term subs make more than a regular substitute, when they're in the same classroom,
So that's part of the incentives. And we have worked with them for over a year while they were adjunct educators as well. And and I and I'm glad you you said that because that's the other portion of this which led the decision last year. It's we've given you a year to get certified and we want to keep you, but with that comes expectations that we get that taken care of and then that's when the benefits kick in. So it's a difference between long term sub and full time as benefits. So we didn't want to our expectation is you need to get it done and
then when you get it done is we'll move you on to full time and then you get all the benefits that come with being a full time employee. So that is the incentive of we'll bring on board and then there's a financial aspect of that as well. But, I guess what I'm getting at, are we are we helping fund the cost of these individuals to get their certifications? No. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from the guys? It's now time for the public to have an opportunity to provide input or comments
on the taper report. No individual signed up to speak specifically on this item. If anybody, in the audience, wants to speak on the item, you'll have three minutes to address the board on this specific topic. The hearing is not a time for questions and answers nor is it a dialogue between the speaker and the board. This is your opportunity to provide input and comments on the hearing topic. If anyone would like to speak on the report, please make your way to the microphone. Seeing that nobody wants to speak, a hearing is closed.
We move on to reports. Doctor Wilson. So tonight, Pam is going to share a quick, 2627 budget update with us. So, Pam? Good evening. The slides that we're showing tonight are the slides that we've brought, forward to committees and, also to the board. Just want to give a brief update, kind of, where we're at in the budget cycle right now. Starting tomorrow, we'll have our budget model that will open, and so then we can start our budget prep. So our finance department will start on that. The other thing that we're working on diligently with each other is, working on staffing
and looking at the staffing and looking not just at them, but, right sizing and and doing the things that we need to do to meet the needs of our students, and working very closely with the buildings in reference to that so we know what our staffing, model will look like. Yeah. Great. The other thing that we're also working on right now is looking at, all of our budgets, our building budgets, our budgets that are within, our departments, and starting to
look at, what's been used, what's not been used for the year, what's needed, and then any needs that are, for next year moving into that. So that's where we're falling on the calendar. We're right on track with it, for the February into March. The the goal, of course, is to start tightening up a lot of these numbers, as we start moving, definitely into April and going into May at this time. So, what you'll see on our next slide is it doesn't like John.
See, John's not talking, that's what's going on. So what you'll see here is this is our when we say it's our budget increase, these are the things that we, know that are going to cause an increase in what we're gonna have to do for funding and to come back. The only thing that's changed on here from the, last time this was presented is our iPad and staff device lease. Everything else we've kept on our calculations the same in reference to knowing what our loss of our student base aid allotment's gonna be, knowing that that's gonna be around
the 6.7 mark. And then if, the board approves to move forward to do raises for the staff at 1% and a step for the staff, then we know that that'll be around the 3.3 mark. Transportation, we have that in reference to what that contract is gonna cost us. And, as we continue to look at so that we're making, good choices in reference to decreasing, some of the busing, which we know that that we're taking a look
at a couple of the buildings in reference to what we can do there to, make improvements with what the cost would be for that busing. And then utilities, you know, that's always I call it the gray area because we we shoot for that and hope for that, but we do know as those figures start coming back for the twelve month cycle, then we start to have a better predictor with that as we keep moving forward. And then HVAC, is that's at the low end, but that's what we know as we had shared within the last thirty days of what we know what we would need to put in that for improvements right now.
So Any questions on the budget? I just wanna verify real quick on the step. You said 3.3, but it's 1.3. Correct? Yeah. Correct. I put those two together. Sorry about that. That's so weird. I just wanna make sure if listening and they're not actually seeing the the slides that, we have that correct for them on there. Okay. Yeah. That was it. Just one clarification. Thanks. John, can you put the slide back up again? I just wanna ask you to take it down in a second. Which which one? The last one. The no. This is fine. So we're estimating a $250,000 increase in utilities from this last budget.
I'm assuming under the utilities bubble, what are you all labeling under there? Electricity, all of those things? It's, electricity, waste management, and then, we have water and our water disposal fees. Okay. And do we have contracts for those specifically? We do on, waste management and we do on part of our electricity. We have a, contract with Encore. With, Tri County, there are no contracts and that's where you typically see, we're adjusting
our utilities because of the the rates there as we track those, we have less predictability. We know what Encore will be. We look at a five year snapshot of, what our utilities costs are. As our systems get older, they're less efficient. But the the bigger factor for us is the number of days we have over eighty five. So kind of tracking that as well. Even tried looking at the Farmers' Almanac to look out for a year to see,
you know, how many days they were projecting. So it it's really, just taking a three year average in looking at what we're hearing and understanding particularly from, one of our electrical companies, what those rates may look like. Okay. And the transportation contract is set for an almost $900,000 increase next year? It's a it's an automatic escalator of 4% from this year's contract. Banking. Okay. Thank you. Utilities are one of those you may see when we come back in May.
Our utility bills lag about sixty days, so we're we're really kind of in that December, January as as we're trying to catch up. In May, we may be able to adjust this. I'm I'm hoping down some. On the HVAC, is pointing out that is really not there for additional repairs. As you know, in the last several budgets, we've added repairs, Where we're seeing a huge escalation in our cost is with spot coolers. So, this is looking at what we used first semester, what and we anticipate, we'll
use close to the same amount second semester and what that average is going to look like for next budget year as well, if that makes sense. Okay. Thank you. So you you can keep that slide up. Might as well. Okay. So we're looking at with the loss of the basic allotment because of student enrollment decreasing, and all the other things that we have on here, so we're looking at 12,500,000.0 that we're losing. I know that, you know, over the last several meetings, we've had conversations about thoughts
of, you know, what to do, how to move things around. I mean, obviously, we're going through long range planning, bond committee, all of the things. Have we done budget workshops in the past to where it is specific to budget only because and especially when we get into meetings like this and you see an agenda that is actually flooded onto a third page, really that's just because there's a lot of words. It's not really that much. But, I think the community it it just gets lost trying to find all the sections of budget every time we talk about it, every single board meeting.
Have we done workshops, budget workshops in the past where we can dive into this stuff specifically, just budget? Yes. We've done budget workshops, with the workshops, with the with the board. That's always an option for you all and we've done, a number of community meetings as we've worked through the budget process to explain the budget and and answer questions. So, all of those are options for us and however the the board would like us to communicate or if you want a special workshop, for you all to we
can dig in a little deeper on specifics. Always happy to do that. And I'm I'm not one to put something else on my calendar right now with all of the committee meetings that I'm in every night, but I do feel especially with the environment that we're walking into and what we're asking our community to, to vote on come November, I feel like being as transparent as we possibly can as far as, like, what it is that is in our budget, I think that would be best. So I mean and that's something that we can discuss off the dais, but, especially
going through that much of a of a loss that we're looking at, yeah. I just think it's something we need to be transparent about. And So I if you look at the calendar, the the later April, May time period is, a good time to potentially have those conversations. And the reason is we're we're still trying to make projections around our revenue. Right. So the, preliminary tax values, the state's PBS, you know, all of those types of
things start to come in in that April, May, which gives us a a better feel for what our our revenue will look like. By then, there's also some of those changes that were made in the last legislative session, like the funding we'll receive around, for special ed evaluations. We still don't know how we'll receive that. So we're our understanding is late March, early April, we should have that information. That could be a million dollars in revenue that we could count toward revenue.
Right now, not knowing when and how we're gonna get it, we can't count it as as revenue. So it's that April, May time period where our our revenue begins to, become more predictable, and then we can show how we're offsetting the potential reductions as well as where we think our revenue is gonna come in. So I would just point out those two months would be good times to have those conversations for for a more accurate conversation if that's what, the board would like
to do. Absolutely. And thank you for explaining that and and I'll talk to President Burton and Doctor. Wilson about that and see if that's something that we wanna do moving forward, but I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. I think to to your question, it's a good question. In the last two years, we used to have the budget workshops, like budget workshop one zero one, one zero two. We had them in here, with, doctor Wilson's predecessor and and, with doctor Allison, and they were publicized.
And I can count on two hands how many people from the community actually showed up. The budget committee has been very a very good place for the community, and it is publicized and as I indicated in my remarks that, the public is invited to attend these. I think specific to your question about the board, the one thing about the committees is we have to be careful about how many board people show up, you know, to avoid quorum. But I think as we get into the March, April, John, I think what then
then we can have either at a regular board meeting or at a budget workshop, a call and budget workshop meeting, where the board can gather together with you and your staff and actually go through. By then, you like you said, you'd have more of the the details. You know? We don't need another meeting on our calendars to to say, well, we're not sure or TBD or, if we wait till later on. We know we're gonna approve the budget in June, if I recall. Right? Correct.
So by that time, starting in the March, April time frame, things should be starting to get a little more buttoned up. So I would expect, and we can work together on, on a workshop specific to the budget without it getting, not to say buried, but included in so much other stuff. So thanks for pointing that out. Yeah. I did like the budget one zero one, and I like the budget one zero two. I was hoping for something a little bit more collaborative whenever we're discussing the budget
stuff instead of just pulling numbers and just kinda going through more fine tuning, more specifics. So but, yeah, I mean, if that's something that we can we can do. Again, I know we have a very busy, schedule. We have a lot on our plate right now. So, yeah, that's something we can discuss further. So just just know that, we'll be talking this would be a standing item for the next for the next seven, eight meetings or whatever, however many months. And and for for the sake of we don't want people to to wonder what
our budget situation is. We wanna be very open and say, you know, our target right now we're trying to find is 12,600,000. We feel good about that and and I think that's what you all also need to hear and our staff out there is, we feel good about being able to find that. It's, we're we're not there is this is not a lost cause. We're we're in trouble. We feel comfortable with it and we feel comfortable that we're gonna be able to pull it off, in a responsible way where we'll be able to provide a staff
what we can because we need to keep working on that every year, as you guys have have all reiterated to me multiple times. And we we we're all in agreement there. And so we feel like we can do that but then also, provide you guys with a balanced budget, moving forward into 2627. We'll have a a much better idea of revenue moving forward. Even in March, I'll point out the loss of the, loss of students in the basic allotment, that's a large number as part of our 12,000,000.
What we don't have represented yet is with the loss of students, we're gonna need fewer staff. Now it's not a one to one, so it's not like the the the staff, will find 6,700,000.0 in savings, but probably close to to half of that roughly will be a natural, result of fewer students and and needing fewer staff. So some of these will will be offset as we begin to look at at
our staffing and that's as we go back to what we're really working on now, HR and the assistant supes in our in our campuses. March is always the time we hope to have that really tight for the most part and that's that people are our largest expense, 85% of our budget, are in people so when we look at what that looks like that gives us a good starting spot. We're also, as I mentioned, the special ed. There's some other latitude that the state provided in, some of our funding, comp ed
and some of the other areas that give us a chance to take a different look at it. And we're just having to work through that process. So as with each month, we'll get tighter, on those projections and and those numbers, but it'll it'll start to take shape in March and then April and May. It's it, as you all know, it it becomes, a much more accurate document, and more predictable in in what we're looking at. With the, the step and the 1% increase, is it the 1.6,
1.7% or something like that in their average salary? On the I'm I'm sorry. So a 3,300,000.0, does that come to about a 1.6, 1.7% of total average salary if if you if you did it both? Yes. Depending on on the individual's role. So not not all positions have steps. There's some seniority in in so teachers only have steps. So for most of them it would it would approach that, but there's there's also seniority that we have for classified employees and those types of things.
So, yeah. Okay. I would just ask if we can think creatively on how to get this information out there. I think the way that we've been talking about the committees and the social media graphics have been helpful. We can look at something like that on budget. Those 101 classes were great. I went to them, I watched them online when I couldn't come here, but I know they were not a short meeting either because there's a lot to cover and we'll look at financing. So if we can get it more digestible, I think that might be good to share, maybe even reach out to our campus leaders to see if there's ways that they could get it out locally as well. Thank you. Now moving to the consent agenda.
Yeah. I'd like to pull item d or consent agenda d and move that to, action. Can we, can we also pull f as well, please? Quarterly investment report? Yep. Thank you. Just item b? N f. N f. So pull d and f. Okay. Do I have a motion, to approve the consent agenda minus items d and f? So moved. Second by anybody? I'll second it. Any discussion? All in favor?
Five a. All opposed? Five zero? Thanks. Okay. Our first action item is the approval of adoption of math instructional materials. Miss Price. Hello again. We're excited to be here tonight to talk about our math adoption. I'd like to invite our elementary math coordinator, Chrissy Greeling, and our secondary math coordinator, Reesey Brooks. We we've put in a lot of work and our teachers have put in a lot of work to get us to this time frame.
What we wanted to do tonight is bring some teachers with us, because there is a lot of work, teachers serving on these committees and participating in the process. So So we wanted you to hear from some teachers tonight, which we've never done with an adoption before, but we're excited for you to hear from them. So I'm gonna let y'all introduce, teachers that we that we brought with us tonight. Would you like them to come up as we introduce or just stay where they're at? They can stay with that just for right now and then we'll bring them up
in just a little bit. Awesome. So I have Janet Trautman who is one of our district's, math coaches for elementary. I also have Madison Neder Holtmeier and she is a teacher, at Loop On It as first grade teacher, and Jennifer Hardwick who is at North Riverside as a fifth grade math teacher. And for secondary, we have Ashley Roberts who is our secondary math coach. We have Catherine Langi who is a Timber Creek Algebra one teacher, And Caroline Key
is with us also and she is seventh grade accelerated math at Trinity Springs. And we also have we're glad to have Alex Mendoza with us also from Trinity Springs who just came to support us, as we were going through the materials. And so we just appreciate all their work leading up to tonight, and I appreciate them being here, tonight as well. So what have we been doing over the course of the year? So in October, we began the adoption process by sending an interest survey to all
Keller ISD math teachers. We wanna make sure there's broad representation across the district when we are adopting, a new math instructional resource. In November, the committee was officially formed including teachers, instructional leaders representing multiple grade levels, and campuses. From December through January, their review process was in full motion. Committee members received printed materials so that they could review them in-depth. Digital access was also provided to all Keller ISD math teachers, so they have the
opportunity to give input. We hosted district wide materials, to gather feedback from staff and the community, and the committee participated in training, on the evaluation rubric to ensure that the process was consistent and objective. In February, the committee reconvened, to review the rubric data and stakeholder feedback and brings us to tonight's recommendation. So this slide provides an overview of our committee.
The committee consisted of 58 members with representation spanning kindergarten through algebra two. This ensured vertical alignment and consideration of how resources support student learning across all the grade levels. The committee included classroom teachers, campus instructional coaches, district instructional coaches, and our curriculum coordinators. This balance allowed us to combine daily classroom experience with instructional leadership and district wide perspective.
We were also intentional about feeder pattern represent chase representation. The charger and falcon feeders each represented 20.7% of the committee. Panther represented 24% and tribal 22.4%. As part of this process, we intentionally provided multiple opportunities for stakeholders to review and provide input on the math instructional materials. Our goal was to ensure the final recommendation reflected perspectives both the district and the
community. To support this process, digital access was provided to all math teachers so they could explore the resource resources firsthand. We hosted a vendor in person materials showcase to allow stakeholders to interact directly with the materials and ask questions. The stakeholders represented in the feedback process included k through 12 teachers, campus and district administrators, our special education department, our advanced academics, our world languages. We had a few board members attend and community members.
So the evaluation process was intentionally hands on and thorough. Committee members participated in formal training on the evaluation process to ensure consistency and clarity and expectations. They attended the vendor fair to engage directly with publishers, ask questions, explore the materials, but most importantly, they went beyond reviewing. They designed and delivered lessons using each of the materials under consideration. This allowed them to evaluate the resources through authentic classroom implementation before completing the rubric.
Following that experience, each member independently submitted a detailed evaluation rubric, which was carefully structured and weighted to reflect reflect our priorities. So this slide shows the initial results based on the individual rubric scores submitted by the committee. For grades kindergarten through fifth grade, the committee indicated a clear preference for the vendor Amplify with 61% of members selecting it as their top choice. STEMScopes, which is another vendor, received 29% and Savas received 10%.
For grade six through algebra two, the preference was more evenly split. Sebas was the top choice at 50%, while McGraw Hill received 44% and STEMS goat 6%. These results reflect the committee's thoughtful evaluation of the content quality of the instructional supports, the assessments, and the usability for students and teachers. So once the committees completed their evaluation rubrics, they came together by grade bands, kindergarten through fifth grade and sixth grade through algebra two.
They discussed their observations and what they valued in each resource. This step is critical as it's been twelve years since our last map adoption. We wanna get this one right. Through this process, they were able to weigh the strengths of the product, challenge assumptions, and ultimately reach a thoughtful consensus and recommendation. So our implementation our implementation plan, is designed to set students and teachers up for success with implementation beginning in August 2026.
During the summer our curriculum teams will continue meeting, they'll continue in the spring, refining and expanding the materials. We will begin, in conjunction with our, our teacher committees, begin the curriculum writing process developing the unit documents so those are ready for teachers by the time they come back, in August PD. Our goal is to have the first semester of all the rewriting, done. The time teachers come back in August.
So before I, provide the recommendation I would like to ask, our teachers to come up just to share a little bit about what they, may have taken value from the process, or something from the materials that they really liked. So who wants to volunteer? I guess I will go first. So, first of all, I would like to say thank you for allowing teachers to be a part of this process. It was it was very interesting and engaging to be with other educators getting to
try these resources out in the classroom. And as a fifth grade math teacher being able to use all the different resources and different lessons and seeing which ones the students interacted with and engaged with the most was extremely beneficial to me to be able to bring that information back to the committee. And so, the one that was the most recommended by the committee is not only a good resource with its hands on for math, but it also has a cross curricular with a literacy component too. So as a self contained teacher, that is nice to be able to incorporate all
aspects of the learning, not only in math but also in literacy. Can I ask you a question real quick? Could you let us know, what school you're with in your learning? Jennifer Hedwick and I'm with North Riverside. Okay. And did you say students got to see this team? Yes, I delivered the letters. You did the letters. Okay, so we're all just Okay, so we're all just Okay, so they actually got to practice it. Yes. Okay, thank you. My name is Madison Meader Holtmeier. I'm a first grade teacher at Bluebonnet Elementary School. I really enjoyed being part of this math textbook adoption committee. It was wonderful to get to work with teachers across different campuses and different grade
levels, as we thoroughly evaluated all of these resources. I will say that as I planned and implemented lessons from Amplify, it was really wonderful to see the student engagement. This particular resource has about an 20% split of hands on learning experiences, so it is very, very engaging for the students. And I just remember as I was implementing these lessons compared to the other resources we went through, I was just thinking, wow, at the math talk and the discussions that the students were having, in relation to these activities.
So it was really great for their conceptual understanding, and that literacy connection also helps them, you know, bring it into the real world and understand why, you know, we're learning math, which we know can be a little bit tricky for students. So really enjoyed this resource, and I would love to see it implemented. Good evening. My name is Catherine Linge. I work at Timber Creek High School, and I specifically teach Algebra one and, the majority of our co teach environments as well. So when I was presented with, the resources that we were shopping from in a sense, I wasn't just looking at them from, like, a normative classroom environment, I was
looking from a perspective of I have a lot of different gaps in my space, and, one of the most unique features presented by the resource that we're hoping to recommend this evening is, it has some adaptive elements, that are print ready, but also have the digital. So it's a both and. It's I know that's a big conversation, and as a math teacher, adaptability is super important, because there's some designed differentiation as a part of the textbook resource and it
does not, single out students who maybe did not grasp a concept fully and a part of a lesson. It's a part of the natural conversation. And, print wise teachers can grade spot, pass out, but also with the digital when we eventually theoretically get access to it, it would do it, like instantaneously. And so, like, kids wouldn't necessarily need to see, you know, Joe has this one, Susan has this one, and that was something that was really inspiring to me, because it allowed me to pull small groups faster.
It allowed me to, you know, champion some really high performers to support maybe some lower performers and, it really inspired really great math conversation in my classroom. And, the whole process was really fun to work with other campuses and I think that it will do well in our secondary environments. Thank you. Can I ask you a question real quick? Of course. Okay, so since you're algebra one you were looking at the Sabas am I saying that right? Yes, I've heard Sabas and Sabas it's that one. That's true.
Okay, so one of the things that I researched on this particular, math, is that the issue was the printed and the online were not matching. Did you see any of that when you were working with it in your classroom? Yes. In in one space. The the online platform, it comes in a way from my understanding and working with what we had access to within the demo is they come ready to go.
So whether you are experienced, first year, you you can open the package and teach Optimal One. Then you can also get in and make some modifications, and there's a lot of space for me to, like I could download an activity and I could make edits and I could even save it inside of my, like, classroom bubble to produce online through Canvas, again, as a secondary teacher to be able to have print in the room that matches something that's for a band kid who is at, like, Allstate and
they can keep working on their work is super important. And from what I could see in the demo, the areas where I saw inconsistencies were areas where it appeared others were playing within the side of the curriculum. You could make saves and, like, it was just like one big bubble. Also inside of it there was every section had, like, a button that's like, do you see an issue? Yes. Send submit the issue and you could immediately, like, feedback within, like, that curriculum or excuse me, resource bubble. So, the things I saw were not problematic, if that makes sense, and, it's a
it's a big engine. Yeah. All of them are. Yeah. Well, and so with your experience of just kind of getting to mess around with it in the classroom, would you see potentially an issue from class to class with consistency on what is being taught? No. Okay. Just because the adaptability and the changes in the space that you've been So, when I mean adaptability, it generates, there's options where it can generate additional practice, but it's all practice that's controlled within whatever I present as an instructor. Okay. That's good to hear. I was getting a little concerned when I saw that the online and the print
were not matching, so I was hoping to ask that question to them. Yeah. From what I understand, we should have a lot of freedom within in the bubble. Some of that was hard to implement and practice within the demo context, so I'm very excited to get my hands on it and really dig into it if we get to work with it. Awesome. Thank you for your feedback. Of course. Hi. I'm Caroline Key. I teach seventh accelerated math at Trinity Springs. And one of the things I'm most excited about with this is how it allows us to focus more on conceptual than just procedural learning, and that's kind of what
we've been pushing towards the last few years because it's my fifth year in the district. And it allows us to adapt a lot of the activities into our building thinking classrooms model where we're going around the room with whiteboards and it's random grouping, and it's not just us giving them we do step one, step two, step three. Like, they kind of are figuring it out on their own a little bit more, and then we kind of come back together of this is how we do it. Like, let's make sure we're on the same page. I also like the differentiation pieces that are involved with it because I'm in accelerated
math, so I'm teaching seventh and eighth grade standards to seventh graders. But I also so I have kids that are very, very high, but I also have kids that still struggle with what we're doing because we're learning so much so quickly. And so there's different activities where, okay, are we going too fast? Do we need to slow down? We can work on these types of things, or here's some cool projects, or things that the kids that are a bit higher and able to grasp things quicker can do. And, also, I loved how just the planning is gonna be so much easier with this resource. Like, we have great unit documents with a bunch of different resources in it, but
this is kind of like an all in one place we can have everything. It has three different types of lessons. There's, like, discovery lessons, and then there's building on those discovery type lessons. And then there's also modeling activities where they're putting into practice what they've learned and kind of putting it all together. And so not only do we have those lessons, but there's all these different types of things. There's hands on games, there's digital games, they have digital resources involved as well. And we've been kind of pushing away from the handheld TI 84 calculators in class
and more towards using Desmos. And so this has Desmos, like, built in and different activities and things we can use. It just overall has a lot that teachers can take from so that we're not spending so much time trying to build and take things from a bunch of different places. So one of the as we talked about AI earlier, our vendor, that we'll be recommending tonight for adoption, Savas or Savas, It has an AI component where the teacher can and it is contained within the resource.
So the teacher can say I'm working on this skill or this take. Can you give me five questions that I can give to students as an exit ticket? And it will produce the five, questions. So it it has, kind of think about AI prompting within the resource. And so that is something that we heard a lot of positive things from teachers, within that resource. They're shaking their head yes. So I would like to make the recommendation that the board of trustees approve the
recommendation as presented to adopt Amplify for kindergarten through fifth grade and Sebas for sixth grade through algebra two. The cost of the adoption is no more than 3,700,000.0. That money comes out of an allotment that is called, TIMA that is specifically dedicated for instructional resources. So it does not come out of the general fund. That comes solely from t m T IMA funds that are can only be used
for adoption purposes. May I have a motion? So moved. I'll second. Discussion? Yeah. So how much do we have in that that balance now? Is that cost 3,700,000.0? How much do we have in that fund, Divina? I I don't know the number off the top of my head. It's a two year allotment that we receive. Can I get that balance to y'all? I'll, provide it in a Friday update. Okay. That's fine. So I know that in the past when you talked about AI, we wanna find creative ways that teachers can use it to really help you.
And I mean, I've I've gotta use it in the business world. It's incredibly helpful. So it's not I mean, I I'm not a teacher, but I can imagine, you know, if you wanna be able to create some problems for a kid to be able to test their skills real fast and you can have an AI do it like this where you have to think about it for hours or whatever, that's incredibly useful. Right? So I think that's really cool. And if I missed it, I apologize. Would I were there any other districts that have attended this yet? This is the first year for adoption. This is the first year for adoption. Just as, some context, we use Savvas for our science.
We adopted that two years ago, and so, an Amplify is pretty new. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Sure. So So if it's the same as the science, how's the science been going? That prompts a new question. We think it's going great. I think we, hear a lot of positive and the ease of use of the platform, that, one of the the things that's included is ready made instructional materials for teachers. We hear a lot about that.
The, interventions and extensions that are already embedded in the resource, so those are things that we're seeing with these newly produced resources is, is it's almost like things oh, it's not every you're not gonna find every single thing that you need in one resource, but it it has a lot of materials that teachers need for, extensions and interventions and, ready made materials.
So Okay. And this is all primarily the digital resources. These aren't working not getting an influx of textbooks coming in to the district. It's mainly digital, but they talked about how they can pull it out. Right? So we will all be on the computer? We are. Yes. You're correct. We are in our first year ordering, some print materials. If you want to come up and talk about that. Before we spend four years of money on print materials, we want to make sure that these are highly utilized. We refer to those as consumable materials so or workbooks, you may your kids may
have come home, with those. I'll let you y'all kind of talk about that. So at the elementary level, kindergarten through fifth grade, they'll have a cons I would consider a work text. And so it will, have those workbook pages in there and activities for the students. Those will also be sixth grade through Six through eight also has consumables. Yes. They're also in the secondary resource, everything is printable. There are, things like notes pages, notes templates for kids that can be printed.
So, there's there's a lot, of ability to have print things readily available. They're just not delivered in a big textbook. So I would say it's a pretty healthy mix between the two. I know both Caroline and Katherine spoke, to the fact that there's a very healthy balance between the conceptual and the procedural and, we're very excited about that to really have that resource to to dig into. Okay. Thanks. And thank you for bringing teachers here to hear about it. You can just see on their faces how they're excited and hopeful for it.
So, that helps to know that it's not just a change. And obviously, it'll be a big one for the district, but something that they're ready to go with. And and I like that students tested it too, so you were able to see it in action. So thank you. And I actually wanna piggyback off of her question. So with the consumables, does this feel like these two for, our kindergarten through fifth and then six through algebra two, which I know those are two different, but do those do these two curriculums, do they feel like we're kind of pulling back on the technology? So I in my opinion, I feel like it's more intentional.
More intentional. So basically when we are putting things in front of students, it's for a purpose and a reason. Okay. That's, you know, versus just, hey, let's go play on this game or let's just do this activity. There there is purpose and intentionality behind it. Awesome. Is there, a little bit of a, you know, this percentage of this curriculum is utilizing technology, this percentage of this curriculum is not. Do we do we know what that is? So for, Amplify, they talk about an eighty twenty split. Okay.
But that would be probably using the max amount of the 20% would be electron you know, with the students on. Oh, so 89, 20 on? Yes, ma'am. Okay. I got a little scared. I'm glad I learned about that. Right? I think what you'll find though is that's a lot of that's up to the teacher. So it wouldn't exceed that amount, but in, several classrooms depending on what the teacher is trying to accomplish, you could see less, technology of it. Okay. And for secondary, there is a mix. We, they have not provided any, hard percentage like Amplify did, but there is a
mix of different things. And this is a resource that will, really be our primary resource for our curriculum, but we still have things in place, that are hands on discovery activities. In addition to the ones that we'll be bringing on with the new resource, we're we're gonna keep the ones we already have that are tried and true that we are seeing that are very effective in our classrooms. So we don't wanna get rid of things that are already working that were developed in house or, through another resource, we'll we'll still be keeping those things.
When it seemed like, I forget your the teacher's name, the last one that spoke. But Caroline. Yes. Yes. She did mention that this was very helpful and not having to pull from so many different areas, and so I see them nodding their heads back there. So, and that's one thing that I think helps our teachers with time in the classroom is and also for preparing, is not having to pull from so many different places. So I like to hear that as well. Thank you. And I think also the differentiation, that, miss Price spoke to is really going to
be super helpful because, even the AI portion has a differentiation tool. And so you can put a student accommodation in there and, you can put in the standard and it will generate some, options on how you can best meet that student's needs. Of course, you know, there's privacy is still, respected. There's no place to put in hard student data. It's just the specific accommodation. It is a closed AI tool and it is only teacher facing, but it has
some really great features that I think we're gonna enjoy. Just wanna take an opportunity to do to say two things. First of all, thank you to our teachers, especially our mathematics teachers in Cal ISD. It's not easy to get your skill set and keep it and we really appreciate you being here and teaching our students in Cal ISD. I mean, I very sincerely thank you. Another point I like to say is a very thorough professional job landing on the right solution. You did a great job in finding the correct solution.
You put a lot of time and effort into it. You collaborated and, you you showed the process the way it's supposed to be done. And I wanna say congratulations to all of you for a job well done. Thank you. We actually received a phone call from TEA, about their interest in our robust process and the evaluation metrics we have in place, and they were interested, in scaling it on the state side. So, I thought I would give them a kudos, just because it is it's a
heavy lift, so thank you. Yes. Great job. Great job. Yeah. I think just to put a bow on it, you guys did an awesome job. I've sat I've been, since I've been on the board through two or three different, curriculum adoptions including the, science, and while that process was good, this blows it away. I went to the public viewing of the different options. That was very early on and someone helped walk me through at a high level
what and, but really to me, and I think it's been said, you know, seeing the faces behind the process, as opposed to and not that it's bad, you know, rather than just administration recommending something. We see the faces behind it. We see the excitement behind it, what it can do, what it can't do. And I know the demo modes, you know, there might be some limitations perhaps in a demo mode, but that excitement's gonna end up in the classroom.
And as it gets passed down, I'm excited about the process. Y'all did a heck of a job, great job putting it together. The fact that TEA is looking at it, speaks volumes. So great job by everybody. So thank you. Any other discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Five zero. Thank you very much. Great job. Thank you so much. Our second action item is the approval of computer lease agreement. Matt? Good evening. Tonight, I wanna walk you through our device refresh strategy and our recommendation.
So last board meeting, we discussed, end of life and why we were at this point. And so the why we need this device refresh is our elementary iPads have reached end of life cycle. What that means for us is in October '25, those iPads are no longer supported, nor can we do security updates on them. But most importantly, we can't star test on them because they do not meet the, capabilities or the specs that the star test requires for next school year.
Also, our staff devices have reached end of life as well. Most of our fleet, which is roughly about 85% of our fleet, are not compatible with Windows 11, and they don't have the specifications to to meet some of our software requirements, some of the changes that are are coming with those, and security requirements. But a good portion of our fleet is almost seven years old on the staff side as well, as well as the iPads that we're we're recommending refresh. The other concern that I have and and why we wanna bring this tonight for,
recommendation is the device replacement costs are rapidly changing. So I've been working on this for over a year, and we've seen 10 to 15% increase just from September when I first started talking to, doctor Wilson about this in the fall. What I've seen since then, in January or in December, I got some pricing on Windows and Apple devices. And they were, again, going up about ten, fifteen percent. What I'm being told now and what we're we've seen is a consistent 10 to
15% every month. And what's causing that impact is the race for AI. So a lot of people think that it's just the big companies that are doing AI. It's not. It's every single type type of company, like mister Coker mentioned earlier tonight. Everybody's trying to do AI, and that's eating up all the resources that are required to create devices and and compute, because that's what AI uses to deliver their, fantastic recommendations. So my concern is that that what we're seeing in the industry is it's gonna
rise again next month, and continue down that path. And what I've been told is it's probably gonna last another three years, before we see any decrease or stabilization just because the resources aren't there. Also, part of what we did in this research is look at, our iPads being one to one versus shared. We tried the shared model, and I asked miss Price to, work with me and get some surveys. And I'll let her kinda go over what that resulted in with our teachers and
their input they provided, and why we recommend going back to one to one in those grades. Okay. So, DEIC was very helpful in starting this conversation. And, through our discussions with DEIC, we developed a questionnaire that we wanted to ask teachers. So on a typical day, how often do you use your iPads? How many students need them at the same time? So is a shared model working, or do are there times in the day where
the students need the iPads at the same time? What are the primary instructional activities that you're using the iPads for? What challenges have you experienced in the shared model? And, we asked for their recommendation. So one of the things, that we received, we had a really good response rate from this survey. So So we had a 142 teachers respond to it. And nearly all of the teachers who responded, recommended a one to one iPad model.
And this is because of of two reasons. One, our new phonics that we implemented that the our our phonics program that we adopted three years ago. This this year is our first year that we implemented a daily skills check, at the end of the phonics lesson. And so students need the iPad to complete that daily skills check so that the data is disaggregated and guides the teacher on instruction for the next day.
So when you have a shared model, the iPads are having to be rotated through this group of students, the next group, and the next group. And what teachers cited in the survey response, is not having up enough iPads, causing wait time to rotate devices. That becomes very difficult to implement this digital tool, and it really causes a wait wasted instructional time.
And so that that is why, we we are recommending, the one to one. So the primary instructional use that the teachers, they referenced it over and over again for the digital assessments for our daily phonics. We also use DreamBox, so those those two things, they need iPads at the same time. That doesn't mean that they're on them for a long period of time. That just means to complete the daily skills checks, to complete our math, with DreamBox,
we students need those iPads at the same time, and it poses a big challenge when there aren't enough to do that. So if you recall, in 2023, we purchased Surface Go's for our secondary students, grades five through 12. And we're in year three of that four year agreement. And our recommendation is that we extend the Surface Go lease by two years to closely align us with the budgeted $5,100,000 baseline that we've budgeted out each year to make that lease payment. The Surface Goes have about three to four years of life cycle left, and this
will give us an opportunity to to max that out and take advantage of those resources. Adopting this five year lease, agreement for newly purchased staff and student devices allows us to to give business and finance predictable replacement cycles and ensures that our devices remain current and effective. We're also recommending the purchase of two twenty five iPads using Title I funding this year for third and fourth grade STAAR testing to help support that at those Title
I schools. And this strategy ensures that instructional alignment, state testing compliance, predictable long term costs, and responsible stewardship of technology resources are met. So what's included with this lease? We're currently paying the 5,100,000.0 annually for the Surface Go fleece. By doing this extension, our new annual payment would be 5,900,000.0, which is an increase of $800,000 to our current budgeted annual target.
And the lease rewrite also includes and this is really important. It's not just the device. We're getting the devices. So in the case of the iPads, we're getting the case and keyboard, the warranty, deployment services, which help our team quickly get these these devices in the hands of our students right when school starts. MacBooks, that includes the dock, the warranty, and, again, the deployment services. The Windows laptops for our staff, it also includes some more stock and monitors to help us support our fleet. It includes the dock, warranty, and, again, the deployment services.
It also includes the Surface Go extended warranty to to extend that another two years so that they're covered under repair and warranty, just like they are today. The other important thing to point out is other leasing companies don't allow you to do a like device at the end of end of the lease when you return it. If you don't have that serial number, you have to purchase a like device and return it that way. Insight Financial does not require us to do that. It just has to be a like device. So if it's a Windows laptop, that counts towards our return.
And that can be very cost effective with lost devices or devices that can't be repaired. The other thing I wanna point out is that it includes asset sanitation, data wipe, recycling, and disposal, which can run between 5 or $5.50 to $70 per device. And we are required to do that so that everything is wiped and cleaned before it gets repurposed, recycled, or whatever an asset management company would do with them. And with that, I'll open the floor to any questions. So, I'm assuming that the lease rewrite that was in the that's what he's referring
to now? The 800 the x-ray. Okay? Yes, sir. It was in the approval for twenty five thousand. Is that right? Yes. The additional 800,000 is that increase. Yeah. I'm I'm talking specifically for and what we pulled from the consent agenda. Okay. So can you bring back up the last slide for me, please? Yes. Oh, he has to do it. Maybe before, maybe before we do questions, maybe we take a recommendation from administration, then we'll take a motion, second, then we can have a an open discussion.
So the administration recommends that the Board of Trustees approve the lease agreement as presented. Do I have a motion? So move. I'll second it. Motion second. Discussion? Alright. Okay. So the extra 100 k gets us all these things in the bottom. I guess my my real question is is that if since we already have a lease with Surface Go, we're really just asking them to extend the warranty, which is just extending the time frame. Correct. Yeah. So, But that gives us the the flexibility financially.
Because if we just made our last payment, which is due this this coming year for year four for '27 or 2627 school year, we'd have to return those devices. But if we just kept things the way they are and just outright did the purchase of the new refresh, we'd be looking at 8,100,000.0 as our payment in July. Okay. The new lease would be close to 3,000,000, and then the 5.1 that is already budgeted for that we owe on the current lease. By doing the extension, we're keeping our payment that we've already budgeted for very close
to what we've targeted every year, but also being able to purchase the new refresh, but extending and take advantage of the the Surface Go, which is one of the reasons that we purchased the Surface Go is because at the end of the lease, it would give us this kind of flexibility because it's a very good device and it holds value, which allows leasing companies it was it's more attractive to for them to lease something like that than a Chromebook that's end of life and doesn't do anything. Right. Okay. I know when we talked about the, you know, shared use versus one to one,
on the shared use, it didn't give us the metrics on. Is it one to two, one to four? What was the shared use test study? At our non title campuses, it ranged from 10 to 15 in a classroom. Some of our title campuses, had additional iPads that they weren't able to do a one to one, but on average, the number in a classroom range from 10 to 15. So one to two, one to three? Yeah. Okay. I think for for me personally, before I can commit to this kind of spend,
I would like to see much more of a breakdown on exactly how many how many tablets and devices we have at different campuses, you know, what the actual what the actual ratio was, because I I wanna I just wanna make sure before we commit to spending this kind of money again that we haven't done everything we possibly can to stretch out the life of the devices and to move further devices we have as much as much as we possibly can. So that would be my ask before I could commit to something like this.
That's it. I can piggyback off that real quick. So, Matt, you were saying that our iPads, are no longer going to be compliant with, what is necessary for the state testing? Correct. Okay. So do you know what those specs are offhand? Like, what the state is is requiring us to have to run these star tests? That off of the generation the model number because that's how Apple does their specifications. So that specific generation, the seventh gen, will no longer be compatible.
So and that's just the way the state is always if it is no longer receiving support or allowed updates and they don't support that model anymore, those specs are not built into the new Right. Year of state testing. So it's iPad seven, Gen seven and below, correct, that are not able to take on the operating system that is required by Mac? Correct. We actually retired our sixth Gen that we'd still had in there. So we've brought everything that we have in our fleet to end of life. I wouldn't be asking for this if I hadn't done and looked and turned every
corner and looked under every rock to try to extend these, and we're I'm just at a point where I can't anymore. Well, and I think something that our community can really, relate to with this is that I don't know if you have parents, grandparents, or yourself that has had an iPhone seven and all of a sudden you can't update your apps, you can't do anything. Even if you have storage on it, you no longer can look at Facebook because it won't allow you to update the app because you can't have a certain operating system on your phone anymore because they make it obsolete. And that that is the problem with Mac, but, I mean, we're talking about iPad
sevens. We're not talking about iPad, you know, Gen tens that are, you know, obsolete. We're talking about iPad sevens. So, the other thing that I I wanted to notate was something that you said is that, it's not only the fact that the Gen seven is going to be obsolete with the operating system needed to do the star testing. It's also I don't know if anybody else can relate to this, but when you do have an iPad that is that old, it runs at a snail's pace. Yes. Yes. Nothing pops up fast, nothing that you type. Sometimes you can't even type on them.
So, I know that that's that's frustrating. So I just wanted to to clarify, one of the reasons why we're doing that refresh is because literally going into the next school year with what, the operating system that is required by the state, we can't even put it on these iPads. Correct. Okay. And so the other thing I was gonna ask you that I didn't get a chance to ask you was, so is it all Gen sevens across the whole district? It's roughly 85 to 90% of our fleet. We've had to purchase some over the last several years. Okay.
So we have some eighth Gen, some ninth Gen, and some tenth Gen floating around. Most of those are just to help offset as things die off. Or the seventh gen is because they are no longer supported. We're not gonna pay repairs to that, and the resources to repair them are no longer there. Okay. So we'll well, yeah, we purchased, like, 10 here, 12 there, that type of thing to make sure that we have enough to get us through do testing because that's our primary focus with the devices. Okay. Well, and along the same vein, whenever we're talking about Microsoft and we're talking about Windows 11, are there a bunch of devices right now that we have in admin
and across the district that that can't even update to Windows 11? 85% of our fleet is in that state. Okay. Because I that was something that my husband was having an issue with also this week is that he was worried about a new hard drive because he couldn't update his either. Okay. So one of the things that when Chris asked the question, you said that by us extending this well, by us renewing our contract with the GOES, so extending that out two more years, essentially, we're now doing that at 3.8,
correct, with the GOES portion of it. So really, it's it's 2,100,000.0 that we're spending on the rest. 2 point it's closer to 2.7 on the rest. Oh, okay. It's 2.1. It's 2.1 on the goes? Okay. Okay. So, essentially, that's about, what, 16,000 more units? It's it's 14,000 total between MacBook Airs, Windows devices, and the iPads. The iPads are about 10,350, to be exact. Okay. 800 MacBook Airs and thirty one fifty of the Windows devices.
And I've tightened all of this down. We're not buying extra or anything like that because some of the the other 15% that we have, I'll be able to repurpose those and use those as stock to keep things in in motion and and keep people working, essentially. Right. The other thing I wanna point out real quick, if I can Sure. Is the other portion of this that's very concerning to me is that these are end of life. That means the security on them is no longer there, and we just invested in another security platform to strengthen our environment, keep our data safe, keep kids safe, improve
our filtering, and we can't do that with these current devices because they're not supported. They will the specs on them will not allow us to utilize that. Right. And remind me, would we be able to do anything with these iPads that are end of life seventh gen? Can we get any money for those? Can we do anything with that? Yes. We use an asset reclamation company. We've partnered with them before I even got to Keller. We have a long history with them, but there's other vendors that can do that as well. But they have buybacks and you sell them and you get some you get money back depending on what the market value is for them.
Gotcha. So we get some return. Okay. And another thing that I really like about this, the asset sanitization data wipe, I mean, if we're just looking at bottom dollar $50.50 dollars per device, I mean, even if it was just the GOs, if we're talking about 25,000, that's, I mean, that's 1,200,000.0. Mhmm. So okay. So another thing that I was gonna ask you on this. So the keyboard is the the the keyboard is warrantied as well? Everything's under warranty. Okay. And that's included in the new lease. Yes. And Okay. The extended warranty covers the surface goes.
Yeah. Okay. And the dock? Yes. Do we already get docks We have some. With the iPads that we have? We need to replace them because the specs are different and a lot of them are out of date. And when you do a new device, you wanna have this the dock match the specification. Okay. So we we need to you you always purchase them together kinda like you would a monitor in a desktop. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Madam, I understand. This is a decision that needs to be made, if not this evening, in the very, very near future. Correct? Yeah. If we don't do it this evening, if we don't get approval this evening, all
the the, pricing and and the deal that we put together here with our vendors and and manufacturers will they'll pull it. This pricing is time sensitive. Yeah. And I and I'll be honest with you. That's not a scare tactic by me at all. No. I've been doing this a long time. I have never seen this in the industry. What I'm being told is expect COVID like things where that where resources and availability of hardware is gonna be hard to do and because of that price prices driving up rapidly. Right. I take mister Coker's point that we should look at every expense closely, but this
is a time critical decision. And I'm inclined to go ahead and approve this so that we can move on and meet the needs of the district and I heard you say that this meets the need that we have. That will fit within our budget very closely. It has been thoroughly researched. You've overcome this all for over a year. And the other thing I hear is predictable costs. I like all those things that I'm hearing. And for that reason, I'm inclined to support this motion and go ahead and take care of this business tonight. Yeah. I would echo everything you said.
I agree. I just wanna go to the survey with the teachers. I appreciate that you reached out to them. I think that we've all heard things anecdotally all year, but it's nice to see some overall data where they were putting it in there. I think just it's the same thing we're talking about before, intentionality. Like, yes, we're gonna go back to one to one and that's gonna help with lots of things, but we also wanna be very intentional of how we're using them. So I would just say if we can make sure that we get a good plan in place as this comes back so that we can make their lives easier with having it, but also keep the kids off it as much as possible. So thank you.
Thanks. So, so in in as Chelsea has asked some questions, there's a lot of percentages you used. Right? On, you know, 85% here, 15% there. And I guess that's really what I'm asking for is I'm asking for a more of a a breakdown more than just tonight, of what this looks like and what it's really gonna do for us. I I believe you. I believe that we're we're in dire need of something. But even if you're sending from a community perspective, when we go and commit to spend another $20,000,000, essentially, is what we're talking about plus here, They're gonna wanna know
that we knew the answer to these questions, and we knew them factually on paper before we vote for it. So that's why I have the position I have. I I do agree that it's probably something that we're going to have to do, the state limits us in our ability not to. But my my position is is that, I think that we should have those physically in front of us and looking at them before we make this decision. So so I I will talk it from the state perspective because you're right. It's it's one of those. And even with the publishers that we were talking about earlier, publishers are saving on
cost. You know, they're not having to print. They're gonna digital resources are much cheaper for them. So, I read, something the other day where there was a gentleman and and I'm not, as the staff will attest, I am not a tech guy. I I appreciate I appreciate paper, pencil. I appreciate all that. That's how I how I do things. And I and I saw the the the request to, and this was a general request made by I I can't remember the author's name, to eliminate, all the technology
in k five. I will tell you, in theory I don't disagree with that. It's the practicality that comes behind that to do that you have, you know, my own my own son, his teachers have built up their their their digital environment that replaced their their physical, their print over the years, which then we would be undoing that, which would cause chaos into the planning and instructional side of things. But then the financial side of it, to go back and try to get all
of those in print is, it's cost prohibitive, we couldn't do it, we couldn't afford to go back, nor could we do it quick enough to pull that off. I think part of this, to your point, is the reason we moved on this so quickly is because of the price. And it was as of a Tuesday, not last Tuesday, the Tuesday before, it was here's the price we're gonna be able to get if we do this. And then as out of, out of our, you know, responsibility to the taxpayers as
as you said, being able to go back and trying to capitalize on the best deal that we think that we can and that's what this is. But by no means am I do I want, do I feel it's best to have technology everywhere doing everything, But the reality is in order to go to unwind all that, I'm not even sure it's possible at this point. Especially with even the state, even their online educational resources are digital nowadays. There are benefits certainly when you're talking about our young kids and being able to
have the immediate feedback for teachers to collect in that way so they're not spending the time grading and they are getting the highlights and the portions of those, that's beneficial. But like I said, my expectation of staff is that we don't we use these as a tool when we need to, but the rest of the time we make sure that we're teaching like we know how to teach, which is, in my opinion, the best way to go about it. So, ultimately, as they say, you know, I've kinda expressed my opinion on what what
I what I think. I feel need to feel comfortable, and I appreciate the time sensitivity of it. But, at the same time, we're on the hook for the decision to make, and so I just need to see the data. I need to see the physical paper. So with that being said, I'm actually gonna move to table this item. We can even do it to the next board meeting. It'd be a special board meeting next Thursday. If you can give me the data to all of us, the data to look at and make me feel comfortable. But that's that's my motion. We have a second. Sorry. We have a we have a motion to table.
Anybody have is there a second? There's no second to the motion to come back to the original, administration's, recommendation. I would simply, the way I see this, number one, time sensitivity. I I hate buying when somebody says you gotta buy it today. Here's the car, here's the price, you gotta do it today. I don't like that approach. I understand just from other discussions with Corey and staff that, there's a lot of effort been put into this and I see that we're gonna replace all student all
student pre k through fourth grade devices on a one to one basis. And we're gonna replace all staff devices with the with these warranties. To me, it's an 800 $800,000 cost as opposed to an $8,000,000 possibility if we outright bought them. I think it's heck of a deal, quite honestly. I would use the opportunity here because we heard earlier about technology going home with
the kids, so now we're gonna have more technology, per, you know, per capita, per kid. So I would just simply ask the the, administration to work through with the campuses. I don't know with the grandkids, I don't see them that often at night. All I see them is on some kind of device and why we would be sending district devices home, to clutter up the kids when they have probably other devices
or hopefully no devices. So I would ask the administration to work through, through the campus levels. Really, I would just say prohibit student devices going home. That, you know, prohibit is a strong word. Maybe exceptions, but I'd like to start with the the prohibit and then we work from there. Is that fair enough, Gord? It's fair enough that we can we can start working and see what we can do. I know this summer, all devices are no devices are going home this summer.
That's correct. None of the devices are going because the iPads are collecting those, and then the surface goes, we need to clean up, reimage, get ready for our new security platform and configuration that we're going into the new school year with. So all of the devices all student devices will be collected at the end of the school year so we can do our work. Yeah. And so the the and the reason I say we'll do our best is because there are things, like I said, instead of printing things off at a cost, can stick their device home and access it through their Canvas page and so they'll have
their homework, they'll have their notes, they'll have those things. So it's kinda moved from, it it it would there would be a budget ad we just need to look at and and make sure that we're we're comfortable with. As for clarification on that, it's it's only it's fifth and up who do have access to take the GOs home if they need to for just homework. Correct? It's not our it's not our k through four. Correct. Okay. So iPads aren't coming home, but the GOs go home.
They come they go home and they're they're in their backpack. Yes. But okay. Did we was there were we piloting something where we had a campus that has GOES that they weren't taking them home? We had conversations. We we looked into it. Matter of fact, it was your school that we I met with her staff several times. Just going over the logistics of it, because we do have a neighboring school school district that has been piloting that, and I'm actually going to speak with him tomorrow afternoon just to see how that's gone this year. So we have been researching that. So we're we're always looking at where our options are, because even just from logistics
for us, keeping them here makes my life and my staff's life even easier as well because we're able to protect them at a whole different level here than we can when they're at home. Right. We we've had conversation before about anything below high school not sending them home. It's just what what are the what are the things that we need to control for if we did make that decision, which, as Matt has has talked about, some more enabling us. So we'll be able to get some of the data there.
Right. I just think we need to look at it and and more intentionally. I think you'd have less repair if, you know, they're not falling off somebody's countertop or whatever. If we can if we can stop cell phones in the classrooms we should be able to find a way to stop, devices from going home. Yeah. I have I'm sorry, I just have a couple more questions. So, I know the I know looking at increasing this 800,000 for anybody in the
community that is watching this and also hearing that we're talking about right sizing the district and bonds and things of that nature, that is hard to swallow. That is hard to swallow to see an increase of 800,000 To swallow all the other increases that we have in our budget. Okay? So let me just ask this very pointedly to, doctor Wilson. With this increase that we're looking at for these devices, is this something that is going to negatively impact our budget? I know we're not done with budget conversations. I know we're not there yet.
We haven't approved anything yet, but looking for next year, is this something that is going to, you know, make us lay off this many teachers because of us spending an extra $800,000 here? I don't know how else to phrase it but So my my question to John and Matt when they brought this to me was before we have this conversation, assure me that if we're gonna have this 800,000, we're still gonna be able to do
a step of the 1%. Okay. And they said John looked at me and he said, yes, sir. I I don't remember it being those exact words. To to your question, it's it's a it's a cost of doing business that we have to move forward with and and offset and we'll, we we will find the the ways in which to do that. The alternative would be much more devastating to our budget. Right. And that that would involve much more aggressive means to to balance the budget.
So this is is the the best option to provide what our staff and students need for instruction and do so in the most economic way possible. Okay. Yeah. And, I mean, aside from also an $800,000 increase, when you look at what we're actually getting for that increase, it's it's actually remarkable. And so, Matt, thank you so much for, all of your negotiating with your vendors and who you have contacts with. Thank you for doing that. The other thing that, is is the looming cloud is okay.
Now we're giving our teachers one to one devices with our students. Now that's going to increase screen time. Well, I think we've proven that here tonight that is not the goal with this. The goal is actually to reduce time on these devices in the classroom because this is becoming ridiculous where it's kids can't get logged in, the teacher is now having to spend thirty minutes over here getting this, you know, group of kids logged in while then these others are now stuck on something that was only supposed to be a five, ten minute thing, and now they're on it for thirty minutes. So, while while there is that thing in the pit of our stomach saying, oh,
no. We're now going to one to one devices. These kids are gonna be on it more. That's why we've been asking all of those hard questions tonight. What are we doing to actually reduce screen time? What are we doing to actually streamline what is happening in these classrooms so these kids can get taught? And they're not a part of this, information that just came out with technology and our kids, you know, this generation coming up being not as smart as their parents. And that's what we don't want here at Keller ISD. And I think especially looking at the taper report, we are above where state level
is. We're well higher above where state level is. So we're doing a good job at teaching and educating our students. This is about student outcomes, but it's also streamlining our classrooms. So I appreciate all of y'all's work, for bringing this forward and, yeah, Excited to get it done. Alright. We have excuse me. Any more discussion? No. That's alright. We, okay. We have a motion and a second to approve, the administration's recommendation. All in favor? All opposed? Four, one. We'll now move to, consent items that were pulled from, from consideration, item d.
The staff could make a recommendation. So I believe, doctor Wilson pulled this. It, it contained the, lease rewrite as well as the iPads to be purchased from Title One. The other item on this is our evolved detection system, and that is extending our lease of the metal detectors. The administration would recommend, that you approve the over 25 as presented. Do I have a, motion?
So moved. Second. Any discussion? No. And thank you for pulling that down. For me, it was a little cart before the horse, so I wanted to actually go over the lease stuff. I wanted to hear everything that Matt was gonna be presenting to us tonight before we just approved the lease. So thank you, doctor Wilson, for pulling that down. Okay. So so it's then that's why I was initially confused about this too because it has the lease rewrite in there, but it also had our conversation about the the, the iPads and stuff on an action item.
So I was kinda confused on what exactly they those were. But so it also includes something for the medical detectors? Yes. So it's kind of a doubling, if you will? Okay. That's I just want clarification on the ones. That's it. Thank you. That's correct. Any other discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Five zero. Item d passed. Item f is the approval of the quarterly investment report. Good evening, the quarterly investment report is on page 26 of your board book.
This report is prepared in compliance with the board approved investment policy, the public funds investment act and generally accepted accounting principles. This report includes the period for October through December the 2526. Total interest earned during the quarter was $717,859 and the district funds are primarily invested right now in local government investment pools and certificates of deposit.
The administration recommends that the board of trustees approve the quarterly investment report as presented. Do I have a motion? So move. I second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Yes. So the reason I want this pulled initially is because I I was hoping for actually, I had some people asking me some questions about this. Could you kinda clarify more like in a previous board meeting, we had discussions about what mostly mostly we would do with our fund balance, and you expressed that a lot of it usually sets in investment pools the entire time, to help generate interest.
Is that correct? The entire time? I'm sorry. I don't Yeah. So we essentially keep the the fund balance in investment pools until we need to pull it, and then we pull it out of investment pools. We Nope. I'm sorry. We're mostly invested in, local government investment pools right now because the interest rates are better than the short term CDs. Right. Right. Yeah. You're correct. That's that's where any outstanding cash we would have. T class provides not only safe, meets the, Texas Public Funds Investment Act, but also
liquidity, which is important for us. And as you see, we we're moving funds, from there as as cash is needed and and deposited when, when we have that opportunity. We're not allowed to invest in anything with more than a five year maturity, and, the, the the Texas Public Funds Investment Act really stresses, for school districts and other government entities that, they want us to to be, both liquid and safe over yield.
However, when you look at those percentages that we've been earning, those are ahead of the t bills and, the current CV rates. So it's it's done fairly well. Yeah. And it makes a ton of sense to me. I was just I I know that people were asking to clarify they they want clarification questions on, deposits and withdrawals specifically from the Texas class, the local maintenance at the top. I assume that I need to answer that question based upon, you know, previous board meetings, but I just want clarification on that. Sure. But it looks good. I like it. About $717,000 is too bad.
A bad quarter. I'm sorry. Was that a question? I No. No. That that's all I had. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or okay. All in favor? All opposed. Five zero. Item F is passed. We'll now move into, work session, discussion. Consider revision to policy BE local. Trusting request to place items on future board, agendas. Let me just, start by saying that we we did modify BE back in the
January meeting as part of that group of one twenty six, but we did not we did not, discuss this particular aspect of policy BE, which is the agenda, agenda setting part. So just to clarify, we're only talking about the agenda, setting part and, how items get added to the agenda and I would simply just start out by saying that, I know many of us and I include me as part of The Us, have
struggled with and at times been frustrated with the agenda part of policy BE. So I think it's timely and welcome comments suggestions on how we can improve the verbiage To where the intent of that section of the agenda, gets executed properly. And so so what I would say is that you're having this discussion, what we will do if if if it's something that you guys would like, then we would
go back and then, make some edits based on just your feedback, over the course of the next several weeks and then we would bring that and update it if if you guys if that's something you guys chose to to ask us to do. We bring that back for preview in March. Right? March? And then we would review it at that time, make any edits, final edits, and then bring it back to you in April for final approval. So it's kind of the process. So, I like to hear how discussing this now.
I think it's it's a prudent time to do so. For me, we're very limited on how we can discuss things, right, as as a board because of Thoma. And the only real way that, a trustee can put something on the the agenda for us all to have discussions about and for the public to have discussions about without doing it on social media or whatever because, again, walking forms and some never ending monotony of bureaucracy nonsense to ever get things done. I think it's important that, that any trustee have the ability to put an even image in any time they so choose.
I believe that's what they're elected to do. I believe it's important for that to happen. So my suggestion is is that I believe that any trustee, in their sole discretion, if they feel like something should be able to put on the agenda, regardless of what that may be, that within three days of the posting deadline, they should be able to request that you put on the agenda and be put on that very next agenda. On dire circumstances or something of that nature, you know, that has should happen, then it should be have to be placed on the following agenda. That's my suggestion. So I actually brought this forward just because I believe our current agenda setting process,
does not give trustees a clear and consistent way to get agenda items onto our agenda. And so right now as it stands I was actually trying to pull it up because I don't have it in front of me. But, right now as it stands, any trustee can bring something forward, but it's at the discretion and at the approval of board president and superintendent. And there do need to be guardrails in place, but the the guard every single trustee up here, we all have the same authority. Where John, as board president, you facilitate the meetings.
And there are some other things that you do, but you facilitate the meetings. But aside from that, we we still have all the same authority. Where we find an issue with any trustee can bring forward an item, at the approval of the the board president or the superintendent is that there is no real clarification on, okay, if if there's more time needed, what is that time that is going to be needed? If that, subject is not approved to be on the agenda, what is the appeals
process? We don't have anything like that in place. And so this is literally just about consistency. It's not about personalities. It's not about part. It's not about any of that. It's just making sure that whenever we do wanna have a conversation, something that maybe we see as innovative or something that we feel that needs to be discussed, we can get it on the agenda and do it as a board together. So here's here's kind of what I suggest. We we definitely need to have stronger verbiage in in, the portion where it states, you know, how many days your agenda item request or what agenda that will be
on or how many days. We do have something again, sorry. I don't have it pulled up. I was y'all were too fast. We do have something now that states within I think it's nine calendar days, correct, of the agenda, being posted that you can make that request. And then, at that time, the board president typically or superintendent will reach out and let you know whether or not that item is is going to need more time or if it's gonna get on the agenda. Well, the problem was is that that's that's clear as mud. So, my suggestion is that if we do keep the same verbiage as far as
any trustee can bring something forward, we need to say that the the it's not at the approval of the board president and it's not at the approval of the superintendent, but there needs to be verbiage that states that the board president will reach out and let you know if it's gonna be on this agenda or the superintendent, if it's gonna be on this agenda or if it needs more time. If it needs more time, we'll have that that time frame in there of, you know, either the following or within two board meetings.
Now if for some reason the board president or the superintendent feel that this topic does not need to be discussed, there needs to be an appeal process. So if we're gonna just let any trustee come forward and bring something, there still has to be a guardrail. And if for some reason either board president or superintendent feel that, the topic doesn't need to be discussed or needs to be an appeals process. Me personally, however, if you're looking at most of the districts that are around here, what TASB suggests, what TEA suggests, it is actually that you do a two trustee
system. So if a trustee wants to bring something forward, you have to have another trustee that is willing to write the recommendation for the agenda item together collaboratively. And at that point, it ensures that somebody else is also interested in discussing this topic. That way you still have the superintendent cannot tell you no, the board president cannot tell you no, but that way it ensures that it's something that somebody else also feels needs to be on the on the agenda. We're not gonna be talking about people's dogs or other things. It's actually school related, business related, and, that way it ensures that it gets on
the agenda. You're still gonna have some of those guardrails as if the superintendent says, hey. This is something that we need more time. So we would still have some verbiage in there that states, okay. It's gonna be within the next board meeting or within the next two. So but, yeah, this is this is good to have this conversation because I I would love to see where everybody else is at as far as what they think would be would be best here. So I I I don't think you're going far enough. I don't I I truly believe that there's no reason that a board president should be able to prevent, and I mean, any item from being put on the agenda
from any trustee. I mean, to your point you made earlier, we all have the same authority. We all acted by the same constituents to sit in this seat and have our voices heard from people that are communicating to us and and have our ideas out there at all times. So I don't I don't think it I don't think it matters if it was a conversation about my dog, to be honest with you. I mean, like, I I wouldn't I'm making that jokingly. But what the point I'm making is is that at the end of the day, if it's not a little bit more of a misunderstanding for discussion, then we should be able to do it. The problem with two trustees doing it is that you run into potential terminal violations.
I've run this down with several attorneys. The reason why is because if you go to a trustee to have that converse to have a conversation about this topic and they say no, and you go to another trustee to have a conversation about the topic and they say no, you can't go to another trustee to have a conversation about the topic because it's a violation telling them. So now you're now you're hamstrung from trying to find support to have something put on the agenda that you feel is important that be discussed. So I don't I don't think it's viable to have to have to have some trustee support.
I think that anyone should be able to for any reason. And we've and we've seen that in recent history on this board, and not so long in recent history where there's a six to one board and someone couldn't get an item placed on the agenda because he couldn't find someone to support it. That's not in the service of the people. It's in service of the people, the people they elect to be able to speak their mind to the public and to the rest of the board. And so that's where I stand on it. I don't necessarily disagree with it being every trustee can bring something forward, but I get concerned when we've had a five hour meeting about health insurance and then somebody
wants to put it on the agenda for the next month again to talk about health insurance. So there needs to be some sort of guardrails, but I a 100% agree with you. I don't think the board president should ever say that you can or cannot nor, the superintendent. The only time I think that our the district I feel that we need to respect the district in the sense that they all have lives too, and and if we have questions or if they need more time to research something, we need to allow them to have that time. But I I do feel as trustees, we again, we all have the same power,
so should we should be be able to bring something forward, just as one, but there there does need to be some guardrails in place. I think the, disagree. I think it's a healthy discussion. I like Corey's idea if we have particular thoughts on what we'd like to see, how it changed, send them to him. To Chris's point about the two, I mean, for that illegal, I guess, you might say, then why are so many other districts having two trustees, putting forward and TASB
recommending that? So, I don't I'm not opposed either way. I think there's a couple of vague areas that need to clearly be addressed. One is what's a future date? Nobody knows what a future date could be. It could be a future date, like, forever. And I think there needs to be some time specificity. If something's not gonna be on an agenda, then when the heck is it gonna be on the agenda? And I think also from my just from what I've seen, the, I think a
request with context would be good. A simple hey. I wanna I wanna put the health of my dog as an example, which isn't gonna happen. But I mean so I think some some, context would be helpful because that helps then with the conversation with the superintendent. And then the time frame, some somebody said three days, talking with Corey, I'm not I'm I'm thinking maybe thirty days out.
That way anybody that way almost it ensures that an item that's been requested will either be on the next meeting or the following meeting, again, with time specificity. I mean, because some of the requests that come in or have come in require staff, require the superintendent to do some legwork. So, you know, Corey and I are talking maybe maybe it's twenty five days, maybe it's twenty days, but anyway, something that almost would ensure that there's a board meeting
coming up, that it either on that meeting or if for whatever reason, it's on the next meeting. Mhmm. I agree. I I think time specificity is is lacking in in the in the policy as it's written. I agree. I think if you put a request agenda item in a timely manner so that staff has a time to research that and there's some time to get information needed, they should be on that mid month's agenda or no later than the next monthly agenda. Unless there's just extraordinary circumstances, but that would be rare.
Yep. So I think we send Corey any recommendations, and then Corey can work with Bryce to assemble a preview, which then we can further wordsmith as needed during the preview, at the March meeting, taking into account everybody's comment. And I think too that your your point about we need to get legal counsel on this two, two person, request, you know, because obviously, to mister Coker's point, if
that's gonna be a problem with Tomah, we wanna avoid that. But clearly, that's been around for a long time, so we need to get some leg legal research on that. And that can be about process, and we do have one of our legal counsels. She's she's acting she's listening. I know she is. Meredith is in the audience tonight. She looks familiar. She does. So part of it is process is you can facilitate that through me, because to Chris' point, you can't shop it. You don't wanna go do that. And Meredith is shaking her head right.
So if it comes to me, then I can I can push it out there and see if there there's another trustee that supports that? And if that's the case, then then we so that's the that's the how it's typically done with the two. Meredith is nodding yes, so thank you, Meredith. So one of my concerns though is that we're gonna ask Bryce to update this for us and we don't even know if we're saying that still one trustee can bring an item or if we're gonna do two trustees, so I think that's something we need to kind of flesh out before we task him to write something for us. I think that would be that would be an easy fix during the preview process,
actually. Okay. So if it comes back with any trustee and collectively during the discussion part, we agree it should be two. It's a simple edit. Okay. Yeah. Because I would think if we are doing one trustee opposed to two, we would also want to have I mean, because what I have written down as far as how that would actually look for one trustee requesting and the timing, I think for me the most important thing from what we currently have is that it's not based upon board, board president or superintendent approval.
And then if approval is questioned, add that to a work discussion or action item so we can actually get it added to the next agenda, to see if it actually does have support amongst the other trustees. So, I mean, absolutely, we can send those suggestions. But if it's two trustees bringing that forward, I would actually write that a little bit differently. So I guess we'll just discuss that next month. Yeah. And I think to Corey's point, we need clarification. You know, apparently I don't know what it means with other districts or with Tasby's
even recommendation or whatever. But to your point about getting some guidance on whether it it's allowed, how it's allowed, if it's not allowed or whatever. But to your point, I think it's an easy edit, whether it's one trustee or two trustees. Same with time, you know, whether it's ten days. With the early posting now, of the agenda, you know, I would think more days in advance. Because you might think about it, an agenda I don't wanna put the I think
we should put this on the agenda and it's twenty five days out. I mean, you have a way of collecting these kind of things, but I mean, some of them, our meetings aren't even twenty five days apart, so we need to be careful of that as well because the timing some of the meetings aren't even twenty five days apart because of the way it falls in the month. So maybe fifteen days. But I think the bigger concern for me is the the time to get it on the agenda. It's not so much when you need to submit it. I think we can all adapt to that process, but it's the fact that it doesn't just languish and doesn't appear on the agenda. Fixing that problem, I think, would be really good for it. I think and I agree.
That's where I think some time specificity, will will help in that. Agree? Okay. Any other so Okay. On that discussion? So Yes, sir. Bryce will take Bryce will put together a preview for us based on and if you do have feedback and and questions, send them to me and then we'll get them to Bryce. That way, regardless of what he puts up, we'll have some context around some other ideas that were in there as well. I'll talk to TASB too so we get your feedback, what other districts do, what
TASB recommends and we'll put it all together in something that, yeah, to prove to you guys. Alright. Good just a good discussion. Anything else I'd like to add? The trustees will now go into executive session for the purposes permitted by the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas government code 551Dot001 through five five one dot one four six, section five five one dot zero seven one, consultation with attorney, section five five one dot zero seven four, personnel matters, appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, dismissal, complaint.
Section five five one dot zero seven six, deliberation regarding security devices deployment, implementation of security personnel or devices. Section five five one dot zero eight two, school children, school district employees, disciplinary matters, or complaint. And section five five one dot zero eight two one, personally identifiable information about public school student and including attorney consultation, discussion regarding board vacancy proposed process to appoint an
individual and related issues, legal services, and pending legal matters, discussion regarding pending litigation against district, TEA, docket two four six s E226, So a h docket zero 7012611884, pending before special education hearing officer, including potential resolution. Discussion regarding pending litigation against district civil action, 25 c v zero zero five three
five, pending in the US District Court for Northern District of Texas, including potential resolution, and deliberations regarding real estate properties following meeting with JLL Fort Worth Real Estate Company. The time is 08:15. We will return as soon as we can. We're back from executive session at 10:35. We have a couple of action items. I move that we authorize legal counsel to proceed with proceed as discussed in closed session and authorize the superintendent to take any steps necessary to finalize a resolution in
civil action number twenty five c v zero zero five three five and Trying to do it again. Yeah. And docket number 246SE0226SOAH, docket number 7012611884. Do I have a second? I second.
Who who who who gave the motion? I made a motion. Okay. Motion second. Okay. All in favor? All opposed? Five zero. Okay. Following executive session at the last board meeting, doctor Wilson and I were charged with developing a draft process for the board to review at this meeting. Following a tiny consultation to seek legal advice on the draft process, the board is now prepared to discuss the proposed process in open session. We'll now open this up for discussion.
One of the options was, May elections, I believe. And, based on the advice of legal counsel and the fact that we have upcoming business related for the district and particularly, the bond, I would take the advice of our legal counsel and, not try to do a mail election. I agree with that. I think that's I think it's rushing things, and we do have other options as
far as, opening up a process. I know we discussed that at the last board meeting, and I think that's probably the best way to go for us in trying to appoint somebody to this position. I agree. So, for the appointment process, right, the we do something very similar to maybe like what you did with you, Chelsea, right, where we open up our application process and let those that are interested put their names forward and apply. And, you know, and then we we we see based upon that, we can decide
how that process is gonna move forward, hopefully, sooner than later. I think that we have a lot of we have a lot of pressing issues that the board has to handle over in the foreseeable future. And I believe that assuming that we can get if we can agree, on an appointment process, then and assuming that we can get a a full board of seven to work through this, the better it is for the district and people. So, with that being said, I have to move to start the process to identify a candidate for potential appointment to the school board in place six.
So what would that process look like? I know we talked about it last month. What would that shape up to be? So what we talked about was putting together the application form. We will go ahead and post that hopefully tomorrow, if that's what we do. We Well, let me sorry. I don't I'm with the motion. So certainly, you want to second, then we'll discuss it? Yeah. Good job. I'll second it. Discussion? Okay. I'll say that. Motion and a second, and then So Discussion. What what we still have the application form from, when Chelsea was, submitted her application.
I think there are a few questions that mister Burton and I had talked about if that's the direction you guys wanted to go. We could pair it down a little bit, but we would send that up or we would send post that up. Like I said, hopefully tomorrow we keep it up, if that's what we do, probably through the end of next week and then we would pull those back. And then from there, what I would say is we'll we'll have to then determine do we want to review the the folks, for and then set up interviews that
way, which would, which makes sense. We would also we with spring break coming up, we probably could do that at our March meeting, and then we could we could move forward from there. And that could be with interviews or that could be with, whatever you guys choose. Would that be with the goal to have a if there is an appointee, before the April board meeting? Yes. Yes. If that if that's what you guys wanna do, we can we can note Well, I mean, I was I was just trying to I'm sure.
I was trying to understand your timeline you're suggesting. So because, again, I think it should be as soon as possible. So Sure. As fast as we can do it is I think that's what we should do. Okay. Yeah. I definitely feel that we need to have an interview process for sure. The process that you just laid out, I think that's good. I I definitely feel that especially, going into March, we can start looking at those applications. I just get worried with pushing anything too fast just with what we do have coming up in April. So I mean I want the process to be thorough and I want it to
I want to ensure that, we find the best candidate for the position. Sure. And and I agree it's it's it's important, like Chris said, for for all of you but also the district, which means if we if we need to schedule a meeting shortly after that in March to then, focus just solely on that, we can certainly do that. And the materials will clearly state that it's just an appointment until the November election, that it's just for this short time period. Okay. Bryce is taking notes. Yes, ma'am. Right. Well and I also want to ensure that whoever is applying not only understands that
it is only until November and they would have to run-in November, but then they would again, if they do decide to run-in November, they would have to run-in the following November 2027 because that is when the seat expires. So he and I will touch base in the morning and make sure that we have all that, crafted out before we post it up, and then we'll get the application up. K. But the important I agree with what you're saying, but our appointment is simply to get to November. So what the individual chooses to do after that is is up is up to
them. It just helps to know the time commitment. Pardon? It just helps so that they know the time commitment they're signing up for at this point, that it's not a year and a half long. It's just time Right. It's only until November. Right. Till we get to the special election that is in November. And then the other thing we, if you put the application out tomorrow, Thursday, maybe maybe Friday, the application process should be open until the following Friday or we didn't
decide how long the the application people should have, you know. We don't wanna have it too long because it'll take forever perhaps. I think a week is probably I think with Chelsea we might have had a week from the time Maybe seven business days. A week's pretty short but seven business days I think would be I think my the the application that I filled out, I I feel like it was open for two two weeks. Two weeks? Yeah. I I could be mistaken. That was I don't I don't know. Over a year. I know it is basically spring break, though.
I think we're getting close to that, aren't we? Aren't we there? Yeah. Because mine was done during the summer. Spring break. Yeah. 2024. I mean, I don't know. Give or say two weeks and a couple days? It's, I mean, it's a week for someone to file an application. But I they give out, like, application a week, I'm concerned about the way to out to people. I mean, you have to get the word out to people. That takes time. I would I would give a minimum of seven business days minimum, my opinion. So that brings up a good question of how the word would get out. I would assume that we have in the newsletter on social media.
Will we also ask the campuses to push it since it's people they know locally and try to get across the district to get good representation? Yep. All of the above. Bryce is, again, taking notes over there. We're gonna have billboard advertisements. No. That's cost a lot. Car wraps, anything. Funny. So we're thinking seven business days, ten days, calendar. What do we because it's gonna have to Calendar. You're gonna have to put that in a notice as to when the application process closes. I don't know. I I think ten calendar days is fair. I mean, that that will cover your seven business days for sure.
Mhmm. Ten ten calendar days? Sure. When it gets posted. Okay. K. I'll put it at, like, March 11 so that's not much time before spring break. We basically have to go through it when we come back. Is this something that we would be emailed? Like, whenever we we do receive applications, is that something that you would email us, or is that something that we have to review in a meeting or in an executive session? So my preference would be to I I with some of that information, I prefer that we all get together to have that to look at those.
So we'd have to have a special meeting to look at it or to look at it to go about it? No, we could add those we could add them to our meeting in March so we could look at those. So we could review those in executive session on March if we wanted to. We would just have to add it to the agenda and then we could go from there. Like Chris said, if we wanted to interview, schedule a meeting soon thereafter and then make a final decision in April if we wanted to. Yeah. If we're not reviewing until our March meeting, let's leave it open. Let people apply.
It's up to you guys. What is what is the beginning of this being break on off the top of my head? Thirteenth? Thirteenth. Yeah. Is the start. Twelfth? Thirteenth? Thirteenth is the first day off. Right? When when is the But it's a PD day, I think. It's just off for students. Monday. Eleventh is Saturday, twelfth. No. Friday is the thirteenth. Oh, Friday the thirteenth is the first day. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. So, essentially, the suggestion is you guys are gonna put on this process for two months? Well, I don't think there's a realistic way that we're gonna have this decision made before April. I don't think this is not doable within March.
I don't think you can get the whole process to make the appointment in the in the month of March. I think it's gonna take at least April to get it done. I don't think it's feasible to get it done. Unless you wanna have have extra meetings. That was my suggestion. Yeah. I think that I think that I think that the public deserves to have a full board, and I think we have the ability to do it. And if it's just that we don't wanna have meetings, then, I think it's, I don't think it's an appropriate argument. Hey. I'm not trying to throw shade here, but, I mean, we would have to do it outside of we can't do it during the day.
It has to be after 05:00. We have committees almost every single night, and I'm at every single one of them, and my kids also have stuff. So I I'm I'm okay with adding a meeting in there. But I'm already up here almost all day every day, so it's it's gonna be slightly challenging, but I I say leave the application process open. Let's look at everything in executive session in March. If we have time in there, to have a meeting before the April meeting, I mean, I'm I'm open to that. It's just gonna be a challenge.
And that's why I I would like to also get it done quickly, but the feasibility of that with scheduling is gonna be a challenge. So What if we leave it open into spring break? Y'all look at it when you come back. We can determine then what the interest was and how much of a process it is and then look at the calendars after that. Yeah. Picked dates? So what, so what in the spring break. So what date does that look like, Bryce? March 23, and our meeting is the twenty sixth. So that would be the first time we'd So we could review the applications on
the twenty sixth in executive session. So maybe make it that Friday of spring break. Yeah. I think that's reasonable. I think that's good. Okay. Plenty of time for people to apply. Okay. It fits. You guys know what I think. Okay. Alright. So our first review is intended to be at the March meeting in exact session. And then we'll just timetable from there will be determined by the process. Okay. I don't that's I I just real quick I just sorry.
I also just want to reiterate, I don't know that it it wise that we have a brand new board member for an April meeting. I mean, with everything that we know, that we've walked through, that the district was walking through, I think it it pertinent because of what we know is coming for the April meeting. I think it's pertinent and fair for that person to come afterwards because, I mean yeah. Who's to say that whoever this person would be wouldn't be as ineligible as anyone else? I mean, all the information is public.
Right? It is all public. I do still think we need to look at it when we come back, but I think it's definitely a concern that I wouldn't want I wouldn't have wanted to be the one coming in in the first meeting just voting on that kind of stuff. I think that I've kinda been in that position before. I mean, you wouldn't apply, though. We're talking about the people who are gonna apply. It's still a lot to get up to speed on right away, but I I think we're putting it before that. Let's see what the interest is and see what the process is, and then we can determine what comes next. I would agree with that. Yeah. All I really have to decide tonight is when we're gonna have applications Yeah.
In and when we're gonna review them. That's the table next, and that's we've reached consensus on. So we've reached consensus that the applications go out, hopefully, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, Friday latest. Applications are due back on the twenty third. Is that what the what? '20. I would have it be the twentieth so they can look at it first thing on the Yep. Twenty third. Yep. So the twenty third. Planning your morning, doctor Wilson, for the morning send it to you the calendar. Alright. The twentieth for them to be due, and they would review them on the twenty
third. We had a motion. We had a second. Yep. Alright. All in favor from the process we've discussed? Yes. All opposed, five zero. Alright. So alright. Where's that? That concludes. Nick, that concludes the, business of the board tonight. We'll take a motion to, adjourn. I make the motion. I'll second. All in favor? All opposed. Five zero. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, everybody. It's late. Okay. Some